Wells Fargo cites condition of city-owned houses in its defense

An attorney for Wells Fargo offered a detailed and spirited rebuttal Monday to the city of Baltimore’s legal claims that the bank targeted African Americans for predatory loans, which led to hundreds of home foreclosures and millions of dollars in government expenses and lost tax revenue.

The city sued the bank last year, alleging reverse redlining in majority black neighborhoods, a practice that it contends ultimately cost hundreds of city residents their homes, expanded Baltimore’s stock of vacant and abandoned properties and increased the crime, rat and safety problems associated with them. In depositions for the city, two former employees of the California-based bank have described racially-discriminatory practices and incentives to steer high-cost loans to African Americans.

But Andrew L. Sandler, an attorney for Wells Fargo, disputed the city’s allegations in a hearing before U.S. District Judge Benson Legg. He derided the city’s case as a “theory in search of a lawsuit” and provided financial information on a handful of Wells Fargo foreclosures – data not previously disclosed — that undermined key elements of the city’s lawsuit. Read the rest of this entry »

VACATION NIGHTMARE: Woman sues Maryland resort town in carbon monoxide poisoning deaths of husband and daughter, charging emergency crew with lax response.  Yvonne Boughter of Lebanon, Pa., claims four hours went by before a fire and rescue squad arrived at her Ocean City hotel, despite several 911 calls for help. The tragedy occurred three years ago. Here is a report on the $20 million lawsuit.  

ALL IN A DAY’S WORK: Anne Arundel fire fighters get a call for a  cockatoo on the loose and it’s no joke. The wayward pet took refuge in a  tree in a Pasadena neighborhood, well beyond the reach of its panicked bird-sitter. Said a fire department spokesman, “these types of calls are tricky.”  

JUDGE COULD RULE AS EARLY AS TODAY IN CITY’S BIAS SUIT AGAINST WELLS FARGO BANK: Bank seeks dismissal, describes complaint as lacking merit and, filed by a city “thirsty for revenue.”
U.S. District Judge Benson E. Legg is set to rule on whether the 2008 complaint can go forward. The city claims the bank routinely steered black lenders toward pricey subprime loans and touched off a wave of foreclosures that have cost the city millions.
Related link: The Chicago Reporter has released another study of lending practices in Baltimore, as well as Chicago. This one shows that Wells Fargo borrowers of all races and income levels got high-cost mortgages more often for properties in black areas. In Baltimore overall, according to the study, borrowers earning at least $200,000 received high-cost loans from Wells Fargo less than 6 percent of the time during 2007. But those same well-qualified borrowers got high-cost loans at a much higher rate—10 of 21 loans, or nearly 48 percent—for properties in metro Baltimore’s predominantly black census tracts, in west and northeast Baltimore.

By GERALD NEILY
A long time ago, the City killed most of its plan, hatched in the 1960s, to build the “3-A Expressway” across town. The part of 3-A that did go forward, the replacement of US 40 on Franklin and Mulberry Streets with a nine-block-long chasm, displaced thousands in west Baltimore.

Now, some 40 years later, the city is still promising to fulfill one promise made as part of the old 3-A plan. They say they will build a series of “caps,” developable land bridges across the highway to heal the split-apart community.

That goal is great, but this solution is not:  it doesn’t make economic sense, and these band-aids suspended over a river of traffic won’t foster a sense of community. Plus, the City’s latest plan is that the work on the project wouldn’t be completed until after 2043 …. a good 73 years after the original promise. Read the rest of this entry »

Tyler Chambers, 13, fishing at Chesterwood Park, less than a mile from the Sparrows Point steel mill. Photo by Fern Shen.

A special report by MARK REUTTER
Something wasn’t right with the government-ordered cleanup of the Sparrows Point steel mill. The tip-off for Beth L. McGee, senior water quality scientist for the Chesapeake Bay Foundation, was the level of contamination in sediment samples brought to light last year not by state or federal regulators, but by a third party.

The new sediment tests indicated that environmental conditions in the waterways near the Point had not improved and, in fact, many hazardous chemicals were in greater concentrations than what was reported back in 1996.

AES Energy Corp., which had commissioned the tests as part of its effort to put a liquefied natural gas (LNG) terminal at Sparrows Point, found sediments in the Patapsco River laced with chromium, copper, lead, mercury, zinc and other toxic metals.

“The results were alarming,” McGee said, “because they were higher than samples that had been previously collected in the harbor, including around the steel mill.” Read the rest of this entry »

Franklin-Mulbery streets remade, with massive mayoral mug shot. (click to enlarge.)

As long as they’re re-imagining Baltimore’s most infamous concrete canyon – that ‘roided-up stretch of Franklin and Mulberry streets that was supposed to be an interstate highway – the folks at BaltiMorphosis have decided to go all-out.

Yesterday, they added a murals page, where you can submit your proposal for a mural that could be painted alongside the famed “Highway to Nowhere.” They provide a few ideas : a National Aquarium-themed version heavy on the clownfish motif, a graffiti design that seems a little, well, defeatist. Our favorite is the one above, with the head shots of city officials, including a “Dear Leader”-sized portrait of Mayor Sheila Dixon. Read the rest of this entry »