5-28-09

 
5-28-09
Modesto Bee
12 pct. are behind on mortgage or in foreclosure...last updated: May 28, 2009 07:56:48 AM
http://www.modbee.com/business/v-print/story/721072.html
NEW YORK --
An industry report shows that a record 12 percent of homeowners with a mortgage are behind on their payments or in foreclosure as the housing crisis spreads to borrowers with good credit.
The Mortgage Bankers Association said Thursday the foreclosure rate on prime fixed-rate loans doubled in the last year, and now represents the largest share of new foreclosures. Nearly 6 percent of fixed-rate mortgages to borrowers with good credit were in the foreclosure process.
At the same time, almost half of all adjustable-rate loans to borrowers with shaky credit were past due or in foreclosure.
California, Nevada, Arizona and Florida accounted for 46 percent of new foreclosures in the country.
April new home sales inch upward...ALAN ZIBELAP Real Estate Writer
http://www.modbee.com/business/v-print/story/721077.html
New U.S. home sales were almost flat last month, indicating that the housing market's recovery will likely be a slow and gradual process.
The Commerce Department said Thursday that sales rose 0.3 percent in April to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 352,000. But the increase came from a downwardly revised rate of 351,000 in March.
April's results missed the expectations of economists surveyed by Thomson Reuters, who expected a sales pace of 360,000 units.
The median sales price fell to $209,700, a 14.9 percent drop from a year earlier, but up 3.7 percent from March. Prices are likely to remain weak for months as builders try to price their stock of unsold homes against bargain-priced foreclosures.
There were 297,000 new homes for sale at the end of April, down 4.2 percent from 310,000 in March. At the current sluggish sales pace, it would take more than 10 months to exhaust the supply of new homes on the market.
Homebuilders have scaled back their operations dramatically to weather the bust, but in recent weeks companies have grown more optimistic and said they see signs that the housing market's three-year spiral is ending.
Some analysts think new single-family home sales hit bottom earlier this year and are gradually increasing. But both builders and homebuyers still face challenges getting loans from banks.
Other data released this week points to a lackluster recovery for the housing market. The National Association of Realtors said Wednesday that home sales rose 2.9 percent to an annual rate of 4.68 million in April.
Valley Voice
Stimulus Money May Change High Speed Rail Schedule
http://www.valleyvoicenewspaper.com/vv/stories/2009/vv_
highspeedrail_0070.htm
San Joaquin Valley - The Central Valley portion of the High Speed Rail system may be constructed after both the San Francisco-to-San Jose and Los Angeles-to-Anaheim segments are constructed, but that timetable is not set in stone.
High Speed Rail Authority spokesperson Kris Deutschman said it is true that both the northern and southern segments of the rail system are further along in the planning stage than the Central Valley, but what actually gets built first is yet to be determined. At one time, it was believed the Valley segment would be one of the first constructed.
However, earlier this month, the Authority approved a list of shovel-ready construction projects likely to qualify for $8 billion in federal stimulus funding for high speed trains.
According to the Authority, one of the project elements selected was the entire Los Angeles-to-Anaheim and San Francisco-to-San Jose corridors, where the Authority is expected to have completed the project level environmental documents this year and qualified and selected design build teams to begin construction of the sections by the 2012 deadline.
The Authority also selected a second stimulus project that would be the identification, selection and negotiation of right-of-way acquisition in the Merced-to-Bakersfield section, including the system's planned maintenance facility, but not the rail system.
Mike Olmos, Visalia assistant city manager, said he attended that meeting and he is not surprised that the Central Valley segment may come later rather than earlier.
“There are some areas further along because right of way can be acquired now,” said Olmos. “However, we're the middle link. The high speed rail cannot work unless the middle link is done. They have to get to us if they want to make a connection between L.A. and S.F. and that's what the system is all about.”
Georgiana Vivian, with the Authority, told members of the Tulare Sunrise Rotary Club that because of the federal stimulus funding, the projects first considered “shovel ready” must be built first. Right now, the San Francisco-to-San Jose segment is by far the farthest along, with the Los Angeles-to-Anaheim segment second.
Vivian said construction on the Central Valley segment may not begin for another seven years, but Deutschman said that does not mean that portions of the Valley line could not be built sooner and there is a key reason at least a portion of the Valley line is important.
“We need to test trains on long stretches of flat land and the Valley would be best for that,” she said. Vivian said the timetable is to begin testing trains by 2015 and that the Authority must test the trains and tracks for three years before passengers can be carried. That means the earliest riders will be able to get aboard the high speed rail is 2018.
“We have the longest segment and that is where they can achieve the speeds to test the trains,” agreed Olmos.
He said the seven-year timetable sounds about right, but work on the environmental review of the Valley line – which includes determining where the line will go – is moving forward.
“There's a team of consultants working on the Bakersfield-to-Merced segment. They've been in contact with us,” said Olmos.
Visalia hopes to land a stop, and the Authority has identified five possible locations for a stop in this area – four along Highway 99 near Visalia and one at Highway 43 and Highway 198 near Hanford.
“We have a general route and recommended stations in the Valley, all along the 99 corridor, not I-5,” said Deutschman. However, the Authority has not decided if a stop will placed in the Visalia/Hanford area.
