NEWS BRIEFS
learn about their culture while enjoying
Indian and Nepalese food. “It’ll be a cultural
event,” says Ramsey, “We want to give this
opportunity to anyone in the public arena
who wants to come meet the delegates,
exchange information and get a general
introduction to Nepal.”
— Stacey M. Hollis
The photo exhibition can be seen at New Zone Gallery 164
West Broadway from 6 to 9 pm, May 14. To learn more or
to see the itinerary for the delegation, visit www.redi-org.
com/EKSCC/
$7.5 MILLION LOST
TO BIG BANKS
Homeowners lose their dwellings when
banks foreclose on them through shady
practices, but groups studying Oregon
foreclosures say local governments — and
the services they provide — are losing out,
too.
Michelle Glass with Project REconomy
says that testimony before the Oregon
legislature estimated the Lane County lost
out on $4.3 million between 2005 and 2009
due to illegal registration of homes by
MERS (Mortgage Electronic Registration
Systems), an electronic title company that
doesn’t record title transfers in counties as
required by Oregon law. By bypassing the
average $42 fee for professional recording,
“the mortgage industry is cheating Oregon
counties out of vital revenues that could
fund local services,” Glass says. “That’s
the bottom line.”
Glass says that an important step for
Oregon, statewide, is to “look at auditing
our mortgage records so that we can really
have a clear idea of what the scope of the
problem is and how it’s impacting Oregon.”
Reid Kimball, of the Occupy Foreclosure
Action Committee, says that if the $4.3
million estimate is extrapolated, that’s a
little more than $1 million per year, and a
total of $7.5 million that Lane County has
lost since 2005. According to Lane
County’s 2011-12 adopted budget, that cost
of more than $1 million per year is almost
twice LCAS’ local revenue, more than 10
times the local revenue in the Health and
Human Services Behavioral Health budget,
almost half the local revenue of the sheriff’s
office, and twice the Lane County Road
Fund’s expenditures (see wkly.ws/19w).
Occupy Eugene will hold a press
conference at noon Friday, May 11, to ask
the governor and attorney general for a
moratorium on foreclosures. “Our economy
is in such poor shape that we can’t afford to
have people on the streets trying to survive,
when they could be housed and devoting
time to working on gaining employment,”
Kimball says.
Kimball says it’s going to take years to
sort out who owns the titles that MERS and
associated groups are trying to foreclose
on. Due to missing records, he says, “I feel
there is so much illegal paperwork by the
banks that it only makes sense for an
indefinite moratorium until people can
know for sure who owns what.”
— Shannon Finnell
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EUGENE WEEKLY MAY 10, 2012 9