August 2013

From The Mayor (G): we’re “[t]aking these troubled loans off the hands of the [predatory] banks … and we’re paying them fair market value.” The video just gives you a whole lot of confidence that they know what they’re doing, does’t it?

The elephant in the room Her Honor doesn’t address about one big reason why Richmond has “destabilized neighborhoods” and isn’t enjoying the high prices so typical of other San Francisco Bay Area housing makerts is the horrible crime problem. If there’s one thing Richmond leads the way on — besides novel eminent domain usage that is — it’s crime: the city is consistently at the top of lists of the nation’s most violent municipalities. By all accounts, Richmond should be a housing paradise: across the Bay from prosperous Marin County, it’s outside the fog belt and has wonderful weather most of the time, and has miles of Bay…

Continue Reading Video: Richmond’s Mayor On Eminent Domain To Take Mortgages

We’ve ranted extensively about how the takings-only ripeness rules of Williamson County just don’t hold water, but until the Supreme Court revisits and overrules that decision, we’re stuck with it. The federal courts we’re told, just don’t like sitting as “super zoning boards of appeal,” and adjudicating federal constitutional issues are simply beneath Article III judges when something as “local” as land use law is involved. See here at p. 11 for an example.

Well here’s an example of what those federal judges do spend their time on: a decision from the United States Court of Appeals for the First Circuit (complete with a 21-page dissent) about a guy who crapped his pants in a public restroom.

Al Roker, we got our eyes on you.

Turns out it was a restroom in a federal courthouse. Bad for the guy, who gets charged with willfully damaging federal property. We’ll…

Continue Reading Federal Courts Can’t Be “Super Zoning Boards,” But They Can Be Hall Monitors

That story about Richmond, California starting down the path of using eminent domain to take underwater mortgages is taking on a life of its own. Here’s the latest.

Before we bombard you with links to the most recent commentary and stories, here’s some backstory. Remember how we said this was taking on an “Occupy” flavor and seemed as much fueled by a let’s-get-those-greedy-bum-bankers vibe as by thoughful economics and a careful use of eminent domain? Well, a little digging showed that wasn’t far off. It seems that lawprof Robert Hockett, the guy who came up with this scheme (calling it a plan that “pays Paul and robs no one”) is a Founding Board member of something called the “Occupy Money Cooperative,” which touts itself as a “revolution,” “a cooperative company that offers low-cost, transparent, high quality financial services to the 99%.” (ps: you forgot “sustainable”). Hockett “has…

Continue Reading Mortgage Monday