She also said the Authority is trying to determine where to place its maintenance facilities – two smaller facilities probably at each end, then one large facility somewhere near the middle of the system. Olmos said the Authority is looking at the old Castle Air Force Base north of Merced for that large facility.
The 800-mile high speed rail is being funded by a $90 billion bond measure, another $12-15 billion in federal money, $2-3 billion in local money and $6-7 billion in private funds.
Deutschman said the Authority should hear by the end of June if it is going to get any stimulus money, but it is confident some will come. When asked how many dollars the high speed rail might get, she replied, “All I'm hearing are billions.”
Federal rail officials have established initial criteria for grants to complete individual projects that are “ready to go” with preliminary engineering and environmental work completed and that demonstrate “independent utility.”
"We are confident that California's system is well ahead of every other high speed train project in the country and should be a leading candidate to receive stimulus funding," said Board Chairman Quentin Kopp. "Ours is the only one with billions of dollars in voter-approved state funding committed to the project, with environmental clearances already in place and with construction elements already identified and ready to go."
Deutschman said the L.A. route is most “shovel ready,” but there are portions within each segment that might be shovel ready, but not the entire system.
When fully completed, passengers will be able to ride from San Francisco to San Diego. The S.F.-to-L.A. non-stop run is projected to take less than three hours.
Capital Press
Water managers talk joint solutions
ESA issues only a small part of water problem, Snow says...Wes Sander
http://www.capitalpress.info/main.asp?SectionID=67&SubSectionID=616&ArticleID=51593&TM=52339.61
In a rare joint appearance, top water managers said last week that species restrictions and water supplies can find balance if competing stakeholders work together.
Outcomes from such a collaboration will hinge largely on whether stakeholders can accept existing and future species regulations, said consultant Steve Thompson said during a panel discussion staged at the Association of California Water Agencies' annual conference in Sacramento on May 21.
"If you look at the state of California, if you look at the federal government, if you look at private industry right now, this is a true tipping point in the state of California," Thompson said. "A big part of that is endangered species and how we react to them."
The water officials used the event to emphasize the notion that California's water woes can only reach resolution through an all-inclusive process.
"We have a group of state and federal agencies here together that are truly committed to working together, and have one of the best working relationships I've ever seen," said Renne Lohoefener, director of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service's California-Nevada Region. "And I think we can solve this."
Lester Snow, director of the state Department of Water Resources, pointed out collaborative habitat conservation plans - like the Bay Delta Conservation Plan now being shaped by the state - as the best means of balancing water interests with conservation.
"Unless we can move to a comprehensive approach ... and develop habitat conservation plans, we're never going to get what we want as water managers, and the species aren't going to get what they need," Snow said. "And the courts and the attorneys are going to get plenty of what they want, and that's a lot of billable hours."
Snow rejected the suggestion of lifting ESA restrictions from the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta while solutions are worked out. Species regulations, he said, are responsible for only a small part of the state's water shortage, and lifting them wouldn't change the state's current 40-percent allocations by much.
"If ESA did not exist this year, we'd probably only be at 45, 47 percent," he said. "And I don't say that to say that we don't have ESA issues that have to be corrected and addressed.
"You have to simultaneously solve those equations that are co-equal objectives in the Delta, and that is a healthy and stable ecosystem and an adequate and reliable water supply, and you have to do it at the same time," Snow said. "If you put one over the other, we will never get out of this conflict."
Don Glaser, regional director of the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation, likewise described ESA regulations as a permanent piece of the puzzle.
"I think there is not a (political) will to change the act," Glaser said. "So what that says is we as managers, and you as a community of interest, we need to find a different way to apply the act for a more durable outcome."
The Bay Delta Conservation Plan, Glaser said, can function as the first piece in a set of solutions that might build on one another.
"Everything is in motion. And there isn't one static thing relative to the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta ecosystem, and the species that dependent on it, that's reliable. Glaser said.
"So I personally commit myself and our agency resources to the state being successful, because we need one thing that will stand still for a period of time so that we can put the other pieces on it to find a lasting solution."
Snow boosts allocations
Delta pump rules limit deliveries to the south...Tim Hearden
http://www.capitalpress.info/main.asp?SectionID=67&SubSectionID=616&ArticleID=51572&TM=52339.61
Late rain and mountain snow have prompted state and federal water officials to dramatically increase allocations to some California farmers.
The prospect of receiving 40 percent of normal deliveries this summer provides a lifeline to some who are barely struggling to keep their trees alive or pastures productive.
But for others, it comes as they've already paid for an expensive water transfer that they now may not need, said Bill Krueger, a University of California Cooperative Extension farm advisor and olive expert in Glenn County.
"It just depends on what sort of other arrangements people have made," Krueger said. "I farm a little bit ... and I was counting on 15 percent, so I've gone ahead and bought some more expensive water. Now we're going to try to reduce that."
The season's final snowpack assessment early this month led to final scheduled allocation announcements last week by the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation and the state Department of Water Resources.
