Posts filed under 'Local'
Homes: About to get much cheaper
- By Les Christie, CNNMoney.com staff writer
Home values are predicted to drop in 342 out of 381 markets during the next year, according to a new forecast of real estate prices.
Overall, the national median home price is predicted to drop 11.3% by June 30, 2010, according to Fiserv, a financial information and analysis firm. For the following year, the firm anticipates some stabilization with prices rising 3.6%.
In the past, Fiserv anticipated the rapid decline in home-sale prices over the past few years — though it underestimated the scope.
Mark Zandi, chief economist with Moody’s Economy.com, agreed with Fiserv’s current assessments. “I think more price declines are coming because the foreclosure crisis is not over,” he said.
In fact, those areas with high concentrations of foreclosure sales will experience the steepest drops, according to Fiserv. Miami, for example, is expected to be the biggest loser. Prices are forecast to plunge 29.9% by next June — after having already fallen a whopping 48% during the past three years.
If Fiserv’s forecast holds, Miami real median home price will tumble to $142,000 by June 2011.
In Orlando, Fla., the second-worst performing market, Fiserv anticipates a 27% price collapse by June 2010, followed by a less severe drop the following year. In Hanford, Calif., prices are estimated to drop 26.9% and continue falling 9.5% in 2011; in Naples, Fla., they’re expected to fall 26.8% and then flatten out.
Other notable losers include Las Vegas, where prices have already fallen 54.6% and are expected to lose another 23.9% by June 2010. In Phoenix values have already collapsed by 54% and could fall another 23.4%. In both cities, Fiserv anticipates the losses to continue into 2011, but they will be less than 5%.
Prices had stabilized
The latest forecast is at odds with the past few months of the S&P/Case-Shiller Home Price index. That report has given hope that most housing markets may have already stabilized because the composite index of 20 cities rose in May, June and July. Nationally, it found that home prices have gained 3.6%.
Brad Hunter, chief economist for Metrostudy, which provides housing market information to the industry, however, expects a change in fortunes, however.
“I’m afraid Case-Shiller may be just a temporary reprieve,” he said.
He pointed out that the tax credit for first-time home buyers helped support prices during the three months of Case-Shiller gains. By the end of November, the credit will have been used by 1.8 million homebuyers, at least 355,000 of whom would not have bought a house without the tax break, according to estimates by the National Association of Realtors. But the market assistance ends when the credit expires on Dec. 1.
Hunter also sees a new wave of foreclosure problems coming from higher priced loans and prime mortgages. He expects a high failure rate for option ARM loans that were issued to prime customers so they could buy homes in bubble markets, such as California and Florida. In those areas, prices for even modest homes had skyrocketed.
Winners
A handful of metro areas will buck the trend, according to Fiserv. Six markets will remain flat, and 33 will actually post gains. The biggest winner will be the Kennewick, Wash., metro area, where home prices have ramped up 8.9% over the past three years and are expected to increase another 3.4% by June 2010.
Fairbanks, Alaska, prices are anticipated to rise 2.5%, while Anchorage will climb 2.1%. Elmira, N.Y., prices may inch up 1.8%.
The nation’s biggest metro area, New York City, will underperform the nation as a whole over the next two years, according to Fiserv. Prices, which have already fallen 21.7% to a median of $375,000, are expected to fall 17.4% by June 2011.
Home values in the nation’s second largest city, Los Angeles, have fallen 43.3% since June 2006 to a median of $313,000. They are expected to dive another 20.2% over by June 2010, and then start to climb in 2011. Chicago prices, which have fallen 25.2% to $227,000, will drop only 4.1% over the next 12 months and then starting to climb.
The Detroit metro area now has the dubious distinction of having the lowest home prices in the country. Prices have dropped 51.7% to a median of $50,000. They’re expected to fall another 9.1% and then stabilize.
Add comment October 20, 2009
Great News! Fewer paying speed-camera tickets
Fewer paying speed-camera tickets
But DPS is on lookout for so-called frequent fliers, drivers who flout the system
Dave Vontesmar hates photo enforcement.
