By Robert E. Martin & Mike Thompson

Perhaps the biggest question on most residents minds, apart from what it means to be a stakeholder in a government owned General Motors, is where has all the much vaunted stimulus money gone? 

With well over a trillion dollars funneled into our economy to create new jobs, has anybody ‘seen stimi’ - this is the burning question of the day and not unlike playing ‘Where’s Waldo’ in terms of the lessons to be learned.

As the ‘Daily Thunderbolt’ (a name Mark Twain fondly used to refer to daily newspapers) recede into weekend publishing (is this like armchair quarterbacking?)  it becomes apparent that our own approach to news coverage must pick up the gauntlet.

So rather than give you one or two in-depth investigative pieces this issue, we’ve decided to roll several unreported or under-reported news stories through the presses in this week’s outing – all connected by one underlying theme – exactly why is government getting all of our stimulus money and what exactly are they doing with it?

Andersen Park Plans Moves Forward, Despite Excavation Delay

Back in the 1980s, city planners spent $2.6 million dollars, including $640,000 of State Land & Water Conservation grant money, to build a luxurious wave-making pool with huge water slides, destined to draw tourists like moths to the colorful geysers of the Bellagio Hotel in Las Vegas.

Rather than renovating a simple swimming pool it was perceived that the bells & whistles of a wave-making pool with huge slides could break even, and perhaps generate big dollars into the city coffers. This served as an early example of what happens when government goes into the amusement business – or any business, for that matter.

They were proven wrong.

Attendance peaked at 67,000 in the debut season, but soon dipped closer to 30,000 per year through the 1990s. City officials finally brought out the mothballs after the summer of 2002, but they couldn't recover wasteful expenditures that included $750,000 from their own water fund.

Indeed, recently they sold the slides on e-bay.

Insisting on ‘putting the past behind’, new promoters of Saginaw’s reinvented, multi-faceted Andersen Water Park are moving forward with plans for a new Splash Park and Skate Park.

Plans for the new facility were literally molded in clay.

Thirty children, teens and young adults were given blocks of modeling clay by planning consultant Zachary Warmhoudt of Wormhoudt Inc., based in Santa Cruz, Calif. Many used their fingers to make miniature deep bowls, full pipes, half pipes, grinding boxes, ledges and other highlights they desire in their long-awaited park for skateboards and in-line skaters. Others chose pencil sketches instead.

The recent purpose in a YMCA conference room was for participants to have a voice in a skate park that they can call their own. At an undetermined date in July, they will be invited to return and see the drawings that Warmhoudt promises to bring back.

Skate park contractors then will get to work, pending excavation by H & M Demolition Company of Holland, Mich. City officials reported early in June that H & M Demolition was behind schedule for preparing the site, which explains why motorists were seeing an oddly idle site at the former wave pool location.

“I’ve been to California, Florida, Chicago, Louisville, and every skate park seems to be the same,” remarked skating enthusiast Blake Hall, 21, of Saginaw.

“Hopefully, our park will be original and unique, with more of a street feeling. Hopefully, it won’t look like it’s been designed by a bunch of people in suits.”

Warmhoudt advertises that the skate-and-bike park they designed 35 years ago in Santa Cruz was the nation’s first, and that since then they’ve done more than another 450 worldwide. Their website is www.skateparks.com.

Skate Park Is A Regional Attraction

Other participants in the planning session at the YMCA came from as far away as Freeland, Frankenmuth, Bridgeport, Vassar and Bay City    Some of the older skaters have been waiting since the late 1990s, when Saginaw city and county leaders started to discuss placing a skate facility in the central parks system.

This was before anyone was predicting the eventual demise of the Andersen Water Park’s wave pool and twin slides, which aged quickly and closed before the 2003 season after a scant 15 years of service, a white elephant that cost $2.6 million to build and even more to subsidize for operations.

City staff and local volunteers studied the wave pool’s future and decided a better option would be to build a newfangled splash park, which costs far less to build and is much cheaper to operate.

Splash parks are geared to toddlers, preschool children and youngsters in early elementary grades. Water from various spraying instruments is quickly drained below the surface, so there is no need for lifeguards, says Jeff Klopcic, the city’s Georgraphic Information Systems (GIS) coordinator.

Planners gradually added the skate park, a bocce ball court, walkways, a picnic pavillion, a fishing pier, amphitheater-style landscaping, and even a community policing outpost.