The bureau's updated forecast, issued May 22, foresees 40 percent of normal deliveries of agricultural water to Central Valley Project contractors north of the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta. Last month, the bureau had forecast 15 percent of average deliveries.
In the south, ag will get 10 percent of normal deliveries. As was determined last month, wildlife refuges and water rights holders will get their full allocations throughout the state.
Urban water users north of the Delta will get 75 percent of normal allocations along the Sacramento River and up to 100 percent along the American River, while cities south of the Delta will get 60 percent.
"We've had some decent rain that has come in early May, and in early April as well," bureau spokesman Pete Lucero said. "With snowpack, we've seen some good runoff and based on those two factors, we've been able to keep most of that water in the north.
"Part of the problem is we can't move water as easily through the pumps (in the Delta) because of restrictions," he said, "so we're keeping some water in the north that might have been distributed throughout the entire system."
The state on May 20 announced that it would increase projected State Water Project deliveries from 30 percent to 40 percent of average. Lake Oroville, the main reservoir in the state system, is still 25 percent below average for this time of year, officials said.
"Early May snow and rain improved the water supply situation enough to allow this modest expansion," department Director Lester Snow said in a statement. "However, this small increase in SWP deliveries does not mean California has overcome the effects of three consecutive dry years. In fact, 2007 to 2009 will likely rank in the top 10 dries three-year periods in the last century."
The agencies' monthly forecasts have been gradually but steadily improving since February, when the Bureau of Reclamation announced that federal water for farms could be eliminated entirely this year because of a third straight year of drought.
Last month, the bureau predicted as much as 15 percent of normal deliveries could be provided for agriculture, including farms south of the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta. Lucero said then that that was probably as good as it was going to get.
The updated forecasts are based largely on snow surveys done during the late winter and spring months by the California Department of Water Resources. The state's final snow survey April 30 found the snowpack water content to be 66 percent of normal for the date.
But Northern California got an unexpected - albeit small - boost with rainfall early this month, Redding received more than 2 inches of rain in the first week of May, while Sacramento recorded nearly an inch.
The federal water might be more evenly distributed were it not for efforts to protect the imperiled Delta smelt, a tiny fish that exists only in the Delta. Its protected status under the federal Endangered Species Act has contributed to Delta pumping restrictions, which have placed added pressure on San Joaquin Valley farmers struggling through drought conditions.
On pastures, every bit will help, said Larry Forero, the UC Cooperative Extension researcher and farm advisor in Shasta County. Even with the increase, pasture land will likely suffer, he said.
"By and large, they're perennial grasses," he said. "They've got to have that summer moisture to survive. We may set the pastures back even with the water we're going to get."
But most farmers have long since made their summer plans with expectations of a much sparser water supply. One of the strategies they used was to fallow row crop land and put water on tree crops, Krueger said.
It's not to say the extra water won't help, Krueger said. Some row crops, such as corn, could still be planted. The boost in allocation will likely reduce the price of water, he said, and it could reduce farmers' reliance on groundwater.
Study says go south for energy...Tim Hearden
http://www.capitalpress.info/main.asp?SectionID=67&SubSectionID=616&ArticleID=51596&TM=52339.61
While a controversial power-line project is focusing its attention on Lassen County, state studies show there are far better place to develop renewable energy in central and southern California.
The Transmission Agency of Northern California envisions wind farms, solar panels and geothermal sources north of Susanville, where it plans to start a 600-mile transmission line system to carry the energy to Sacramento and other urban centers.
But the California Energy Commission has determined that far better sources of wind and solar energy can be found in the Mojave Desert, and some of the largest available geothermal sites are in Mono and Inyo counties.
While the total renewables from the Lassen area are 4,500 megawatts or approximately 10,500 gigawatt-hours, renewables in the Mojave Desert total about 70,000 megawatts, or 180,000 gigawatt-hours, commission spokesman Adam Gottlieb said.
"So the Mojave is approximately 17 to 18 times more (abundant) than the Lassen area," he said.
TANC and its largest member utility, the Sacramento Municipal Utility District, counter that running power lines to renewable-energy sources in the Mojave Desert would be untenable because of the distance.
"It's much further to Southern California," said Jim Shetler, the Sacramento utility's assistant general manager. "When you add in the routing, it's going to be longer than (600 miles)."
He also questioned whether it was practical to compete with Southern California utilities for those resources.
But the commission's work has provided fodder for opponents of the $1.5 billion TANC project, which would include a series of substations, towers and electrical wires that would run from Lassen and Shasta counties down the valley to new substations in Tracy and the Elk Grove area.
Thousands of comments from individuals and organizations have been submitted on the project. The TANC board voted last week to extend the comment period until July 30.
Opponent Rocky Compton, whose family owns about 85 acres in the Round Mountain area in Shasta County, believes the Energy Commission's findings "could potentially stop the project."
Opponents point to the January final report from a stakeholders' committee for the Renewable Energy Transmission Initiative, which assesses all competitive renewable energy zones in California and identifies the most cost-effective and environmentally benign ones.
Among the most efficient and environmentally friendly areas are the Imperial, Tehachapi and Fairmont areas, while Lassen County was ranked as the least cost-effective and environmentally benign among the nearly 40 areas studied.