Vontesmar drives nearly 30 miles a day from his home in north Phoenix to his job at Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport
and passes through the photo-enforcement gantlet on Interstate 17, Arizona 51 and Interstate 10.
But when state Department of Public Safety officers served 37 unpaid photo-enforcement tickets to Vontesmar recently, he wasn’t fazed.
The photos all show the driver wearing a monkey mask.
“Not one of them there is a picture where you can identify the driver,” Vontesmar said. “The ball’s in their court. I sent back all these ones I got with a copy of my driver’s license and said, ‘It’s not me. I’m not paying them.’ “
The latest data from the DPS shows more motorists are disregarding the violation notices upon arrival in the mail.
When the system was just getting set up in October, 34 percent of drivers paid their tickets. By June, that statistic had dropped to 24 percent.
Program effects
DPS officials repeatedly point out that the success of the photo-enforcement program is not measured in revenue it generates – about $20 million for the state through the end of July – or the number of notices of violation issued.
“Our whole goal is not to issue tickets, just to get people to drive the speed limit,” Lt. Jeff King said.
King instead prefers to focus on the program’s positive effects on Arizona’s highways, particularly in the Valley where fatalities, a factor that closely correlates with speed in wrecks, have dropped by 10 to 20 percent since the same time last year. His anecdotal evidence also points to drivers slowing down.
“The whole purpose behind it is voluntary compliance, and (the cameras) work really good,” King said.
DPS statistics support the notion that the program is slowing some drivers down, too. Photo-enforcement cameras activated about 78,000 fewer times in July than in December, though King notes other factors such as the economy could have contributed to fewer drivers being on the road.
King said there are plenty of people who willfully disregard the violations that arrive in the mail, generated by the 78 fixed and mobile units around the state.
DPS officers target such drivers, dubbed frequent fliers, who have 15 or more active violations. King said that number could fluctuate from 100 to 600 motorists.
Drivers have 30 days to respond to a notice of violation after it arrives in the mail. Motorists can either pay the fine, challenge the ticket or inform the DPS that the recipient is not the driver and return the paperwork with a copy of their driver’s license. Drivers who challenge tickets could end up in Justice Court
.
Those who ignore the notice may be served with a hand-delivered ticket.
A case in point
Vontesmar, a flight attendant, chose to inform the DPS that he was not driving when confronted with the 37 violations at his job three weeks ago. DPS officials estimate the car registered in Vontesmar’s name was caught by cameras more than 90 times, but time had lapsed on the majority of violations by the time officers tracked Vontesmar down.
Vontesmar is confident that he won’t have to pay the fines, an amount that could exceed $6,500.
“It’s obviously a revenue grab,” he said of the program. “They’re required by law to ID the driver of the vehicle. If they can’t identify the driver or the vehicle by the picture, what are they doing to identify the driver?”
Typically, the DPS uses driver’s-license photos and vehicle registration to confirm the identity of motorists, but there is a special unit assigned to go after frequent fliers.
In this case, officers sat outside Vontesmar’s home and watched him drive to work. “We watched him four different times put the monkey mask on and put the giraffe-style mask on,” Officer Dave Porter said. “Based on surveillance, we were positive that Vontesmar was the driver.”
Porter said that it would be up to justices of the peace to determine what to do with Vontesmar’s tickets, but the officer said there is enough evidence to reissue the tickets in Vontesmar’s name, despite his claims that he was not the driver.
Some frequent speeders cover their faces, use post-office boxes or fictitious addresses to beat the system, said Officer Jeff Hawkins, who is working 50 such cases.
“They generally do it under the pretext that they’re not going to be caught,” he said. “These are what you probably consider as people who don’t really respect the law at all.”
FULL READ HERE:
http://www.azcentral.com/news/articles/2009/09/08/20090908dpsmonkey0908.html
1 comment September 8, 2009
Man this Swine Flu is getting out of control
\
Dr.Lorraine Day reveals that Vaccines Do Not Work.Vaccinations don’t work at all.