Local Donors Step Forward, But Excavator Delays

The estimated price tag for everything now is $1.675 million, starting with $532,800 from the DNR Michigan National Resources Trust Fund. The foundation for the late philanthropist Frank Andersen, who lived to the age of 108, is putting forward $300,000. Another top donor is Hemlock Semiconductor/Dow Corning at $400,000.

Workers removed the water slides and the wave pool last year and an overall park grand opening is scheduled for 2010, but Klopcic and other planners were hoping to launch the skate park before the end of the 2009 warm season. These hopes are reduced, says Klopcic, because low-bidding ($65,000) H & M Demolition was absent for more than two weeks during a recent stretch surrounding Memorial Day.

The company faces a mid-June deadline for contract compliance.

Some of the teens and young adults who took part in the planning session are among the best skateboarding athletes in the mid-Michigan, and they are antsy. One asked if the group could help erect the skate park area, once H & M Demolition is finally finished. Another chimed in, “If need be, we’ll be out there with our snow shovels.”

Skating enthusiasts who wish to submit ideas and/or take part in the July followup meeting may contact Klopcic at 759-1414. His e-mail is jklopcic@saginaw-mi.com.

 

State Law May Help Prevent Mortgage Foreclosures Will Responsible Homeowners Get a Slice of the $75 Billion Pie?

Michigan is slated to receive $18 billion in Federal Stimulus money, $2 billion slated for Medicaid alone.               

And another recently passed state law will allow those facing foreclosure on their homes the latitude to bargain for newly affordable monthly payments, allowing them to keep their homes.

According to Realty Trac, Michigan ranked sixth in the nation in foreclosures in the first quarter of 2009, with more than 33,000 properties in foreclosure. In 2008, more than 145,000 Michigan properties statewide were in foreclosure – a 21 percent increase from 2007.

The concept of allowing responsible households to keep their homes by making reduced but reasonable payments, without punishing responsible lenders, might seem simple and basic. But it wasn’t.

Spearheaded by Saginaw State Representative Andy Coulouris, relentless effort was exerted to help persuade the Legislature, including skeptical Republicans, to agree on the principle of a “90-day lifeline.” During these 90 days, foreclosure actions are frozen and lenders must meet face-to-face with people who are behind on payments.

The challenge for Coulouris and his backers was that free-market legislators believed state government should not intervene in private mortgage arrangements. With people entering into mortgages beyond their means, or entering into sub-prime deals that were ‘too good to be true’ in turn fueling the recent economic meltdown, with compromise, passage was overwhelming in the House of Representatives and unanimous in the Senate.

Governor Jennifer Granholm signed Public Act 29 of 2009 in late May, and the law takes effect during the first week of July.

Public Awareness Now Is Crucial

The next step, say Coulouris and other supporters, is to make sure homeowners are aware of their new rights under Public Act 29.               

A key point is that a homeowner need not pay anybody for loan modification. Media reports and advocates are continuing to expose scam artists who offer to bargain for mortgage-saving deals, in exchange for steep upfront fees. Non-profit housing counseling is available, and the close of this Review Magazine report will include telephone numbers to call.

An estimated 2 million homes nationwide entered foreclosure last year, and 9 million more are at risk. Last year’s foreclosures included more than 1,200 in Saginaw County, more than 500 in Bay County and more than 200 in Midland County. Foreclosure numbers are 10 times higher than during the middle to late 1990s, and they continue to grow.

Even so, more than 90 percent of homeowners still are paying on time, or already have paid in full, so homeowners witnessing a decline in their own property values and finding themselves in situations where mortgages are higher than the value of their homes might rightfully ask what assistance is available to them when it comes to re-negotiating terms.

To date, the answer is nothing.

Critics rightfully argue that it is patently unfair not to grant responsible homeowners the same legal privileges to ‘short-sell’ and re-negotiate the terms of their loans as those facing foreclosure; as it stands, the incentive is built to simply allow a home to fall into foreclosure if you with to re-negotiate the loan terms.

Coulouris emphasizes that the state law’s intent is not to tax-subsidize others who are in arrears, although President Barack Obama’s new administration won approval in February for billions of dollars in federal relief.

Rather, the goal is simply for more families to keep their homes by making revised arrangements with lenders, especially families that signed sub-prime loans, in which arrangements such as ARMs (adjustable rate mortgages, also known as balloons) suddenly caused payments to skyrocket, such as $1,000 per month instead of $500. Some families may be coping with job losses or reduced wages. The argument goes that a  “hand up,” not just a “hand out,” may rescue these borderline families.