"Southern California resources rank highly due to the quality of solar resource and the assumed transmission availability in these areas," the committee asserted in its report.
"There are relatively few cost-competitive resources located in Northern California, as the solar and wind resource in Northern California is poor relative to Southern California," the report states. "Additionally, Northern California resources tend to be located in isolated areas way from the bulk transmission system, and the cost to interconnect these resources to the grid contribute to the poor economics."
Margaret Jensen, co-owner of the Good Work Organic Farm in Round Mountain, suspects that TANC is using the renewable-energy aspects of the project to make it more palatable to the public.
Stockton Record
South San Joaquin Irrigation District marks century...Alex Breitler
http://www.recordnet.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20090528/A_NEWS14/905280326/-1/A_NEWS
MANTECA - A water district that forever changed the face of south San Joaquin County celebrated 100 years Wednesday.
And almond farmer Bob Schulz has witnessed much of that history himself.
Born in Escalon in 1937, Schulz watched as family farms - including his own - converted dairy fields to orchard crops thanks to the district's reliable supply of Stanislaus River water. And he watched as that water spurred growth in nearby towns and cities
Just once can Schulz remember losing a crop, and that was during the state's worst drought, in the late 1970s. Such are the benefits of belonging to one of the oldest water districts in California and being among the first in line for water.
"This would be a desert if it wasn't for the irrigation," said Schulz, a district board member for 32 years.
South San Joaquin Irrigation District's wealth of water has benefited many outside its relatively small pocket of southeast San Joaquin County.
The district sells water to the Stockton East Water District, which treats it and delivers it to Stockton. And earlier this decade, South San Joaquin water began flowing to Manteca, Lathrop and Tracy, reducing those cities' dependency on groundwater.
"You've got cities both inside and outside (the district) that are really benefiting," South San Joaquin General Manager Jeff Shields said.
The district formed in 1909 to address contradictory problems: not enough water and too much of it. Without infrastructure to harness the river, farmers' crops either withered or drowned.
South San Joaquin and its sister district, the Oakdale Irrigation District, sold $1.9million in bonds - "You can imagine how happy people were about that," Shields joked - to pay for dams and canals to hold and move the water.
In a few short years, the population in the district grew from 3,000 to 15,000. Its irrigated acreage quintupled.
"In hindsight, it's just a miracle what's grown out of that decision to form the district," Shields said.
When New Melones Dam was built in 1979, the two districts were given first dibs on about 600,000 acre-feet of water. As a result, even this year - the state's third consecutive dry year - South San Joaquin has a full supply of water. Enough, in fact, that board members agreed this month to sell 7,000 acre-feet to the San Luis & Delta-Mendota Water Authority, in a drought-stricken area south of the Delta.
Wednesday afternoon, more than 100 people gathered to celebrate the anniversary. They ate roast beef and watched grainy footage of dam construction.
The district's peers from Stockton East were there, too. Board member Paul Sanguinetti said it's been a privilege to be on the receiving end of South San Joaquin's water.
"Their water rights are important," he said. "If there's extra water in the area, we've got to utilize it in the area."
Redding-Record Searchlight
Smelt operations a hedge against extinction...Dylan Darling
http://www.redding.com/news/2009/may/28/smelt-operations-a-hedge-against-extinction/
If the fragile Delta smelt winds up going extinct, the species could be restored where the Sacramento and San Joaquin rivers merge using a population being bred in the north state.
Scientists at the Livingston Stone National Fish Hatchery, a small operation nestled on the Sacramento River close to Shasta Dam, have reared the fish since last year. There are now 1,400 of the tiny fish at the hatchery, and the goal is to create a stock of thousands.
The project is expected to continue while the smelt remain in danger of sliding into extinction, said Scott Hamelberg, hatchery manager for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.
"We are all, of course, keeping our fingers crossed, hoping that doesn't happen," Hamelberg said.
Although the hatchery's crew members have mostly worked with winter-run chinook salmon that can be more than 30 inches long and weigh more than 30 pounds, they've learned how to handle the smelt. The small fish usually grows only to 3 inches in length, weighs a couple of grams and usually lives for about a year or two.
"You just do everything smaller," said John Rueth, assistant manager at the hatchery. "They are actually very similar to salmon."
Spawning the smelt requires squeezing eggs out of the females and sperm out of the males. Although, unlike with salmon, Rueth said the work on the smelt requires tweezers.
Also unlike the salmon, the smelt accumulating in the tanks at the hatchery are not for release, he said. Instead, they and another population being bred by University of California at Davis researchers in Byron are being held in case the wild population completely disappears.
Having the smelt living about 200 miles from the Delta at Livingston Stone allows the population here to also serve as a backup for the Byron stock in case there is an earthquake, power failure or other problem that kills the fish, said Bob Clarke, fisheries program manager for the Fish and Wildlife Service's regional office in Sacramento.
"You don't want to put all your fish in one spot," Clarke said.
The agency has two hatcheries in the state, Livingston and Coleman National Fish Hatchery near Anderson. Because of the problems with the smelt, the green sturgeon and Sacramento perch, the agency is considering building a new hatchery in the Delta, Clarke said.
