Correction: Metro Council Candidates' Housing Forum on Tuesday April 10

Correction: 
Corrected Headline, event is on TUESDAY, APRIL 10th
--
Flyer for event, with times and location, is pasted below and HERE.

Click to Enlarge

 Originally created and posted HERE.

Metro Council President Election: Stacey Likely Did NOT Lose Because of Undervoting, but 37% (225,000) of Gubernatorial Voters Did Not Vote for ANYONE for Metro President.

In my earlier post HERE, I speculated that Bob Stacey may have lost the election for Metro Council President based on undervoting--fewer votes being cast for all Metro Council President candidates than for all Gubernatorial candidates. 

In that post I noted that that speculation was based on only one county (Multnomah), so I went back and looked at Clackamas County and Washington County votes as of Friday afternoon , November 5th. 

I prepared a table HERE that shows that Stacey likely would have lost by 9,300+MORE votes if people who did not vote for a Council Presidential candidate had voted at the same percentage as those who did vote. That would occur because 60% of Washington County voters went for Hughes, while Stacey carried Multnomah County by a lesser 54% vote.

The BIGGER observation from the data is that 37% of ALL voters in these three counties who DID vote for a Gubernatorial candidate did NOT vote for ANY Metro Presidential candidate AND in my county, Clackamas County, that percentage was an even more stunning 54%.

Whether your candidate was a winner or loser this failure to vote, by voters who took the time to vote for other offices, must be a huge disappointment to both Metro President candidates. 

Originally created and posted on the Oregon Housing Blog.

Off Topic: Wednesday, 8: 30 AM--Looks to Me Like Kitzhaber Will Win.

It's 8:30 AM, time for a projection.

Kitzhaber is getting 70%+ of vote in Multnomah County and looks like there is another 60,000+ votes to be counted in the county. 

Table below shows the math; looks to me like Kitzhaber will net 23,000+ more votes than Dudley out of those 60,000 , that would be more than enough to overcome the current Dudley lead of 19,000 votes.

Remaining Votes	60,000
Kitz	41,850
Dudley	18,150
Net to Kitz	23,700

Originally created and posted on the Oregon Housing Blog.

HUD Employee and Housing Authority Presidential Nominee Contributions Total Slightly More Than $16,000; Obama Gets 75%..

As we get closer to next Tuesday, I thought it might be interesting to see the level of contributions made by HUD employees and housing authority employees to the two major party nominees for President.

Using "HUD" and "Housing Authority" as employer search terms, and searching ALL states, total contributions to the two nominees was only slightly more than $16,000 through October 28th, with 75% of the contributions going to Obama.

[Individual contributions up to that date total $733 Million for the two candidates, so no danger the $16,000 will overly influence the candidates:)]

Breakout is in one page PDF HERE.

Cross Post: Sarah Palin Financial Disclosures.

From my Open Oregon Government Blog, post with link is HERE.

Home Builders Lobbying on Housing Legislation.

Interesting Wall Street Journal story HERE detailing the lobbying being done by home builder organizations on federal housing legislation.

Results so far have been billions in homebuilder targeted benefits in a Senate passed bill, and likelihood that H.R. 5830, with similar goodies, will be voted on soon in the House.

Statewide Candidates Views on Housing

[Corrected format and hyperlink].
I have previously posted about the housing positions taken by Democratic presidential candidates, but haven't done so for other statewide candidates here in Oregon. In particular candidates for the Senate and for Attorney General come immediately to mind.

So today a initial examination on what's on the Attorney General candidates websites about housing.

Frankly, there wasn't much related to housing for either candidate. and most of what I found related to sub prime loan legislation. Greg Macpherson had details about bills he supported in the last [short] legislative session, while Kroger's housing related information was non specific.

(Since neither candidates websites have a built in search function I had to stumble through several sections of their sites to find anything about housing and then use a site limited Google search to check my results).

Greg Macpherson (http://www.votemac.com/)
His views on recent Oregon sub prime loan legislation are HERE


John Kroger (http://www.johnkroger.com/ )
"I will aggressively attack fraud and abuse in the home mortgage industry"

"As Attorney General, I will fight to ensure that veterans returning from the Iraq war receive the quality health care to which they are entitled and assistance returning to the civilian work force. If anyone discriminates against veterans in the job or housing markets, I will fight to hold them accountable."

Cross Post: Slate's Delegate Calculator Shows Daunting Clinton Task Ahead.

Cross post on subject from my Open Oregon Government blog HERE.

Cross Post: Democratic Elected Delegate Counts and Comparisons.

Posted on my Oregon Open Government Blog, a hard to find count of elected delegates and states where Obama or Clinton have won the elected delegate battle to date.

Direct URL to post is HERE.

Full Disclosure: I Contributed to Obama Yesterday.

I have been a registered Independent for the entire time I have lived in Oregon. However for the first time I can remember, I made a Presidential campaign contribution yesterday-- to the campaign of Senator Barack Obama. I did so not so much because I thought he needed by modest contribution ( he raised $32 Million+ in January), but more so that I needed to express my support for his candidacy.

I have tremendous respect for both Bill and Hillary Clinton, and I also applaud the more moderate positions that John McCain brings to the Republican party and for his long and heroic service to our country.

I feel strongly however that Obama is the the proverbial "right person at the right time" to help lead us in a new direction. Should Obama not win the Democratic nomination, I will be supporting Senator Clinton in the general election.

This will be a historic election, no matter what happens, and will set the direction of our country for years to come. I am pleased to see the new voters who have come forward in the primaries to date and the excitement that both Senator Clinton and Obama are bringing to this election cycle.

I hope you find a candidate that you strongly support and do so in a way that works best for you.

Obama Economic Plan--$20 Billion for Housing, All Home Ownership.

Prior to the upcoming caucuses in Nevada, Senator Obama has announced his version of an economic stimulus plan with a PDF fact sheet HERE.

On the housing front, his economic stimulus plan would

• Provide $10 Billion for a foreclosure prevention plan with money going to Fannie , Freddie, and FHA for pre-foreclosure counseling and to allow families to "responsibly refinance" their current loans.
  
• Provide $10 Billion to the "Hardest Hit' states and local governments (Oregon would currently be unlikely to be identified as one of the states "hardest hit" by foreclosures)
  

Clinton Economic Plan Includes Another $30 Billion for Home Ownership--It Wouldn't Help Oregon.

TYPO corrections:
Senator Clinton has announced an economic stimulus plan HERE. One component of the plan would be to add ANOTHER $30 Billion for a Home ownership Crisis Fund which would provide local communities with funding to help with foreclosures . The proposal comes a week before the Nevada caucuses---Nevada has a high rate of sub prime foreclosures.

This $30 Billion in additional home ownership funding would be more than ALL existing forms of HUD rental assistance combined. (My earlier post detailing $1 Trillion in home ownership tax breaks over next five years is HERE).

While housing authorities could use the funding to buy foreclosed properties, which could help some cities where high levels of foreclosures are impacting neighborhoods, the fund would not work in Oregon where housing authorities are trying to sell existing scattered site public housing because of high maintenance costs. (Where housing authorities would get the money to operate these acquired units in the future is also highly problematic).

Clinton's $30 Billion proposal is described like this on her website:

" Her $30 billion fund would provide immediate, time-limited resources to states, cities and community organizations to help prevent unnecessary foreclosures. States and communities could also use the funds to offset the costs associated with vacant properties by supporting efforts like community-level anti-blight programs and helping local housing authorities buy up vacant properties and rent them to working families."