Boy is first Ariz. swine flu case; school to close for 1 week
by Ginger Rough – Apr. 29, 2009 02:50 PM
The Arizona Republic
The state’s first swine flu patient is an 8-year-old boy who attends Moon Mountain Elementary School in northwest Phoenix.
Gov. Jan Brewer disclosed the information during a morning event; health department officials said they are still interviewing the boy’s family and have not determined how he contracted the disease.
In a memo to Moon Mountain staff, Susie Cook, the superintendent of the Washington Elementary School District, announced that the school will be closing for seven days.
Carol Donaldson, communications director for the Washington Elementary School District, which includes Moon Mountain Elementary, said the school has about 800 students.
“We’ve been working on getting information to families all morning,” she said.
The Arizona Department of Health Services had sent four laboratory samples of possible swine-flu cases to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and results for one came back positive for the new strain of swine flu Wednesday morning. Health officials said at a press conference today that the one confirmed and three suspected cases are from Maricopa County, but none is related to each other in terms of family or organized groups. The cases are scattered around the county.
Health officials have said none of the patients with suspected swine flu was gravely ill or hospitalized. It is unknown if any of the four people had traveled to Mexico.
At Moon Mountain Elementary near 19th Avenue and Thunderbird Road Wednesday, students got out in the early afternoon as part of a previously scheduled early release day.
Buses waited in the parking lot of the red-and-tan brick building, and parents showed up in cars and on foot to pick up their kids.
The only sign that the school day was unusual were four Phoenix Police Department cars in the parking lot.
As he walked home, Justin, 10, said he was a little bit scared that one of the school’s students had been diagnosed with the swine flu. Some students at school had cried because of the flu alert. Justin’s friend, Madison, also 10, said she had a cough and chest pain.
“I’m scared because I have some of the symptoms,” she said.
The Arizona Republic is withholding or did not ask for the children’s last names because they are minors.
Charlene Begay of Phoenix showed up at the school to pick up her 6-year-old niece.
“Her dad usually picks her up,” she said, “But she (her mom) just wanted her daughter out now,” said Begay, who is worried about her own health because she is pregnant.
Another student, Carlos, 10, said he planned to go home and take a shower every hour. Not everyone is disappointed that school is closing, he said, because some students have missing homework right now.
Also Wednesday, during a morning tour of the Arizona State Laboratory with Democratic lawmakers, health department administrators confirmed that the state had received its first shipment of antivirals from the federal stockpile.
Two drugs, sold under the brand names of Tamiflu and Relenza, have been shown to lessen the severity and duration of swine flu, if administered shortly after the onset of symptoms.
The antivirals will be distributed to state hospitals and medical centers as needed. There is currently no vaccine for swine flu; CDC officials said in a morning briefing that it would likely be “this fall” before such a vaccine is available for humans.
As of this morning, there were 91 cases of the virulent influenza strain in the United States.
Richard Besser, acting head of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta, said laboratory tests have confirmed influenza in 10 states.
They are Arizona, New York, California, Texas, Kansas, Michigan, Massachusetts, Indiana, Nevada and Ohio.
Add comment April 29, 2009
Slaying fuels debate over speed cameras in Arizona
The debate over the first statewide speed camera enforcement program in the nation has reached a boiling point following the fatal shooting of a camera operator.
Critics of Arizona’s program condemned the killing but vow they’ll continue to fight what they call unfair and overly intrusive government. Supporters of the program say camera opponents have inflamed the public, and that the speed cameras have made highways safer.
Doug Georgianni, 51, was killed on April 19, as he operated a speed-enforcement van on a Phoenix freeway. Thomas Patrick Destories, a 68-year-old Phoenix man, is being held in Maricopa County jail on a first-degree murder charge in the death. He has declined to comment.
Authorities haven’t said what they believe the motive might be, but said the two men had never met. Many simply assume the killing was the latest and most extreme backlash against Arizona’s photo-enforcement program.