He said a new hatchery could cost as much as $20 million, but it could be years before it's built.
In the meantime, the smelt safety net will stay in the north state.
"For years, they'll be breeding (the Delta smelt) at Livingston Stone," Clarke said.
Los Angeles Times
Obama administration supports a timeout on road building in national forests
The land-protection policy has been fought by the timber industry and was undercut by the Bush administration, but Obama championed it while campaigning...Jim Tankersley
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-forest-roads29-2009may29,0,7110257,print.story
Reporting from Washington — The U.S. Forest Service will announce a "timeout" on new road-building and other development in designated roadless areas of national forests today, sources say, prolonging a seesaw battle over a policy first announced in the waning days of the Clinton administration.
The Roadless Area Conservation Rule, which former President Clinton issued shortly before leaving office in 2001, protects nearly 60 million acres of national forest land from logging and other development, largely in Western states. It has faced a protracted court battle that pitted conservation groups against the timber industry and several of those states.
The Bush administration let the rule stand but effectively undercut it by exempting large swaths of land from its protections, including parts of the Tongass National Forest in Alaska, and by allowing states to petition to set their own rules for development in those areas.
President Obama voiced support for the Clinton rule on the campaign trail.
Since Inauguration Day, environmentalists have pressed the Obama administration to call the road-building "time out" and to instruct the Justice Department, which continues to defend some of the Bush policies in court, to change course and defend the original rule.
Obama's proposed "timeout" is "needed and welcome," said Trip Van Noppen, president of the environmental group Earthjustice. "Roadless areas are important as the last remaining pristine areas in America, and they are a great bulwark in how we will protect our environment in an era of climate change."
Judge orders new plan for dam releases into Grand Canyon
Federal officials must reconsider the irregular water releases from Glen Canyon Dam, which may harm the humpback chub, an endangered fish...Nicholas Riccardi
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-glen-canyon28-2009may28,0,3060813,print.story
Reporting from Denver — Federal officials must reconsider how they release water from Glen Canyon Dam into the Grand Canyon in order to protect an endangered fish, the humpback chub, a federal judge ruled Wednesday.
Environmental groups have long argued that the irregular releases from the dam just above the canyon damage the fish's native environment, erode beaches and wash away ancient ruins in the canyon.
Nikolai Lash of the Grand Canyon Trust, which filed a lawsuit along with Earthjustice, said the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation should release water in regular flows, which would do less damage. "They're better at preserving the beaches, the archaeological sites and the fish," he said.
Officials at the bureau could not be reached for comment late Wednesday.
For much of its existence, Glen Canyon released water on timetables designed to benefit Southwestern power companies, whose demand for hydroelectric power peaks during the day.
Last year the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, reversing an old agency opinion, found that the fluctuating dam releases did not violate the Endangered Species Act. On Wednesday, U.S. District Judge David G. Campbell ruled that that revision was improper and ordered the agency to reconsider how the dam flows may harm the endangered fish.
Campbell gave the government until November to file a new plan and ordered that, should it find the releases threaten the chub, it must propose a new schedule.
State Senate bill would decrease UC autonomy
After the board of regents approves $400,000 salaries for two chancellors while also raising student fees, a coalition of state senators seeks to give Legislature control over university policies...Patrick McGreevy
http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-uc28-2009may28,0,7867807,print.story
Reporting from Sacramento — Alarmed that University of California regents have raised executive salaries while boosting student fees, a group of state lawmakers Wednesday proposed stripping the UC system of its historic autonomy and giving legislators additional control.
A constitutional amendment introduced by Sens. Leland Yee (D-San Francisco) and Gloria Romero (D-Los Angeles) and three others would give legislators the ability to set policy for the university, including limits on pay raises. To take effect, the measure must be approved by two-thirds of the Legislature and then submitted to voters as a statewide ballot measure.
"For too long, the UC has operated as an independent fiefdom," said Romero, chair of the Senate Education Committee. "Audits of the UC during the last few years read more like AIG or Enron than what we expect from the University of California. This is a system that clearly has lost its sense of public accountability."
In a statement, UC's administration called the proposal a power grab. The university's biggest problem has been recent cutbacks in state funding, the statement said.
"It's absurd that Sen. Leland Yee and his co-sponsors want to rewrite the California Constitution to strip the University of its historic autonomy and place it under direct control of the state Legislature," the statement said.
But Yee and student leaders who support the legislation complained that the regents this month approved salaries of $450,000 and $400,000, as well as free housing, to new chancellors at UC San Francisco and UC Davis. At the same meeting, the governing board voted to increase undergraduate fees by 9.3% for next year.
UC President Mark G. Yudof has defended the fee hikes, saying they are necessary to cover revenue lost in state budget cuts. He noted the system had already frozen salaries for top executives.
The Legislature created the University of California in 1868, establishing the first campus at UC Berkeley. The system has grown to include 10 campuses, five hospitals, research facilities and a $19-billion budget.
The state general fund provides $3.2 billion annually to the system, which serves 227,000 students.
"Enough is enough," said Yee, an alumnus of UC Berkeley. "It is time for the UC administration to stop acting like a private institution."
