KeNo's Housing and Economic Portal: Monday April 18 Housing and Economic stories

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Half Moon Bay, California will Outsource its Police Services - (www.sfgate.com) Today marks the beginning of the end of the Half Moon Bay Police Department. The city, struggling to close a long-term budget deficit, is disbanding its 12-member force and outsourcing the job of law enforcement to either Pacifica, its neighbor 14 miles to the north, or the San Mateo County Sheriff's Office. Both the sheriff's office, which has 462 deputies, and the 36-member Pacifica Police Department are offering jobs to all of Half Moon Bay's officers, although they would not all necessarily work in the city. The city has estimated that outsourcing to the sheriff would save $510,000 a year, compared with $80,000 for Pacifica. The City Council will also consider a proposal today to outsource its recreational services - including youth sports, art, and dance and fitness classes - ironically, to San Carlos.

The Bank Run We Knew So Little About - (www.nytimes.com) IN August 2007, as world financial markets were seizing up, domestic and foreign banks began lining up for cash from the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. That Aug. 20, Commerzbank of Germany borrowed $350 million at the Fed’s discount window. Two days later, Citigroup, JPMorgan Chase, Bank of America and the Wachovia Corporation each received $500 million. As collateral for all these loans, the banks put up a total of $213 billion in asset-backed securities, commercial loans and residential mortgages, including second liens. Thus began the bank run that set off the financial crisis of 2008. But unlike other bank runs, this one was invisible to most Americans. Until last week, that is, when the Fed pulled back the curtain. Responding to a court ruling, it made public thousands of pages of confidential lending documents from the crisis. The data dump arose from a lawsuit initiated by Mark Pittman, a reporter at Bloomberg News, who died in November 2009. Upon receiving his request for details on the central bank’s lending, the Fed argued that the public had no right to know. The courts disagreed. The Fed documents, like much of the information about the crisis that has been pried out of reluctant government agencies, reveal what was going on behind the scenes as the financial storm gathered. For instance, they show how dire the banking crisis was becoming during the summer of 2007. Washington policy makers, meanwhile, were saying that the subprime crisis would subside with little impact on the broad economy and that world markets were highly liquid.

City-county police merger proposed - (www.cincinnati.com) Three Cincinnati City Council members floated a proposal Wednesday to shift city police patrols to the Hamilton County Sheriff’s Office as a way to help plug a $60 million deficit in the city budget and avoid 275 police and firefighters layoffs. But just as quickly as council members Roxanne Qualls, Wendell Young and Jeff Berding pitched the plan – which Hamilton County Sheriff Simon Leis supports – it seemingly died. Council currently does not have enough votes to override a threatened veto by Mayor Mark Mallory, who in a letter to Leis said he sees the proposal as “a brazen and shameless attempt at union-busting” that he will never support. Council members Cecil Thomas, Charlie Winburn and Leslie Ghiz are definite no votes.

Old overdue bills still an issue for Illinois - (illinois.statehousenewsonline.com) The state’s stack of unpaid bills will soon double despite an income tax increase, according to state Comptroller Judy Baar Topinka. The four year, temporary personal income tax hike of 67 percent was approved on the final day of the previous Legislature and recently signed by Gov. Pat Quinn. In part, the income tax hike is designed to help Illinois catch up on past-due bills and stop being delinquent on its payments. “Our current backlog of bills stands at $6 billion, and the increased revenues will help address this backlog,” said Kelly Kraft, spokeswoman for the governor’s Office of Management and Budget. Not quite, according to Topinka, who is in charge of Illinois’ checkbook. “By the time we get through four years from now and all of this and what they’re able to spend, we will probably have a debt of $12 billion of unpaid bills that have yet to be dealt with,” the Riverside Republican said.

Union sues over Haley's remarks about Boeing plant - (www.signonsandiego.com) South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley is facing her first big lawsuit after saying the state would try to keep unions out of the Boeing Inc. plant in North Charleston. The lawsuit filed Thursday in U.S. District Court in Charleston by the International Association of Machinists and AFL-CIO asked for a court order telling Haley and her director of the Department of Labor, Licensing and Regulation to butt out and remain neutral in matters concerning union activities.
"There's no secret I don't like the unions," Haley said when asked about the litigation. "We are a right-to-work state. I will do everything I can to defend the fact we are a right-to-work state. We are pro-business by nature. I want us to continue to be pro-business. If they don't like what I said, I'm sorry, that's how I feel." The lawsuit came after remarks Haley made last month as she nominated Catherine Templeton to run the state's labor agency. She said Templeton's union-fighting background would be helpful in state fights against the labor groups, particularly at Boeing.