Arizonans have used sticky notes, Silly String and even a pickax to sabotage the cameras since September when they began snapping photos of highway speeders driving 11 mph or more over the speed limit.
State lawmakers have proposed two bills to do away with the cameras, and three separate citizens groups are targeting them in initiatives for the 2010 ballot.
“The conversation on everyone’s mind in Arizona is the photo radar killing. That’s what everyone is talking about,” said Shawn Dow, a volunteer with the citizens group CameraFRAUD.com.
CameraFRAUD.com is the largest and most organized of the groups going after the cameras. Its initiative would ban photo-enforcement cameras throughout Arizona, including those in the statewide program and those run by individual municipalities, such as red light cameras in Tempe.
Dow said the Arizona Department of Public Safety and camera operator RedFlex Traffic Systems Inc. put Georgianni in danger by having him in a marked law enforcement vehicle even though he was a civilian.
“They’re putting these people in marked police vehicles that are civilians that have no training, no way to defend themselves,” Dow said. “We should have trained police officers – cops, not cameras.”
DPS spokesman Lt. James Warriner said the department is working with RedFlex to decide how the vans will operate in the future, and that they may be unmanned.
The speed vans were pulled from Arizona freeways Monday; fixed cameras are still operating.
Warriner said critics have blamed his agency for the killing “when all we’re doing is administering a program that was mandated by state Legislature and the former governor.
“Because of (critics’) vocalness, you could almost say they’ve led to this, too – because of their protests, the encouragement of people to strike out,” he said.
Warriner said Georgianni’s killing will not stop photo enforcement.
Karen Finley, president and chief executive officer of RedFlex, said in a statement that the company is being “deliberative and prudent” in its review of establishing criteria to redeploy mobile speed cameras. She declined to comment further.
Republican Rep. Sam Crump of Anthem, who is seeking to ban speed cameras on state highways, condemned Georgianni’s killing.
“While we don’t know at this time what the motives were for this senseless killing, many have understandably speculated that it was due to anger against the speed cameras,” he said in a statement the day after the killing. “To the extent there is any truth to that, I call on all individuals to reduce the war of words on this topic. Whatever the motives for this crime were, there is absolutely no justification for such a heinous act.”
The photo-enforcement program was launched under former Democratic Gov. Janet Napolitano.
Civil violations are punishable by a fine and surcharges totaling $181. Through Jan. 31, 34,000 motorists had paid their tickets.
Tyler Bennett, a 23-year-old Glendale resident who recently got a photo radar ticket on a Phoenix-area freeway, said he’s against the speed cameras but he was “dumbfounded” when he heard about the killing.
“That really kind of hit me, to be honest,” he said. “It’s kind of fun to dog on the whole photo radar thing, but this whole thing is completely different.”
He said he doesn’t think DPS, RedFlex or critics of photo enforcement are to blame – just the person who pulled the trigger.\
MORE HERE:|
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/30436439/
Add comment April 27, 2009
Photo radar shooting suspect found
by JJ Hensley – Apr. 21, 2009 10:04 AM
The Arizona Republic
Thomas Destories knew why Phoenix police were talking to him as soon as the suspect in the murder of a photo-enforcement employee was pulled over Monday morning.
“I’m sorry, I was going to turn myself in. I didn’t mean for anyone to get hurt. I saw it on the news,” Destories told officers, according to a police report released Monday night.
“The gun is in the saddlebag,” Destories said. OAS_AD(‘ArticleFlex_1′)
With that, police arrested Destories, 68, on suspicion of murdering Doug Georgianni while he worked in a photo-enforcement van along Loop 101 on Sunday evening.
According to the report, a witness saw a Chevrolet Suburban, later identified as Destories’ vehicle, pull up behind Georgianni’s van about 8:45 p.m. Sunday, leaving the witness with the impression that the SUV was having trouble.
When the Suburban pulled up to a stop light at Seventh Street and Loop 101 a couple of minutes later, the witnesses realized there was no trouble and noticed the driver: a man with unkempt hair and a long moustache.