Yee has put forth a separate bill that would prohibit the California State University system, which is subject to greater policy oversight by the Legislature, from approving executive pay raises in years when the state's funding for the system does not increase.
Groups backing the constitutional amendment Wednesday included the Associated Students of the University of California at Davis, University Professional and Technical Employees and the University Council of the American Federation of Teachers.
The Huffington Post
America's Waterways Need Help - and, Yes, You Can Help...Steve Fleischli
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/steve-fleischli/americas-waterways-need-h_b_207976.html
The U.S. Supreme Court is wreaking havoc on America's wetlands, rivers and watersheds, and these waterways need your help. It's not that the nine honorable Justices are out filling our wetlands or dumping toxic waste into our rivers, but their razor-thin decisions in Rapanos and SWANCC are having the same effect. These two decisions have forced the Army Corps of Engineers and the Environmental Protection Agency to undertake a case-by-case analysis of America's waterways to determine if they are worthy of federal protection. Now, only those waterways deemed to be "navigable" or to have a "significant nexus" to a navigable waterway are guaranteed federal protection under the Clean Water Act.
Defining America's waterways this way should force a hard look at where this is leading us: By some estimates, 60 percent of U.S. creeks, rivers, and streams and tens of millions of acres of wetlands and other sensitive waterbodies have lost federal protection in the last few years due to the Supreme Court's decisions. These waterways now are subject to unfettered development, industrial discharges, damage from agricultural withdrawals, and stormwater pollution.
At the heart of the issue are developer and industry interests long intent on undoing the 1972 Clean Water Act's protection of waters of the United States. For decades, these groups filed lawsuits trying to block federal agencies from regulating activities that harm America's waterways. Finally, they prevailed in the narrowest of victories at the nation's highest court (Rapanos was decided 4-1-4; SWANCC 5-4).
For the past several years, the Army Corps and the EPA - emboldened by the Supreme Court and empowered by the Bush Administration - embraced industry concerns. Both agencies reclassified waters of the United States at an alarming rate, and in ways that weaken enforcement of clean water laws. An internal EPA memo obtained by Greenpeace last year indicates that from July 2006 through December 2007, the Supreme Court's Rapanos ruling and associated EPA guidance have "negatively affected approximately 500 enforcement cases" at EPA.
Sadly, classifying waterways as to whether they are navigable is not entirely new. For nearly a century, Kansas has taken the classification of waterways to the extreme. Of the more than 10,000 miles of rivers and streams in the state, only three rivers are recognized as commercially navigable and therefore only three rivers -- the Arkansas, Kansas and Missouri rivers -- are recognized as publicly accessible under state law. In 2001, the year the SWANCC decision came down, Kansas led the way by reclassifying roughly 40 percent of its streams to remove federal protections.
What is new is the gusto with which developers and others are using the Court's 2006 Rapanos decision to try to remove waterways from federal protection. For developers, it is no longer a race to the courthouse; it is a race to the nearest wetland - to fill it.
In New York State alone, thousands of small but hydrologically significant wetlands are now vulnerable without federal or state protection, yet many are of major importance to New York City's drinking water supplies.
In western states like Arizona, upward of 96 percent of all waterways, commonly known as intermittent streams, are at risk.
In Southern California, the battle has taken center stage on the Los Angeles River. Decades ago, the Army Corps paved and, with the assistance of local government, fenced many of the local rivers. Last year the Corps achieved a new low by claiming the Los Angeles River is not a traditional navigable waterway, thus introducing the notion that many of its tributaries - and possibly much of the river itself - are not worthy of protection under federal clean water laws.
Under this navigability test, and particularly the Army Corps' interpretation of it, even significant portions of the Colorado River might not be considered navigable. It is not so far fetched. Even Wikipedia entries contend that "commercial navigation on the [Colorado River] is unimportant..." What more of an opening do those intent on undoing the Clean Water Act need to claim the river is non-navigable?
Tragically, unlike the Los Angeles River, the Colorado River no longer flows to a coastal waterway because dams and water mismanagement prevent the river from flowing freely to the sea. Some even call it a "water system" rather than a river. It all begs the question: If the Los Angeles River's tributaries lose protection, are we ready to accept that the Colorado River's tributaries may not have federal protection either?
As my former colleagues at Waterkeeper Alliance regularly point out, the current test just doesn't make sense. As a matter of science, there are virtually no waterways that are hydrologically or ecologically isolated. Water moves underground, forming complex physical, biological, and chemical connections, only to reappear in wetlands and other waterbodies. The destruction or pollution of any part of that system creates a ripple effect, damaging the integrity of the entire ecosystem.
The truth is, whether we talk about prairie ponds or streams, creeks or lakes, America's waterways desperately need federal protection. New EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson already has expressed support for congressional action on the issue. Now Congress - as the only entity that can untangle the mess created by the Supreme Court - should make this protection clear by restoring the integrity of the Clean Water Act with passage of S. 787 (Feingold) and reintroduction of H.R. 2421(Oberstar).
