Solidarity Forever (for Some)

Today is the last day for many student assistants and retired annuitants working for the State of California. Under a furlough deal the Service Employees International Union Local 1000 made in June with Gov. Jerry Brown, all non-mission-critical student assistant and retired annuitant positions were to be eliminated August 31. According to The Sacramento Bee, the state won’t hire either during the 12-month furlough period that started July 1 for SEIU Local 1000 state employees. SEIU Local 1000 represents about 93,000 California state government employees.

I voted against the deal when it was put before the union membership in late June. I didn’t oppose being furloughed one day a month through June 2013. I vehemently opposed what I call throwing student assistants and retired annuitants under the bus.

I work for an agency office in which student assistants are invaluable, from answering phones and putting together news clips packages to designing brochures and editing promotional videos. I don’t know how SEIU Local 1000 expects our agency to hire young people with these talents as seasonal clerks or office assistants. There are perhaps a handful of graphics designer positions throughout state government. Moreover, college students sharpening their skills as scientists and engineers will find it difficult to get their foot in the door of state agencies.

As for retired annuitants, government retirees who return to state service with limited hours each year, they are a wealth of institutional knowledge. They are not taking away jobs from union members.

I think this move by SEIU Local 1000 is a way to generate more union dues by having students reapply under union-covered positions. Even if students hired for these positions don’t join the union, they would have to pay fair-share fees.

I find this whole situation ironic, considering the approach of Labor Day. SEIU Local 1000 has been mute on the issue since the vote. I believe this move to eliminate student assistants and retired annuitants will backfire on them when voters go to the polls in November to decide on California Proposition 32.

Writing Diva

Leave No Pet Behind

Regular readers of this blog know that I love animals. Two cats run the house on which I pay the mortgage. One of my best friends growing up was the family Doberman pinscher, Olga.

When I would read newspaper accounts of foreclosed families leaving their pets behind, I would regard these former homeowners with disdain. “How could they leave their furry friends behind?” I thought.

Upon learning a few days ago that family members left their 7-month-old pit pull puppy behind, I was angry. The puppy, an American bulldog named Nora, was left overnight in the backyard of their rental home, owned by my older brother H2. She appeared hungry and anxious. Upon seeing the stranded puppy, my otherwise mellow sibling became enraged.

“You don’t do that to a dog,” he told my younger sister T2.

No, pet owners shouldn’t leave their animals behind. I understand that many apartment complexes and rental homes don’t take pets because of the mess and noise associated with them. However, there are pet-friendly properties, even some landlords who accept pit bull terriers. But pet owners have to do extensive research to find such properties.

What angers me about the situation involving my family is that the family members renting my brother’s house knew they had only one year to find a new home before my brother gave up the property to the bank. H2, who will retire from his job after working 40 years with the same agency, faces living on a smaller, fixed income and can no longer afford to pay for his relatives to live in the home, which has been in our family since 1971. H2 bought the house from my older sister T1, who had purchased it from our parents. You don’t bring a dog into such a temporary situation.

When I learned that my relatives adopted Nora, I thought this would not end well for the dog. When I learned via an e-mail from T2 that Nora was left behind, I was tempted to adopt her. But reason prevailed: She would grow up and perhaps attack and kill my cats. Luckily, my other sister D intervened and talked to our family members. Friends of the former pet owners have taken in Nora and given her a forever home.

So, to my family members (and anyone with a pet): A pet is a responsibility for the animal’s lifetime. Do not adopt an animal unless you can give it a proper home, care, and love. Pets are not disposable. I realize that financial and housing circumstances can change quickly. In that case, find a new forever home for your pet. But in your case, you knew that your housing situation was temporary and should not have adopted an animal until you had a permanent place, preferable one that you own.

Leave no pet behind.

Writing Diva

Taking Back Our Lives – and the Movie Theaters

"Terrorism: the calculated use of unlawful violence or threat of unlawful violence to inculcate fear…." Dictionary of Military and Associated Terms, U.S. Department of Defense, 2005.

The early Friday morning shooting in an Aurora, Colorado, cineplex in which 12 people were killed and at least 50 others were injured was, in my view, an act of terrorism. The alleged gunman, James Holmes, 24, hurled two canisters of an unknown gas and opened fire at audience members watching the midnight premier of the new Batman film “The Dark Knight Rises,” according to The Washington Post. Law enforcement authorities took Holmes into custody in a parking lot behind the theater after the attack. He reportedly carried at least three weapons. Among the injured was a 3-month-old infant.

Frankly, I’m at a loss of what can be done about gun violence, including mass shootings such as this one and the 1999 massacre at Columbine High School in nearby Littleton, Colorado. Even if there was a crackdown on illegal guns, anyone who carries a gun legally could go nuts and do something heinous.

I won’t, however, let this incident scare me away from the movie theater and other “soft targets” where people gather. That’s what terrorists want, for us to be so afraid that we can’t or won’t leave our homes. I love the movies, especially independent films. If, heaven forbid, some shooter comes in while I’m viewing “Moonrise Kingdom” at the Tower Theater in Sacramento, I’ll go out swinging.

Writing Diva

Nothing Left to Lose

“The most dangerous creation of any society is the man who has nothing to lose.” – James A. Baldwin.

