Financing

CARSON CITY — The Nevada Rural Housing Authority team was presented with the 2013 Pioneer in Housing Award (Large Agency) from Nan McKay & Associates at the 2013 NMA Housing Conference, held in San Diego earlier this month.

According to NMA the judges were greatly impressed by the Nevada Rural Housing Authority’s home financing program to expand homeownership opportunities in the rural parts of the state.

Northern Nevada Consumers can now choose from a dozen preferred dealers for special pricing and financing through Greater Nevada Credit Union (GNCU) membership. Carson City Toyota Scion is GNCU’s newest preferred dealer, joining eleven other dealers in Carson City, Reno and Elko.

After years of limbo and uncertainty, the Chateau project at the corner of Highway 50 and Stateline in South Lake Tahoe will once again see the light of day.

The city of South Lake Tahoe issued a building permit Friday for the $400 million project, referred to as "the hole" by many locals, which has been stalled since 2008 after financing dried up.

“Thank you to City Council and staff for working extensive hours on getting this project started again and reinvigorating the local economy,” said South Lake Tahoe Mayor Tom Davis.

Stanford Mortgage and Coldwell Banker Select Real Estate will be joining forces to host The Most Elite Real Estate Networking Event in Northern Nevada. “

Assemblyman Pete Livermore, Carson City Mayor Robert Crowell and members of the Nevada State Prison Preservation Society assembled late Tuesday afternoon to witness Gov. Brian Sandoval sign off on the recommendation to study the feasibility of turning the historic prison into a visitor's museum/attraction.

Carson City, NV – NxLeveL business planning course is coming back to Carson City after huge success with more than 30 business attendees in the March 2012 class. Western Nevada Development District has once again provided the funding for what has become the most popular and successful business planning course throughout countless Nevada communities. This award-winning program has provided the tools to start and grow a small business to more than 3,000 Nevadans.

In a 5-2 decision the Reno City Council on Wednesday approved restructuring the financial agreements amounting to about $30 million related to the Reno Aces baseball stadium project. Council Members Brekhus and Schieve opposed the plan.

Carson City's Board of Supervisors on Thursday gave a green light to two-lane traffic and parallel parking downtown on Carson Street.
The board voted 4-0 for a motion directing staff to solidify plans for micro-paving and re-striping the street, as well as finding financing, with prospects for action this summer.

“It is my heart-warm and world-embracing Christmas hope and aspiration that all of us-the high, the low, the rich, the poor, the admired, the despised, the loved, the hated, the civilized, the savage-may-eventually be gathered together in heaven of everlasting rest and peace and bliss-except the inventor of the telephone.”
— Mark Twain, Hardford, Ct. Dec. 23, 1890

What are we voting on? The only design that has some cost estimates is a grandiose wish list with artist’s renderings presented in July 2011 that has been pared down and down… down to what? Vote NO on CC #1.

Cost estimates vary from $28M to $49M (plus financing costs), depending on what’s included. Even with the tax hike, the intent is to raid NNDA, sewer, federal and private funds. Vote NO on CC #1.

The concept dated July 2011 shows a grandiose wish list for a public-private development. Where is the pared down wish list that CC #1 asks us to approve? Vote NO on CC #1.

Library Habits, Library Innovations

RBS Financial Products will pay a $42 million settlement to resolve an investigation into the firm’s role in purchasing and securitizing subprime and payment option adjustable rate mortgages in Nevada.
The assurance of discontinuance, filed in Eighth Judicial District Court, requires RBSFP to commit to certain changes in its practices to the extent it securitizes Nevada mortgages and to pay the State $42 million to be used for payments to affected borrowers, mortgage fraud enforcement, and foreclosure prevention, and attorney’s fees and costs.

CARSON CITY – With U.S. Sen. Harry Reid’s 5^th annual National Clean Energy Summit set to kick off today in Las Vegas, the debate over alternative energy development and the government’s role in its future rages on.

This is the second in a series of four articles on a recent sightseeing and fishing trip that Elaine and I took to the Yukon in June. This one is about an unforgettable train ride over White Pass Summit.
We arrived in Whitehorse late on June 18 and the next morning, we left, bright and early, for an all-day combination tour bus and train ride from Whitehorse, Yukon to Carcross, Yukon; to Fraser, British Columbia; to Skagway, Alaska; and then the return to Whitehorse.

