September 15, 2010 – Daily Brief

Anyone else as disturbed by the precedent that is being set here by Whitman, Bloomberg, et al? Or, in general about election spending…. Whitman, for all her talk of job creation, and fixing whats broken… how much could she fix for the $120 Million she’s spent on the campaign??? Although, I’m happy to see that her overspending on the campaign has not resulted proportionally in a difference in the polls. I hope she loses, just so that it proves you can’t buy an election (although, I’m not particularly fond of Brown, either).

Re Realtors: Notice of Default (Pre foreclosure notice) are a matter of public record. With the changing economic situation many realtors have become ‘Certified Pre-Foreclosure Specialists’ and are making a killing in short sales…BUT, they do save homes from being foreclosed upon which does keep neighborhoods up and foreclosure stats down. Whether the message is considered crass or not, the agents are smart to keep themselves in front of distressed homeowners as a way of helping them prevent foreclosure. Loan mod qualifications are only at around 9%, and if a home goes to foreclosure it’s a minimum of 7 years before the former homeowner can qualify for a loan under Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac, as opposed to 24 months under a short sale. However, Mr. Realtor dude, don’t spam the blogger! Now THAT’S crass!!

Agree that realtors can be helpful but explained to Mr. Realtor that sharing his experience and education would be a much better received message than calling them out and feeling sorry for them.. Making families feel like losers can send them into hiding (leading to foreclosure) because they can’t even cope, never mind ask for help b

@Jeff, a footnote to the 11 year long fight between the City of Santa Clarita and the Santa Clarita Athletic Club over its old electronic billboard sign near I-5 and Calgrove. I was one of the residents that worked hard negotiating a compromise with the owner of the Santa Clarita Athletic Club. They also had a Canyon Country facility at the time. The Canadian owner was a grumpy old man who felt he did not have to comply with any rules and regulations he did not agree with and refused to do anything to change the size of his huge sign. He fired his own son as the local Club Director because after working with us over a period of several months his son agreed to a reasonable compromise to change the sign. The old man was over the top unreasonable. It was actually much longer than 11 years when you factor in the amortization period of the ordinance. In my opinion, the City was absolutely correct to go in and take down the sign after exhaustive attempts over many years to arrive at a reasonable compromise were unsuccessful. The courts appropriately sided with the City when he sued.

I agree with Scott on this one; my first thought went to the large (‘electronic billboard’) sign off I-5. The city doesn’t seem to have a problem with that one. Hmmm, could it be because it advertises for the auto dealerships? Why can one advertise that way, but not the other?

Anyone else find it kind of ironic that five citizens from Tesoro against annexation show up a council meeting and they postpone the vote, yet hundreds show up against taking over the libraries and the council votes any way?

I found it quite interesting that as soon as reference to potential annexation of homes and land in the Tesoro del Valle area appeared in the newspaper, comments were posted by someone clearly aligned with Montalvo Properties (allegedly owned by the Farmer John family) appeared online, attacking the annexation. Once again, SCV is seeing developers peddling b.s. This time about the “detriments” of annexation. When the homes were sold, about their being in the City of Santa Clarita. I know about the later misrepresentations because now Mayor Weste went to the sales office with a small delegation from the Board of Realtors, and the stupid salesman for the developer gave a wonderful sales pitch about the jobs of living in the City of Santa Clarita. That’s when Ms. Weste dropped the bomb on him, and told him his project was in the County not the City. The salesman continued to argue with the ladies, tellling them they were wrong. I guess there’s no fixing stupid. Just a funny story, but the point to be made is that it doesn’t matter how much people pay for their houses, the majority are uninformed and gullible. Perhaps the City should do a mailer to all of the affected homeowners explaining what’s going on, in language understandable by a 6th Grader. And, as an additional matter of humor to some of us, the developer putting up the big fuss doesn’t even have water rights to develop more of its project. But that’s another story.