Compiled by the
El Reportero’s staff
Tuesday, June 22nd a group of community members and city workers will be joined by Council-member Desley Brooks to canvass an East Oakland neighborhood and kick off outreach efforts to commu-nity residents across the city informing them of the ways that they can report vacant and blighted Bank owned properties in their area.
This event will take place following a hearing of the Oakland City Coun-cil’s Community Economic Development Committee (CED) where Oakland City Council members will be reviewing the current Vacant Property ordinance aimed at requiring Banks to register and maintain their foreclosed properties. Neighboring cities such as Richmond have already handed out over $1 mil-lion in fines to Banks for not maintaining their fore-closed properties. Residents and city leaders alike look to replicate that success in Oakland and have decided to launch an effort to en-courage residents to be-come more involved with holding Banks accountable while calling on the city to take more aggressive action to fi ne these unmaintained properties.
Oakland has reported just over 1,000 Notice of Defaults in the fi rst quarter of 2010.
Warning about rise of short sale fraud
LOS ANGELES – At-torney General Offi ce today joined the California De-partment of Real Estate and the State Bar of California to warn homeowners about an alarming rise in short sale fraud across California in a fi eld “ A short sale is an arrangement in which a homeowner sells his or her home for less than the out-standing mortgage, with the consent of the lender.
With so many hom-eowners now considering short sales, an entire indus-try of so-called short sale negotiators has emerged.These individuals solicit homeowners by promising to expedite the process and help coax lenders into tak-ing part in the transaction.
The Department of Real Estate is investigating more than 40 complaints of short sale fraud, up from “virtu-ally zero” cases only three months ago, a spokesman said
Case tests da’s willing-ness to disclose officers’ violent past
A police officer and potential witness in an up-coming narcotics trial was once suspended for goug-ing a handcuffed man’s face with a broken crack pipe. Friday, prosecutors declared they were ready for trial, despite never dis-closing the incident to the public defender.
Today, Public Defender Jeff Adachi said the failure to disclose Offi cer Reynaldo Vargas’ misconduct flouts the law and ignores a May 17 order by San Francisco Superior Court Judge Anne-Christine Massullo. In the ruling, the judge details a systematic withholding by prosecutors of evidence of misconduct in the crime lab and among SFPD employ-ees. Defense attorneys and their clients are entitled to the material under Brady v. Maryland.
In 2005, Vargas was suspended for six months after cutting the man, who was suspected of sneaking a free ride on a cable car.Vargas was also accused of lying about the incident, but that charge was dropped in a settlement.
Sikh group condemns profiling at u.s. congres-sional hearing
The Sikh Coalition testi-fi ed before a U.S. Congres-sional Committee today to roundly condemn profi ling of Sikhs in airports across the United States. The hearing before the House Judiciary Subcommittee on the Constitution, Civil Rights, and Civil Liberties was entitled, “Racial Profi l-ing and the Use of Suspect Classifi cations in Law En-forcement.”
Sikhs are subjected to these searches 100 percent of the time at some air-ports around the country screening at Oakland In-ternational Airport, among other airports nationwide.To learn more visit:www.sikhcoalition.org.
