Tuesday, January 24, 2012

FUNDRAISING REQUESTS

Dear Susan,
Montana is making headlines. Across the country, people are looking at our state Supreme Court’s decision to stop big corporations from buying elections – and they’re beginning to realize just how wrong Citizens United was. One national editorial agreed with Montana Justices that “Citizens United has given corporations enormous power barely distinguishable from bribery.”
Well, I want Montana to make more headlines on this issue – by rejecting the influence of these powerful special interests in our Senate race. Sure, they’re going to continue to spend big attacking us – they’ve already spent over $1 million since last June. But if we band together, we can beat them and send a powerful message across the country.
Click here to help me make a statement about our grassroots strength. We’re just $20,000 away from our January fundraising goal, and with seven days left, we’re within reach – but we need your contribution now.
Frankly, I don’t need to read it in the paper to know that it’s wrong to let corporate giants and Washington special interests tell us who wins our elections. And you and I both know that if we let them get their way, we’ll be reading headlines about more giveaways to Big Oil and Wall Street, more pain for working families, more tax loopholes for millionaires, and more ugly gridlock in Washington.
So let’s re-write the story. Let’s do what it takes to build a campaign capable of beating these guys. Let’s show the nation what Montana already knows: that if our government’s going to be accountable to the people, our elections have to be decided by the people.
Hitting our January fundraising goal is an important step on the road to victory. Help us raise the last $20,000 by making a contribution of $5 or more right now!
If we keep working hard and hitting our goals, Karl Rove and his special interest pals will open the paper after Election Day and read about how all their “enormous power” and unlimited resources couldn’t beat our grassroots team.
And that’s the kind of headline I want.
Please click here to give now!
Thanks for helping me write this story,

Jon

Thursday, November 17, 2011

And we wonder why public housing and afforable housing is in trouble.

Furious Gov. Patrick begins state takeover of Chelsea Housing Authority

·         E-mail
By Scott Allen and Andrea Estes, Globe Staff
The administration of Governor Deval Patrick has asked Attorney General Martha Coakley to begin a state takeover of the troubled Chelsea Housing Authority, whose chief executive resigned earlier this month amid an uproar over his $360,000 annual compensation.
The Department of Housing and Community Development, which has already frozen state funding to the authority, requested that the attorney general place it in state receivership, allowing the state to oversee the day-to-day operations of the agency.
Coakley will now petition the Supreme Judicial Court for permission to appoint an independent receiver who will monitor the uthority and ensure that staff cooperate with various state investigations that have begun since former director Michael E. McLaughlin abruptly resigned after his full salary was revealed by the Boston Globe.
“A court-appointed receiver can ensure that public funds are being spent responsibly, leadership is performing their duties in an above-board, transparent manner and the residents of Chelsea who depend on the services the Chelsea Housing Authority provides are protected,” Patrick said in a statement. “This will help restore the public’s confidence, and my own, and will put the housing authority on a better path.”
Patrick has said he is “boiling” over the high pay to McLaughlin -- perhaps the highest among housing directors in the United states - and he demanded the resignation of McLaughlin as well as the five-member board of directors who approved his contract.
McLaughlin stepped down Nov. 3, but not before co-signing checks to himself for more than $200,000 that he said the authority owed him for unused vacation, sick, and personal time. The five-member board also resigned, but not before making one of McLaughlin’s assistants, Albert Ewing, the new director and offering him a five-year contract.
Now, the FBI and numerous other agencies are investigating the authority amid allegations that McLaughlin’s staff shredded records in the hours before he left, while McLaughlin himself took numerous boxes out of the Locke Street administrative offices on his last night as executive director.
A state takeover of a housing authority is exceedingly rare, but Coakley and Patrick say it’s justified in Chelsea, where the entire city was once in state receivership. State housing officials say the resignation of McLaughlin and the board has left a leadership vacuum at an agency that manages housing for 1,400 low-income families, receiving millions in funding from the state and federal governments.
“As our office moves forward with its own investigations, we hope this strong action today will help prevent the further abuse of taxpayer money,” said Coakley in a statement. 
If approved, the receiver would report back to the SJC within 90 days. By that time, Patrick administration officials say, a new board of directors -- one named by Patrick, four by Chelsea city manager Jay Ash -- should be ready to resume normal oversight.
Scott Allen can be reached at allen@globe.com. Andrea Estes can be reached at estes@globe.com
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Monday, October 24, 2011

MOUSE PARTICIPATES IN FUNDRAISER FOR HOMELESS FAMILIES



I am sorry that I have not posted much this month.  I have been busy building a cardboard house.  I started my house long before Oct 14, as I sit on two national phone calls of different subsidized tenant groups who have been working to change the way HUD does business.

Personally I am not sure how much good we are doing with HUD, as I hear there is still some portions of HUD that are still under the impression that the Elderly, poor, and disabled are locked into their apartments, don't know how to read and really don't care about the policies, procedures, or laws surrounding low income housing.

I can say though, some of the language that appears in some of the housing bills, and laws that our voted collective voice (Politicians) have been discussing, voting on and trying to protect from the current scourge  of ever challenging budget cuts has been constructed by and with some of the people from the Resident Engagement Group, National Alliance of HUD Tenants, and good people like Catherine Bishop, from the National Housing Law Project , and Barbra Sard, from the Center of Budget, Policy, and Procedure, and former HUD appointed Senior Adviser for Rental Assistance. 


I may be a mouse in the weeds, but at least I am willing to put my (experience) two cents in, regardless of the outcome.
I wish more Montana Low-Income, Senior, Disabled Residential Rental Tenants would come and learn with me.