And of course, the larger problem is that abandoned houses in neighborhoods not only harm quality of life, but also will cause property values to fall.  In turn, local governing units and schools will allegedly have less revenue, although that argument is tough to swallow when a majority of the stimulus money seems to already be going to them.

 ‘Foreclosure By Advertisement’ Will End

Lenders during the mortgage crisis of recent years have asserted that they also want homeowners to keep their properties, because “nobody wins” financially in a foreclosure. This is true with reputable lenders. Regardless of new federal or state laws, even reformers such as Andy Coulouris will state that the first thing a struggling family should do is to call the bank or the broker.

However, some predatory lenders aim for profit from failed mortgages. This leads to an oppressive process that sometimes is described as “foreclosure by advertisement.” A family may learn that a foreclosure is in process without having received notice.

Coulouris pushed for a provision in which a lender not only must send a foreclosure warning, but must provide an opportunity to meet face-to-face with the homeowner. This is when the 90-day lifeline takes effect, with foreclosure action frozen.

Furthermore, the lender’s notice must inform the homeowner of resources for free, non-profit housing counseling. The ideal scenario will bring the mortgage counselor and the homeowner into a joint meeting with the lender, as the first step toward negotiations to save the mortgage.

This process should muzzle the scam artists. If a homeowner shows up for the meeting with a scam artist, the lender then can inquire about the nature of this relationship and hopefully nip the scam in the bud.

Obama, Feds Approve Bipartisan Financial Aid

               

When homeowners and lenders meet under the state law, they may negotiate new terms with the federal Homeowner Affordability and Stability Plan in place.

This was initiated by President Obama in February. The most basic detail is that if new terms are reached, homeowners and lenders each will receive incentives of up to $1,000 per year. Overall costs for the plan are estimated at $75 billion, and another $200 billion in credit is being made available to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac through preferred stock options.

In an example of the process, a family paying $500 per month may suddenly have faced a balloon into an unaffordable $1,000 range. Negotiations could bring the payment back into the $500 range, but of course the number of years then would be lengthened.

The mortgage plan is one of the few steps in Obama’s economic recovery efforts that has received general approval from Republicans as well as Democrats.

Still, there is controversy.

Last winter, CNBC’s Rick Santelli did a blowup on the floor of the Chicago Mercantile Exchange. Santelli asked why “the 92 percent of people who are paying their mortgages on time” would want their tax dollars to assist the 8 percent of “losers” who are struggling. He further said the government should support “people who can carry the water, instead of drinking the water.”

Santelli’s critics answered that many with mortgage troubles face unexpected circumstances beyond their control. Furthermore, people in past generations also received public assistance for home purchases, such as through the Federal Housing Administration (FHA) and the G.I. Bill.

Coulouris states: "Too many residents already have seen their dream of homeownership disappear in this economy. Today, we're standing up for Michigan's working families to help them get through these tough times. ... This will not be a giveaway for irresponsible homeowners who bought a home far beyond their means. These plans are a lifeline to those who have played by the rules and tried to pay their bills, and yet find themselves on the cusp of foreclosure.”

Phone Numbers For Mortgage Loan Modification

Michigan Public Act 29, with the 90-day lifeline, is in effect for two years. People who seek to reconcile with lenders should make sure that a non-profit housing counselor is certified with HUD (the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development) and/or MSHDA (the Michigan State Housing Development Authority ).

Here are the phone numbers, as promised:

• MSHDA, 1-866-946-7432.

• Saginaw County: CAC, 753-7741. Circle of Love, 921-0569. Neighborhood Renewal Services, 753-4900.

• Bay and Midland Counties: Bay Area Housing, 893-9292.

• Thumb Area: Human Development Commission, 1-800-843-6394.

Millions in Stimulus Money Go to STARS and MBS Airport

Back in 2004 the Saginaw Transit Authority managed to lose track of $5 million dollars worth of buses during an audit. At a cost of $8.3 million per year, given the numbers of people that routinely ride the busses, this amounts to slightly more than $20,000 per year for each rider – certainly enough to buy each regular rider a car every year, plus pay for their gas and stimulate our local auto dealerships.

Yet the Michigan Dept. of Transportation has reapportioned additional American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 Funds to the STARS Transit authority In March STARS was awarded $2,465,504 in funding to complete the renovation of its facility and purchase three more buses.

Meanwhile, $12.7 million in stimulus dollars will be used for the construction of a new terminal at MBS International Airport. This was part of a larger bill that appropriated $30.4 million in stimulus dollars for five airports across Michigan.