That description, along with good observation by a Department of Public Safety officer who used to live in Destories’ neighborhood, led authorities to believe Destories might be involved, according to the police report.
After officers watched Destories’ house and saw him move a Suburban matching the description of the suspected shooter’s vehicle behind his house, they arrested the Cave Creek resident.
Investigators said Georgianni was sitting behind the driver’s seat doing paperwork when the Suburban pulled up behind his van and somebody fired the shots.
The van was hit five times with large-caliber bullets, according to the report, with three of the five shots grouped in a tight pattern around the driver’s side window, near where Georgianni was seated. The shooting prompted both companies that operate photo-enforcement programs in the area to pull the mobile units from highways and roads while they reassess security measures.
Destories had an initial appearance on Monday. He could face charges of first-degree murder and is being held on a $2 million cash bond.
Add comment April 21, 2009
Fascist Governments are pushing people to the limits
PHOENIX — Police have arrested a man in connection with the fatal shooting of a photo-radar van operator Sunday night, according to the Phoenix Police Department.
According to department spokesman Sgt. Andy Hill, the department and the Arizona Department of Public Safety will hold a joint news conference Monday afternoon to announce more details of the arrest.Video footage over the noon hour showed police serving search warrants at a Phoenix home in connection with the shooting. Footage showed a vehicle similiar to the one captured by the radar van’s tape parked by the side of the house.In the meantime, photo-radar vans have been yanked off Arizona highways as DPS and Phoenix police investigate the shooting, according to Redflex Traffic Systems Inc. CEO Karen Finley.
The 911 call came into DPS at 8:52 p.m. Sunday.
DPS said the driver, Doug Georgianni, 51, was shot multiple times while sitting in the marked van parked on the eastbound side of Loop 101.Georgianni was taken to John C. Lincoln Hospital, where he was pronounced dead, DPS said.DPS said Georgianni had been working for RedFlex Traffic Systems Inc. as a driver technician for three months. RedFlex is under contract with DPS to operate the photo-radar systems, which are used to catch speeders and red-light runners.”The entire Redflex family is grief-stricken for Doug and his loved ones,” Finley said. “We will continue to dedicate every resource to work with the police to help identify and apprehend the person who took Doug’s life.Phoenix police described the shooter as a white male in his 60s with a thin face, unkempt white hair and a white mustache.He was driving a two-toned white and gray 1980s-model Chevy Suburban with black rims and tires and a roof rack, police said. Investigators believe the shooter left the crime scene traveling south on Seventh Street.Police are asking anyone with information to call Silent Witness at 480-948-6377.
MORE HERE:
http://www.azcentral.com/12news/news/articles/2009/04/19/20090419radarvan04192009.html
Add comment April 20, 2009
March to stop Arpaio | Zach coming to town
Zach de la Rocha of Rage Against the Machine, among the more politically outspoken bands in alternative rock, is coming to Phoenix to join a march denouncing Sheriff Joe Arpaio’s “systematic persecution” of migrants and Latinos. March to Stop the Hate begins at 9 a.m. Saturday, Feb. 28, at Steele Indian School Park in Phoenix. Pablo Alvarado, director of the National Day Laborer Organizing Network has issued a statement saying, “Recently, the nation witnessed the ritual humiliation of migrants in a spectacle evocative of some of the most horrific episodes of human history. People across the country are outraged at the shameful violations of human rights perpetrated by the Maricopa County Sheriffs and they are being moved to action.” Alvarado is referring to the segregation of the county jail and the parading of undocumented migrants shackled in a chain-gang through Tent City. De la Rocha says, “To witness what is happening in Arizona and remain neutral is to be implicated in human rights violations that are occurring right here on U.S. soil against migrants. History will not be kind to Joe Arpaio. He will be remembered with other infamous sheriffs like Bull Connor who subjugated and terrorized communities for shortsighted political gain. I hope everyone will join me in protesting Sheriff Joe.” More details can be found at www.ndlon.org.
Add comment February 24, 2009