You can help by contacting your elected officials in the U.S. Senate. Twenty-four Senators already have co-sponsored the legislation. But many more are needed, and they need to hear in their local District Offices from the American public during this Memorial Week recess. Senators Feinstein (D-CA) , Klobuchar (D-MN), Specter (D-PA), Alexander (R-TN), Baucus (D-MT), and Voinovich (R-OH) are important key votes still needed. These bills must ensure maximum protection allowed by the entire extent of the U.S. Constitution (not merely the Commerce Clause). The bills are supported by a wide range of environmental groups from American Rivers to Ducks Unlimited to EarthJustice to the National Wildlife Federation to NRDC to the Sierra Club. Please go to the Clean Water Network's website to find out more about how to help.
Without strong congressional action and your help to secure it, America's waterways - navigable or otherwise - will be in even more serious trouble than they are today.
CNN Money
Troubled mortgages hit record high
More than 616,000 homeowners were hit with foreclosure actions in the first 3 months of the year, the Mortgage Bankers Association reports...Les Christie
http://money.cnn.com/2009/05/27/real_estate/MBA_mortgage_
delinquencies/index.htm?postversion=2009052812
NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- Despite all the hand-wringing and attempts to contain the foreclosure plague, the problem still spread during the first three months of 2009, as the number of foreclosure actions started hit a record high, according to a quarterly report.
The National Delinquency Survey released Thursday by the Mortgage Bankers Association (MBA), reported the largest quarter-over-quarter increase in foreclosure starts since it began keeping records in 1972. Lenders initiated foreclosures on 1.37% of all first mortgages during the quarter, a 27% increase from the 1.08% rate during the last three months of 2008 and a 36% rise from the first quarter of 2008. All told, more than 616,000 mortgages were hit with foreclosure actions.
Delinquencies, the stage in which borrowers have fallen behind on payments but have not yet received foreclosure notices, also hit record highs, with the seasonally adjusted rate at 9.12% of all loans, up from 7.88% last quarter.
The ugly report was sobering but not unexpected, according to Jay Brinkmann, MBA's chief economist. He pointed out that foreclosure rates had grown little during the previous three quarters, even as the number of homeowners falling behind on mortgage payments continued to soar.
"We suspected that the numbers were artificially low due to various state and local moratoria, the Fannie Mae (FNM, Fortune 500) and Freddie Mac (FRE, Fortune 500) halt on foreclosures, and various company-level moratoria," he said in a prepared statement.
"Now that the guidelines for the administration's loan modification programs are known, combined with the large number of vacant homes with past due mortgages, the pace of foreclosures has stepped up considerably."
And it looks like that pace may continue to increase. There has been a big jump in the number of loans that are 90-days or more overdue, which is a very bad sign since those delinquencies often progress into foreclosure starts. The number of loans 90 days past due rose to 3.39% of all loans, up from 3% a quarter earlier and is more than double the 1.56% level of 12 months ago.
Brinkmann said many seriously delinquent mortgage borrowers have already given up and moved out of their homes, and that these homes constitute a large share of all foreclosures.
"Lenders are not proceeding against any foreclosures they think can be saved," said Brinkmann, "only against vacant properties and others they think have no chance of succeeding."
Prime problem
The nature of these troubled loans is also changing. The mortgage meltdown was ignited back in 2007 by defaulting subprime loans, especially adjustable rate mortgage (ARMs). Now prime loans are the biggest problem.
"The original delinquency and foreclosure problems had a lot to do with loan terms - the toxic mortgages with interest rates that reset higher," said Nicholas Retsinas, the director of Harvard's Joint Center for Housing Studies. "Now we're back to the more traditional reasons why loans go bad. If people don't have jobs, they can't pay their mortgages."
Subprime mortgages were usually issued to the least credit-worthy borrowers and potential payment problems had been offset for years by the hot housing market.
Double-digit home-price increases had enabled cash-strapped borrowers to pay their bills by tapping their added home equity, through cash-out refinancings or home equity loans. Once home prices began to fall, those options evaporated and subprime mortgages began to default at higher rates. The delinquency rate for subprime ARMs reached nearly 28% during the first quarter.
Over the past 12 months, however, as the turmoil in the overall economy increased and job losses mounted, the percentage of foreclosure starts for prime, fixed-rate loans, which account for the majority of all mortgages, have more than doubled, to 0.61% from 0.29%.
"For the first time since the rapid growth of subprime lending, prime fixed-rate loans now represent the largest share of new foreclosures," said Brinkmann.
"I don't see how it can't get uglier," said Dean Baker of the Center for Economic and Policy Research. "Unemployment will continue to go up and you'll have a lot of people out of work, prime workers in their 40s and 50s, who will exhaust their resources."
They'll have no shot at saving their homes unless they can get new work.
Regionally, the biggest contributors to the record foreclosure rates are the so-called "sand states," California, Florida, Arizona and Nevada. These four, which represent less than 18% of the nation's population, account for 46% of foreclosure starts. More than 10% of all mortgages in Florida are in foreclosure.
Those states had much higher rates of subprime lending than average. California, for example, which accounts for 13% of U.S. mortgages, had 18% of all subprime ARMs outstanding during the first quarter. These states also endured severe home price declines, forcing more homeowners into delinquency.
The fact that delinquencies and foreclosures continue to rise is terrible news for the overall economy, according to Pat Newport, a real estate analyst for IHS Global Insight.
