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Published Tuesday, May 24, 2011 | 11:29 a.m.
Updated Tuesday, May 24, 2011 | 1:12 p.m.
Las Vegas mayoral candidate Chris Giunchigliani has released a second campaign commercial slamming her opponent Carolyn Goodman.
This time, it's about foreclosures.
The ad quotes Goodman as saying the city should "work with the banks and move up the foreclosures." Goodman also says housing "prices are back where they were in the 70s. What a wonderful opportunity for people to come here."
Goodman made the statements during recent debates. She said cheap housing could be used to lure new companies and residents to the state.
But Giunchigliani uses the quotes to point out that Goodman is out of touch with the Las Vegas economy. More than 80 percent of residents are under water. Many have lost their homes. Those who have staved off foreclosure have seen their property values tank.
"Families losing everything," the Giunchigliani ad says. "Another issue Carolyn Goodman doesn't understand."
It's the latest salvo in the increasingly contentious mayoral race.
Last week, Giunchigliani released a commercial accusing Goodman of riding her husband’s coattails and of being unprepared to be mayor. Goodman shot back with an ad that portrayed Giunchigliani as mean and hard to work with.
To coincide with the debut of her latest ad, Giunchigliani released a list of proposed ideas to combat falling housing prices. She suggested working with homeowners associations to maintain homes' curb appeal, coordinating with the Las Vegas Valley Water District to ensure that trees and shrubs are watered, using the city business licensing department to crack down on illegal and unethical mortgage companies, and looking into establishing a registration process for banks so that the city can hold them accountable for houses they own.
“Home ownership is the largest, most significant investment most Las Vegans make,” Giunchigliani said. “The city cannot sit idly by as thousands of vacant homes fall into disrepair and drive down the value of adjacent homes."
Goodman spokesman Bradley Mayer said Giunchigliani took Goodman's statements out of context and misrepresented her position.
"Carolyn Goodman knows that we need to stabilize our housing market before our economy can begin to recover. Stabilizing the housing market is going to require participation from the banks and that’s why Carolyn has said as mayor, she will be a voice to hold the banks accountable to make sure they are doing everything they can to keep people in their homes," Mayer said.
Chris G. is the one out of touch on this issue. Home prices were badly inflated and *needed* to collapse. They probably could stand to drop a little further, but at least now they are in a reasonable range for the available pay (for those lucky enough to have a job.)
Have people been hurt by the collapse? Hell, yes, but the blame for the collapse can be spread far and wide, including some of the buyers who were just looking for a fast buck by flipping.
Goodman is right, now is a much better time to contemplate buying a house in Las Vegas if you plan on living here. It is ideal for those who can telecommute like I do (other than NVE getting ready to up rates during peak hours.)
Chris G is out of touch if she thinks that many HOA's are in the financial position to maintain all the vacant properties. With the foreclosures HOA's are writing off huge amounts of bad debt that either will force the increase in assessments for everyone else or a reduction in services.
She also better get out there if she wants the HOA's to be a solution and not a burden on the community blight by talking to the state legislatures before they pass bad law that makes collections more difficult and costly for the HOA's on unpaid assessments.
I got to agree with Goodman on promoting low cost housing to fill the vacant houses. While I am underwater sooner we fill the vacant houses sooner we will see a bottom and we can see prices stabalize. More responsible homeowners in homes pay their HOA assessments and taxes which means more stable money for HOA and local government to maintain the few blight properties we might be left with.
a vote for chris guinchiliani is a vote for this...
http://transparentnevada.com/salaries/cl...
Desperation - Just like Rory!
Chris G's go away party can't come soon enough!
Gulag Giunchigliani's latest desperate hit piece on Goodman isn't going to change anything.
I finally went on that transparent Nevada salaries site and is it me or are 90% of the highest salaries firefighters?
Thanks Birdie for the info
Do we have that many fires to justify these payouts? Wow - What a shakedown!
Maybe John ought to do a story on Fires - How many fires in the County - What does it take to fight a fire (based on statistics), If there is an allegation of inherent risk, as justification for the high payout, compare the risks to actual harm/incidents/deaths of fireworkers and other workers (police officers, construction workers on freeways, construction workers constructing gov't projects, etc.