CARSON CITY – The leader of the Assembly Republican Caucus today used a Tuesday reporting deadline for candidates running for election this year to announce several proposals to require more accountability and transparency in the financing of campaigns in Nevada.

The Carson City Board of Supervisors this afternoon voted to form a committee whose job it will be to come up with the wording for a ballot question asking voters to approve of the Carson City Center Project, aka Nugget Project.

Because the previous plan for funding the project proved unworkable, the ballot question would ask voters to approve a quarter cent sales tax increase to fund it instead.

It started off with a grand $90 million vision. Then it shrank to $50 million. Now, the Carson City Center Project, aka Nugget Project, looks like it got downsized again, this time to $28 million.

According to the agenda for the May 17 Board of Supervisors meeting, the board will consider directing City Manager Larry Werner to draft a ballot question asking voters to approve a quarter cent sales tax increase to finance the $28 million project.

What got cut? Mainly the parking garage.

CARSON CITY – They have names like “A Better Nevada PAC”, “A Bolder Nevada” and “The Nevada Hispanic Legislative Caucus”.

They are all political action committees formed or renewed by state lawmakers this year to help promote their parties, push their candidates and protect their ranks in an effort to maintain and/or win control of the Assembly and Senate.

The Northern Nevada Development Authority's monthly breakfast on Feb. 29 at the Carson Nugget will feature Steve Hill, director of the Governor's Office of Economic Development. Hill will share the new strategies and plans for developing a stronger and more effective economic development structure throughout the State of Nevada.

Key elements of The Plan include:

• Coordinate & execute regional planning
• Regional & sub-region branding

RENO – Gov. Brian Sandoval used the University of Nevada, Reno today as a backdrop to unveil his economic development plan, and he challenged the business community and all partners to work to create 50,000 new jobs by the end of 2014.

CARSON CITY – A firm hired in January to take over operation of the state’s Medicaid billing and information systems has failed to complete the first key step in the process by an August deadline and has been given an extension to Dec. 5.

CARSON CITY – It has been a dream of many Nevada and California officials for more than two decades but a 185-mile high speed rail line between Las Vegas and Victorville may soon become a reality.

CARSON CITY – Scott Beaulier is no fan of states borrowing money, but in his new working paper on transitioning public pensions to 401(k) style plans to reduce taxpayer liabilities to pay retirement benefits, the Troy University professor says it is an option worth considering.

CARSON CITY – It isn’t just fraud, but waste and abuse of Medicaid funds that state officials are taking aim at as the cost of the health insurance program for children, seniors and the disabled continues to climb.
Charles Duarte, administrator of the state Division of Health Care Financing and Policy, which oversees the Medicaid program, said efforts to identify fraud, waste and abuse have been stepped up since 2005 when only two staff in his office were dedicated to these important tasks.

(press release) Las Vegas, NV – Nevada Attorney General Catherine Cortez Masto today announced that she filed an Assurance of Discontinuance with Morgan Stanley Mortgage Capital Holdings (“Morgan Stanley”) to resolve an investigation into the firm’s role in purchasing and securitizing roughly 3,000 subprime mortgages in Nevada.

CARSON CITY – As Nevada policy makers get set to examine the state’s public employee pension plan in advance of the 2013 legislative session, a new report from the Center for State and Local Government Excellence offers some timely advice on how other government agencies have accomplished the difficult task.

I was just finishing up a column about how far the Nugget Project has come, from a vague, unrealistic plan that left the city on the hook for the whole bill, to an exciting, well-designed public-private partnership that deserves our qualified support.

But I was forwarded an email this morning that almost makes me want to change my mind.

It's been almost two years since I first heard about the Nugget Project.

Back then, the plan was very vague, a public-private partnership that could add up to $90 million. The city's part of this project would be a 1/8th cent sales tax increase and money from the redevelopment fund equaling approximately $25 million.

CARSON CITY — The Secretary of State’s Securities Division has issued a cease and desist order to a Wyoming company doing business in Nevada to stop selling shell corporations registered with his office because it is a securities violation.

I don't pay a lot of attention to the Reno Gazette-Journal for Carson City news. It's been years since they shut down their bureau here, and I haven't seen them do much original reporting about our city since then.

But I ran across this correction to their story on this week's Nugget Project meeting, and had to laugh. It's one thing to blow the original story, but the correction blows it, too.