"Just about every number in the report is a record high," he said. "It indicates that the problems with the banks will continue for a long time."
Brinkmann displayed little optimism for the immediate future, saying the level of mortgage defaults will not begin to fall until after the employment situation improves.
"MBA's forecast, a view now shared by the Federal Reserve and others, is that the unemployment rate will not hit its peak until mid-2010," he said. "Since changes in mortgage performance lag changes in the level of employment, it is unlikely we will see much of an improvement until after that."
Is a commercial real estate bust inevitable?
The government hopes to restore lending via cheap financing. Skeptics say programs aimed at restarting the market haven't worked yet...Colin Barr,
http://money.cnn.com/2009/05/28/news/commercial.mortgages.
fortune/index.htm
NEW YORK (Fortune) -- Bailout watchdogs have something new to growl about: the lack of financing in the commercial real estate markets.
Elizabeth Warren's Congressional Oversight Panel is scheduled to hold a hearing Thursday morning on the effectiveness of federal plans to restart the markets for commercial and industrial loans.
The five-member panel, which reports monthly on Treasury's Troubled Asset Relief Program, is scheduled to hear testimony from witnesses including Rep. Carolyn Maloney, D-N.Y., the chairman of Congress' Joint Economic Committee, and three banking executives.
The panel comes as financing for commercial real estate projects has slowed to a trickle with the sharp downturn in the economy. Meanwhile, a huge supply of commercial loans is coming due for refinancing, adding to potential stress on banks and other lenders.
The government has responded with programs such as the Federal Reserve's Term Asset-Backed Loan Facility, which aims to spur asset-backed lending. But there are few signs that these efforts are succeeding in restoring the health of markets that collapsed in 2007 after years of breakneck growth.
Developers say they are confident the administration and Congress understand that they need more help.
"There is a lot of recognition that commercial real estate is a core component of this economy," said Adam Ifshin, president of developer DLC Management in Tarrytown, N.Y. "There's a chance here to help this situation before it gets any worse."
Bank lending for commercial projects in the first half of 2009 is on track to hit about $25 billion, according to Matt Anderson at research firm Foresight Analytics in Oakland, Calif.
By way of comparison, commercial loan origination was at pace of $33 billion a quarter at the peak of the market.
Still, loan volume looks positively healthy next to the action in the commercial mortgage-backed securities (CMBS) market, the packaging of loans into bundles sold to investors.
There has been no U.S. issuance of CMBS this year -- just two years after bond issuers sold a record $221 billion's worth of those types of securities, according to data from research firm Dealogic.
Meanwhile, Anderson said that about $178 billion in commercial mortgages are due to mature in 2009. That would be the biggest-ever slug of refinancing demands ever to hit this market.
"We're going to have to get some liquidity in these markets before we see a wave of bankruptcies," said Bob Toothaker, who helps run a property management firm in Indiana and is chairman of the Realtors Commercial Alliance.
In response, the government has rolled out plans such as TALF and the Treasury's Public-Private Investment Program, which seeks to remove troubled assets from bank balance sheets.
Investors have had particularly high hopes for TALF, which provides financing to holders of asset-backed securities. The Fed rolled out TALF in November to bolster the markets for installment loans like student and auto borrowings.
The Fed has since extended the program to CMBS -- and tailored the terms to the industry's liking, by making previously issued securities eligible and extending the terms of TALF financing to five years from three.
But would-be users of both TALF and PPIP remain leery of interacting with the government, which has changed the terms of previous programs and generally acted capriciously in the eyes of some investors.
And while a five-year loan is better than a three-year one, some real estate investors would like to get 10-year financing. The Fed is reluctant to commit to such long-term loans with inflation fears growing.
With financing still absent, one strategy being pursued by many lenders is to extend maturing loans by a year for borrowers who are current in their payments. Ifshin calls this a sensible approach in many cases, and one that limits the damage to the economy from the locked-up credit markets.
But others warn that this tactic, dubbed "extend and pretend" by skeptics, will only add to the backlog of mortgages needing to be refinanced later - and put off the reckoning from hundreds of billions of dollars of loans written in the middle of this decade -- a time when underwriting standards were poor.
"What the lenders are saying is we all hope things will be better a year from now," said Joel Ross, a longtime real estate investor who runs the Citadel Realty investment bank in New York. "But prices are down 25%-40% from 2007, and those prices aren't coming back."
 
5-28-09
Meetings
6-1-09 Merced City Council/Redevelopment Agency agenda...7:00 p.m.
http://www.cityofmerced.org/civica/filebank/blobdload.asp?BlobID=7414
 
6-3-09 Merced City Planning Commission meeting...7:00 p.m.
http://www.cityofmerced.org/depts/cityclerk/boards_n_commissions/
planning_commission/2009_planning_commission/2009_planning_
commission_agendas.asp
Agendas are posted the Monday before a Wednesday Planning Commission Meeting.
 
MCAG
6-4-09 Technical Planning Committee meeting...10:00 a.m.
http://www.mcagov.org/tpc.html
6-5-09 Citizens Advisory Committee meeting...8:30 a.m.
http://www.mcagov.org/cac.html