I just don't understand how it is possible to justify these salaries.
There is no justification for these salaries, and chris g is one of the commissioners that are a shill for the public sector unions.
Take a drive thru summerlin and see all the expensive trucks with fire fighter license plates. There has been no recession for those guys. They are getting theirs on the taxes of the struggling workers.
Thanks chris g, you are a lifetime politician who knows nothing but how to spend/waste other peoples money.
Vote for Goodman, she is not great, but she is better than chris g.
Chris G. is desperate and when she is desperate her hateful nasty side comes right out. She cant win if she runs a clean campaign because she has been a total failure on the clark county commission. She has been there and ignored all the fire fighter abuses etc etc. So dont be fooled by a career politician. They stink. Id rather go with someone who doesnt know politics but knows the real world problems and can bring a different perspective rather than the same old tired politics.
Carolyn Goodman does not understand the concerns of ordinary people. She has never had to worry about money and simply waits for her mob husband steal money from the city. ChrisG is the only candidate who would do something to help people underwater on their homes.
And no, it is not a good thing that people have lost hundreds of thousands of dollars on the value of their home. If Carolyn Goodman thinks homeowners being in dire financial straights is good for las vegas an i petrified for the city if she wins.
This is why I am not voting. What choice do I have?
Mrs. Goodman: Bozo's wife has no problem with people losing their homes. Yeah, let's foreclose on those homes and drive property values down so we can attract businesses here. Just leave some property downtown so my relatives and friends can profit from 'redevelopment'.
Chris G: She wants to force me and my neighbors to improve our 'curb' appeal? Hey Chris, you do not know what the hell you are talking about.
Neither of these morons have a clue. I have a 60 year old home in LV (non-hoa thank goodness). My property is worth less than half it was 3 years ago. It is very simple. For whatever reason why property values were high 3 years ago, and how, or why people got loans, the housing crash is simple. When people got behind, the bank foreclosed and sold off the loan, taking a big loss. The losses mounted, credit tightened, less people could get loans or had the cash, so property values dropped. More people fell behind, and as property values dropped, more people were willing to walk away. The banks just keep on doing the same thing. They don't own the mortgage so they just want to unload the property as quickly as they can, but they don't want to loan any money, so the only ones buying property are investors. In a two square mile area of my house I challenge anyone to show me more than 10 houses that have been bought as primary residences. The houses in my area sell for cash, by investors, who rent them out; there's no turnover here, and they find renters. Of course, my property taxes are a lot less, but then how is the county going to make that up over time when the cap is %3? Answer: they're not and you are just going to see more urban blight spring up like weeds, so great if you live over there, but screw you if you live over there
The mayor has little influence over foreclosures, but the city (whole council) could do a lot more than they have been helping neighborhoods. I vote we go 'belgium' and get rid of the whole city government and start over.
Oh, and thank you city government for spending $47,000 dollars to send out a flier last week explaining how you are doing. Thank you for wasting the time it took to move it from the mailbox to the trash.
Hey look, Goodman's Goons have learned how to post on the Sun's website!!
Their anger proves one thing: this ad hit the target. Carolyn Goodman is woefully out of touch when it comes to issues of real Las Vegans. She has admitted time and time again that all she knows is businessmen and showgirls, not real people.
Chris has used her free time, even while campaigning, to clean up abandoned, foreclosed homes in her district. I've sat with her in a foreclosure crisis planning meeting and she had a list of ideas to clean up blighted neighborhoods and how to pay for it. She also had ideas of how to hold all the players involved accountable.
Carolyn may know all the power players, but she doesn't know the people of Las Vegas. Now has come the time to end the reign of governing that puts business, profits and under the table goodies above people and our neighborhoods.
Vote for Chris G, vote for a better Las Vegas!
Why do you all think Oscar's wife understands this or any issue? She and Oscar live in a world of money, privilege and mobsters.
Las Vegas, Carolyn doesn't have a plan. The only plan she has is how she can have the title and Oscar can call the shots.
Tine for a serious candidate that knows the issues and can work towards fixing them. That candidate is Chris G.
Isn't it interesting how Goodman's goons tried to flip the discussion to fire fighters (a non issue since Chris was first to call for an audit) instead of answering for the issue that Carolyn Goodman wants to accelerate the rate of foreclosures in our community.
