Skate Park Opening Delayed.
The grand opening of
the Skate Board Park located in the Fair
Acres Sports Complex has been postponed
for at least a week due to the discovery
of an easement question. Apparently an
easement was placed on the property when
power lines were built to service the
electrical sub-station just south of the
complex. A KAMO Power employee noticed
the construction of the skate park and
brought the easement issue to the
attention of City employees.
KAMO Electric
Cooperative, Inc. (KAMO Power), with
headquarters in Vinita, Oklahoma, is a
Generation and Transmission (G&T)
cooperative serving 17 member
distribution cooperatives in northeast
Oklahoma and southwest Missouri.
According to City
Administrator Tom Short, City Attorney
David Dally is working with KAMO
attorneys to work through the hold up.
Park Administrator
Allen Bull says he thinks KAMO envisioned
a larger project and was concerned about
the proximity of the skate park to the
power lines. Bull thinks once they
understand the project, the opening will
not be further delayed.
Some
Banks in Govt’s ‘Healthy
Bank’ Bailout Are Struggling.
by Paul Kiel,
ProPublica www.propublica.com
A growing number of
small and midsize banks that received
federal bailout money have stopped paying
quarterly dividends to the government in
order to conserve capital.
The banks, reeling from
bad loans, have sometimes been ordered by
regulators to stop the payments as part
of a rescue plan.
At least 18 banks that
received bailout funds are not paying
dividends. They range in size from San
Francisco-based UCBH Holdings, which
received $299 million in taxpayer money
and recently announced suspension of the
government dividends as part of an
"action plan" to strengthen the
bank, to tiny community banks. Some have
chosen to suspend dividends, while others
have been prohibited from paying them by
regulators.
The banks aren’t
paying dividends only months after being
blessed by regulators and the Treasury
Department as "healthy." The
money was distributed through the
government’s primary bailout
program. As then-Treasury Secretary Hank
Paulson explained last October, the
program was aimed at boosting the overall
economy by investing in banks that
"will deploy, not hoard, their
capital."
The Treasury has kept
secret its criteria for accepting banks,
saying only that those approved should
prove themselves viable without the
government investment. Banks in the
program are selected for their ability to
keep lending levels up, Treasury
officials have said, and keep taxpayer
risk at a minimum.
Yet shortly after
receiving funds, two of the biggest
recipients, Bank of America and
Citigroup, which both received $25
billion through the program, were bailed
out with even more taxpayer money. More
recently, CIT Group, which received $2.3
billion late last year, has flirted with
bankruptcy.
The suspension of TARP
dividends shows that some smaller banks
in the program are struggling, too. It
also calls into question whether all of
the banks in the program really could
have survived without the government
investment. In the government’s
haste to boost the banking sector,
"there may have been decisions,
where had there been more time and
analysis, may have been made
differently," said Karen Dorway,
president of BauerFinancial, a research
firm that studies the financial health of
banks. The Treasury Department declined
to comment on the dividend suspensions.
Regulators have
intervened with a number of the troubled
banks.
California-based
Pacific Capital Bancorp, which received
$180.6 million, reached an agreement with
its primary regulator in April to hatch a
new plan to deal with its problem loans
and boost its capital levels. The bank,
which announced its intention earlier
this year to lay off nearly a quarter of
its employees, missed a dividend payment
to the Treasury soon thereafter.
In Wisconsin, Anchor
Bancorp received $110 million from the
Treasury in January. In June, regulators
issued a cease-and-desist order requiring
the bank to raise its capital levels and
putting it under strict supervision. The
bank has yet to make a dividend payment
to the Treasury.
The problems extend to
small community banks such as Pacific
Coast National Bancorp of San Clemente,
Calif. The bank received $4.1 million in
January, but regulators later clamped
down, forbidding it to increase its loans
above the amount on the bank’s
balance sheet and ordering it to raise
capital. The bank was in dire straits
when it received the bailout funds in
January, "significantly
undercapitalized" under regulatory
guidelines. But as a result of the aid,
it ascended to merely
"undercapitalized," according
to its annual report. It is prohibited by
state regulations from paying dividends.
Blue Valley Ban Corp of
Kansas ($21.8 million) suspended dividend
payments in May at the request of its
regulator, said the bank’s CEO, Bob
Regnier. But he said the move was only
cautionary as the bank deals with losses
from construction loans and doesn’t
mean the bank is pulling back on lending.
"We’re still out there making
every good loan that we can find, but
it’s a more difficult economic
environment."
One bank is seeking
even more TARP funds. Midwest Banc
Holdings ($84.8 million) suspended
dividends in May to retain cash and
announced this week that, as part of a
plan to reduce costs and raise capital,
it was seeking up to $53 million more
from the Treasury.
The Treasury has
invested more than $200 billion in 653
companies through the program, and since
the overwhelming majority of banks have
paid dividends, the Treasury had
collected $6.7 billion as of June,
according to a Treasury report. The banks
pay 5 percent annual interest on the
investment.
There is a consequence
for banks missing too many dividend
payments. After six quarterly
non-payments, the Treasury gains the
right to appoint two members to the
bank’s board of directors, a fate
some banks could face next year.
At least eight
California banks have missed dividend
payments because of state laws
prohibiting payment of dividends unless
certain earnings benchmarks are met. The
rules are designed to ensure that banks
pay dividends out of earnings, something
that’s more difficult for younger
banks.
Fresno First Bank, a
3-year-old community bank, is among those
eight, but Chief Financial Officer Steve
Canfield said the bank expects to gain
approval from state regulators to pay the
dividends on the $2 million investment
later this summer. The bank plans to use
the TARP money primarily to fund the
bank’s "very, very rapid"
growth, he said. "It wasn’t our
intention to take the money and stiff the
government."
Court
decision on Pledge of Allegiance.
Jefferson City, MO
– Attorney General Chris Koster
lauded the St. Francois County Circuit
Court decision to dismiss a lawsuit
against Judge Kenneth Pratte for
beginning each day in court with the
recitation of the Pledge of Allegiance.
The Attorney
General’s Office defended Judge
Pratte in the lawsuit. Robert Stamm, Sr.
and Robert Stamm, Jr. sued Judge Pratte,
claiming a violation of their First
Amendment rights guaranteeing free speech
and prohibiting the establishment of a
religion.
Koster said it was
Judge Pratte’s practice, upon
entering the courtroom, to invite those
present to remain standing for the Pledge
of Allegiance. The judge then faced the
flag and led the recitation of the
Pledge.
"The court’s
decision to dismiss this case protects
the rights of our judiciary and our
citizens to express their patriotism to
our country," Koster said. "The
decision also leaves open the opportunity
for everyone in the courtroom to be
reminded of the right to ‘liberty
and justice for all.’"
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