Two days ago, I went to the Citibank branch in Vacaville about two Home Affordable Refinance Program 2.0 packages that its affiliate Citimortgage sent me recently. I spoke to a bank representative I’ll call “Mike.” I showed Mike my two refinance packages – one dated April 11 with an interest rate of 4.25 percent and a monthly payment of $1,493. The one dated June 12 had an interest rate of 4.125 percent but a monthly payment of $1,628, a mere $100 less than my current monthly payment. He tried calling “Dave Grayson” at the bank’s headquarters, sending an e-mail with copies of the good faith estimates of both packages, and calling Grayson’s superior. After about 20 minutes of this, the time it took for me to finish my cup of coffee and scone from a nearby coffee shop, I told Mike that I had to leave.  He tried to get me to sign a paper from the current refinance package, but I refused, saying, “I’m not going to sign anything that commits me to this deal. Both this refinance monthly payment and my current payment are financially unsustainable.”

Mike looked up from his desk and blinked. “Oh.”

I stared back. “Yeah, ‘Oh,’” I thought.

Mike said he would try to connect with Mr. Grayson at headquarters. Later that day, Mike called me and said that the $1,628 monthly payment was all I could qualify for but didn’t explain why. So, I’m frustrated.

I’m not the only one who’s frustrated. On a website I read more than 640 complaints about Citimortgage, its lending practices, and customer service, or lack thereof. I didn’t finish reading all the complaints because I became discouraged and felt a migraine coming on.

If I can’t get at least $400 knocked off my monthly mortgage payment, then I want to attempt a short sale. If that doesn’t work, I’m walking. I didn’t come to this decision lightly. I like my home, although it’s a bit small and I would like an attached garage. I don’t want to move because I want to put down roots. I’ve moved numerous times since college and want to settle down with my two cats.

I am trying to take advantage of the Home Affordable Refinance Program 2.0 for mortgages owned by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. I have a 40-year-fixed Fannie Mae mortgage in which the first 10 years is interest only. The monthly payment, however, remains the same throughout the mortgage term.

I hadn’t planned to buy a home so soon in my life. However, a botched carjacking and fatal shooting in 2005 next door to my Fairfield rental home changed my plans. I had to find someplace safe to live. A mortgage broker convinced me that I could buy a home with no money down, and I qualified for $300,000. I take responsibility in that I neglected the adage, “If it looks too good to be true, it probably is.”

Actually, I had little trouble with my household budget in the beginning of my mortgage in early 2007. In September 2008, the stock market crashed and the housing bubble finally popped. Banks and brokerage houses either went out of business or teetered on the brink of destruction. Then, in 2009, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger placed most state workers on three-day-a-month furloughs, cutting our pay by about 14 percent. Then I had little, if any, dispensable income for entertainment, clothes, or dental work. Buy a used car? Fuhgeddaboutit! (Currently an additional 3 percent of my pay goes toward my pension. I face another 5 percent pay cut as part of Governor Jerry Brown’s 2012/2013 budget proposal. With the ever-changing pay cuts and my having to use credit cards to buy groceries, my situation is a hardship.)

I had hoped that the Federal Housing Finance Agency’s Acting Director Edward DeMarco would relent and allow principal reductions for loans owned by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. He still won’t budge, saying they would hurt taxpayers and pose a “moral hazard” in which homeowners might intentionally stop making mortgage payments to benefit from principal reductions.

Mr. DeMarco, have you considered that some homeowners are putting the brakes on their mortgages because they can’t get a principal reduction? That, because of illness or job loss or other reasons, they can no longer pay what I call a financially unsustainable mortgage? Get your head out of your … office and get a clue!

Look, I don’t want to hurt other taxpayers. And I love living in my two-bedroom town home in Vacaville. I just want to save for a decent retirement when I turn 67 (never mind when that happens). But when financial institutions like Citi make it difficult for people to renegotiate their mortgages through its employees’ mistakes and its misguided focus on the bottom line, I can understand why some homeowners are walking away. It’s called having nothing left to lose.

Writing Diva

Tweak This: The California Electoral System

I voted 12 days ago.

I received my mail-in election ballot on May 10. Not wanting to misplace my ballot somewhere in my home, I completed it and mailed it the next day with two first-class stamps, to be safe.

I didn’t start receiving the first of the campaign mailers until May 12. I received my county sample ballot on May 15, followed by the statewide voting guide the next day.

Something is wrong with this picture. I should have had the sample ballot and statewide voting guide before my ballot arrived. Why did the various candidates wait until, say, May 11 to start sending their hit pieces?

According to the California Secretary of State, in the 2010 statewide general election, nearly 5 million out of 10,300,392 California voters used an absentee ballot. (I was one of them.) That’s 48.44 percent. Reasons include infirmity, long commutes, traveling on Election Day, and avoiding long lines at the polls. I work long hours with a 32-mile commute and don’t arrive home until 7 p.m., an hour before the polls close.

I like being an informed voter. I usually study the statewide ballot guide and read newspaper and online articles about the candidates and initiatives before I vote. Since I didn’t get the sample ballot or voting guide before my ballot arrived, I had to depend on what I read online about the issues before casting my vote.

So, I have some suggestions for elections officials and campaign managers to help those of us who vote absentee make informed choices:

To elections officials: Please mail the sample ballot and statewide voting guide at least a week before mailing the absentee ballot.

To campaigners: If you must mail your campaign mailers (hit pieces), please do so at least two weeks before the absentee ballots are mailed.

Not everyone is going to complete and mail his or her ballot the day after it was received. However, I realize that this year, more than ever, my vote counts. And I will use it wisely.

Writing Diva