This just shows that Carolyn doesn't just want to ignore our homeless population like Oscar is so fond of -but - she wants to add to it!
Carolyn's plan KILLS curb appeal because vacant houses no one can buy because they are unemployed just brings more blight to our neighborhoods.
If an incentive existed to HOAs to maintain properties themselves rather than the expense our city has through neighborhood services to document then hold hearings about them would save us all $$$. Really am I the only one who stays up late watching city council meetings on tv?
My HOA has the right to fix my front yard after I have failed to comply and bill it to my home. We purchased a foreclosure home 2 years ago and more than $8k of the price was to the HOA for fees and maintaining the property for the year it was vacant. Why not give HOAs incentive to do this for all communities? They recover from the lien when the property sells but without an incentive to wait on payment most communities will just let a property fall into disrepair. Using neighborhood services for each and every property with a city employee, notices, 3 hearings, then the city placing a lien alongside the HOA is ludacris when the HOA can just do it for abandoned properties and save us all $$$.
Chris proposes cutting a level of bureaucracy and you can't stand it?
Carolyn Goodman said it - "move up the foreclosures" and we believe her on that promise to bring more blight, vandalism, and hopelessness to our neighborhoods as we add more homeless to our community. Yet another issue she is entirely unprepared to lead!
"[Goodman] has admitted time and time again that all she knows is businessmen and showgirls..." - LauraK
And your point is? Those people are exactly the reason that Las Vegas exists today. Do you think this city, or the state for that matter, would have even a third of its current population if it did not embrace gambling and other forms of adult entertainment?
If those are the only people Goodman knows, then at least she knows the fundamentals of what this city is all about. That is more than I think Chris G. understands.
Hey there Chris whatsyername.... what did you about the firefighter sick leave abuse? Oh, you did NOTHING? Why is that, Chris whatsyername? Oh, you say you didn't know it was happening? Even WORSE! Vote for Carolyn Goodman !!
Chris Giunchigliani was the first to call out fire fighter abuses and demand and audit. Enough said.
Chris G. was the first?!? Cite your source. Just a few months ago the Sun ran a story quoting Chris G. saying she was not aware of the problem months after Sisolak was raising Cain over it.
From the Sun on Feb, 1 of this year: http://www.lasvegassun.com/news/2011/feb...
"Commissioner Chris Giunchigliani said she was disappointed in how widespread the problem was.
"Many of us were under the illusion it was just a handful, and if you look at this document, you see that it's not," she said, referencing a report from the arbitrator."
Thank you for asking for my source in addition to the official statement from Chris regarding waste in government you can find it in the county record.
http://www.chrisgformayor.com/pdf/GA1102...
Chris G. didn't say squat until it was already painfully obvious that there was a major problem in December of last year. Sisolak has been rasing the issue since at least March of 2010. ( http://www.lasvegassun.com/news/2010/mar... )
She was hardly the first. (And a campaign website isn't the best reference.)
chris g jumped in on the ff after she saw which way the wind was blowing. She is a career politician and union shill.
We had the chance to get some fresh blood with real world experience. But vegas blew that.
The choices now are chris g and goodman.
At least goodman ran a private school, and created jobs.
A vast segment of the population lost their homes when they lost their jobs and couldn't find new work. For those lucky enough to find new work, many took substantially lower salaries than they were accustomed to making(and what their household budget had been set on). Still others had catastrophic medical illnesses that disabled them from the job and depleted their assets trying to pay the bills. For the ones who did buy over their head, you still have to wonder how many loan officers and mortgage companies talked them into bad loans with promises that the market would correct itself in no time. It is incorrect to say that the majority of people who are losing their homes brought the situation on themselves.
If the public knew how many homes are being held back right now to avoid another major hit to the housing industry we would all be sick. Releasing all those homes into the market would have the opposite effect of what some of the posters here describe.
But let's just examine what would happen if these homes get bought up. Who is buying them? Take a look at the last two quarterly reports of home sales in the valley and you'll see that the vast majority were sold to investors. Not people who intend to live in them as their primary residence. Not families, not first-time homeowners or retirees. Investors. What are they going to do with them? Fix them up a little and then wait for the market to be ripe to sell them for a profit.
Carolyn Goodman may think that selling all those homes to investors is a good way to go. But how is that going to help the ones who lost their home, have no job, and have no ability to get either back? Who wins?
The investors are running around with loads of cash in their pockets right now to make those great buys. The only ones who win with the arrangement Goodman advocates is the investor and the bank. The people still suffer. And Carolyn Goodman couldn't seem to care less.
chris g is a wench, pure and simple. you see her at her best, campaigning. she a horrible politicians but she knows how to knock on a door and tell you what you wanna hear. those of you that just moved here dont see why she's trailing in the polls...cause she believes she entitled to be mayor...its her destiny! because she is better than everyone else.
Find out for yourself who is fit to be mayor.
http://nextvegasmayor.com
I've voiced my disgust over the FF scandal and I have voiced my strong opinion that serious reform of, and reduction in, FF compensation is required. But Chris G is not the one who has defrauded the taxpayers. It was the FF's themselves, and only those that actually did it, at that. Chris G. may be pro-union, but show me one scintilla of evidence that she ever set out to defraud ANYONE.
Meanwhile, does anyone out there really believe that the Spouse is anything but a proxy for the perpetuation of Good Ol' Boy Oscar's regime? More than any other person, Oscar is responsible for hustling and rubber-stamping all the failed and bankrupt eyesores that plague the Downtown skyline and continue to suffocate the city's housing market and overall economy. We paid $330 million for a new city hall we didn't need so that we could gift the perfectly good one we had, plus 11 acres of taxpayer-owned land, to Zappo's for a paltry $25 million. We gave taxpayer-owned ball fields that kids and families used at Freedom Park to a private, for-profit concern for the next 25 years. We gave Billy Walters sweetheart land deals that smack of corruption. We gave away choice, downtown property to Boyd Gaming for ONE DOLLAR...
The ripping off of the taxpayer went on and on, and so it will if The Spouse is allowed to continue the scamming and the stupidity.
Don't put The Spouse/The Sham into office just because some FF's were bad apples. Cutting of your nose in spite of your face is just what Oscar and his spouse have always counted on.
Carolyn Goodman is just Oscar in Drag. The money pipelines are in place, vote for Carolyn to keep them there.
August 11, 2008 -- Clark County Commissioner Chris Giunchigliani thanked fire fighters with Clark County Local 1908 yesterday for helping elect her to office and said the endorsement of fire fighters has significant influence. "I would not be here today greeting you if it weren't for Local 1908," Giunchigliani said.
"You are the first responders in politics, as well. The fire fighters' endorsement ranks first, above teachers and police. A lot of responsibility comes with that. You can be a guide. You can be a voice for common sense. Your work in politics gives real voice to real people with real needs."
Interest rates are simply incredible on mortgages right now. It's not uncommon to see 30 year rates down in low fours and 15 year rates in the threes. Week after week, the rates keep dropping If you are looking for rates in three then search online for "Mortgage Refinance 123" and learn how to do refi.
Chris is not worthy of my vote:
coddling to firefighters and a vulgar mouth used in official proceedings.
Spammers -- like the one directly above -- can fester in hell...
stephenrblv
Unless you're implying that *the reason* Chris G. supported the FF is so that SOME of them could abuse the system (and to imply so would be to imply a lie), you don't have a point. We all know Chris G. is a proud, pro-union, public official. But she didn't defraud ANYONE and nobody is even remotely saying that she did, or ever would. The quote that you cite was made three years ago -- this whole scandal didn't come to light until last year. Now Chris G. has never defended the FF's behavior -- she is against it. Kudos to Steve Sisolak for his work to bring all this to our attention. But I've never heard that Chris G. ever interfered with or impeded him. All the insinuations that Chris was somehow 'in on this scandal' are just plain false.
To everyone who keeps trying to smear Chris with what the FF's did:
As I indicated directly above, if it's corruption and scandal you want to investigate, have only a cursory look at the tenure of the present mayor. That is, unless your are the same folks who have been gullibly believing his crap ever since he proclaimed "the Mafia doesn't exist." (You know, some people who have been around here a long time just happen to say that it was "those who don't exist" who actually bankrolled Carolyn's plaything, that school that she claims to have built and operated herself...).