THE PREDATORY MR. PERATA

While He Was State Senator, Don Perata Took A Half A Million Dollars In Mortgage Broker Contributions While Trying To Kill An Oakland Ordinance That Would Have Saved Many Oakland Homeowners From Foreclosure

West Oakland family talk of eviction from their home by a mortgage lender in a 2009 press conference (from the article "Foreclosed And Evicted In West Oakland," BayView Newspaper, July 30, 2009

It was called the home foreclosure crisis of the last decade, and an Oakland ordinance might have prevented it.

According to a recently-released story in New America Media, "between 2006 and 2009, one in four mortgages in Oakland, affecting 14,941 property owners, began to enter into foreclosure." That is the finding contained in a recent report by the organization Causa Justa Just Cause, "Rebuilding Neighborhoods, Restoring Health.”

“Communities of color are the worst hit,” Alameda County Public Health Department Deputy Director Dr. Sandra Witt told New America Media. ("Foreclosures Are Making People Sick" New America Media, September 3, 2010)

It was called the foreclosure crisis, with both new and long-term homeowners losing their homes to banks and mortgage companies, and it swept across Oakland and across the entire country.

In 2001, the Oakland City Council passed a "predatory lending" ordinance that would have stopped many of these foreclosures. It would have helped many Oakland families keep the homes they had owned for many years. It would have stopped many Oakland families from getting into bad deals when they tried to buy homes, and would have kept their home ownership dream alive. The 2001 Oakland "predatory lending" ordinance would have helped slow down—and maybe even helped to prevent—the mortgage foreclosure crisis of the last 10 years.

Don Perata tried to kill Oakland's "predatory lending" ordinance.

Perata—who was a State Senator representing Oakland at the time—worked against the Oakland ordinance in the state legislature while taking more than half a million dollars in contributions from Ameriquest, a mortgage lender that was opposed to the Oakland "predatory lending" ordinance.

"[I]n the late summer of 2002, when it looked as if the subprime industry was going to lose [a] court battle [against the Oakland "predatory lending" ordinance] and Oakland's tough law was going to go into effect, Perata sponsored a bill that would have killed it and a similar ACORN-backed ordinance pending before the Los Angeles City Council. Perata's legislation would have specifically 'preempted' cities from enacting predatory lending ordinances.

"At the time, the senator was taking large donations from Ameriquest, an Orange County subprime lender that strongly opposed Oakland's law. According to campaign finance reports, Perata and political committees closely associated with him accepted at least $200,000 in contributions from Ameriquest before he sponsored the bill that would have shot down Oakland's law. In all, Ameriquest donated at least $591,000 to Perata or committees closely associated with him from 2001 until late 2006, when the company went out of business because of its history of giving out lots of bad loans and preying on low-income borrowers who couldn't afford to pay them back.

"In fact, Perata and the committees continued to take hundreds of thousands of dollars from Ameriquest even after the attorneys general of 49 states, including then California Attorney General Bill Lockyer, had charged the company with widespread fraud. Moreover, the Perata committees accepted more than $237,000 from Ameriquest after the company settled its legal troubles with California and 48 other states in January 2006, and agreed to pay $325 million. Ameriquest ceased operations later that year.

"After Perata's support for the legislation became public, ACORN and other consumer advocacy groups eventually convinced him to abandon the bill." [From "ACORN Foresaw The Foreclosure Crisis In 2001," East Bay Express, September 29, 2009]

Oakland's bill was eventually killed by the State Supreme Court, and hundreds of Oakland homeowners lost its protection, and lost their homes.

[For The Full Story]

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The Case Against Don Perata For Mayor Of The City Of Oakland

Back in the spring of 2008, articles began appearing in several Bay Area media outlets promoting the candidacy of outgoing California State Senate President Don Perata for mayor of Oakland in the 2010 elections.

In response, Oakland journalist J. Douglas Allen-Taylor wrote a column for the Berkeley Daily Planet newspaper giving a brief history of the political career of Don Perata, and saying why he thought Perata would be a bad choice for Oakland mayor. The column was called...

BRACE YOURSELF, OAKLAND

From the UnderCurrents Column of the Berkeley Daily Planet newspaper
By J. Douglas Allen-Taylor
March 28, 2008

Back South, they say that if a single buzzard passes over your rooftop, don’t pay it no mind. But if you see a couple of them circling, you best check out in the yard. They’re most likely looking for easy pickings.

Not that I’m calling San Francisco Chronicle columnist Chip Johnson and political consultant and columnist Clint Reilly buzzards, but both of them—seemingly independently, but you never know—have suddenly come up with the idea that outgoing State Senate President Don Perata ought to be Oakland’s next mayor.

Now where in the world did Mr. Johnson and Mr. Reilly get that idea, one wonders.

In mid-February, Mr. Johnson wrote a column ["Oakland's Mayor Politicks As People Are Killed"] that criticized Oakland Mayor Ron Dellums for being out of town and, therefore, failing to address a recent rise in murders and violent crimes in the city. A discussion on whether or not that constitutes a valid criticism of Mr. Dellums by Mr. Johnson will have to wait until another time. But way, far down in the column, Mr. Johnson mentions Mr. Perata as someone he believes would be a good alternative to Mr. Dellums. “[Mr. Perata] will be termed out of office next year and has his own future to look out for,” Mr. Johnson writes, “and if Dellums isn't up to the job, his seat might be a good fit for a veteran East Bay politician.”

That seems like unintentionally insightful writing on Mr. Johnson’s part, the fact that Mr. Perata as Oakland mayor is all about Mr. Perata and where he needs to land after hopping out of Sacramento, rather than what is needed for Oakland. Keep that point in mind as we move closer to the Oakland 2010 mayoral election.

[To the full UnderCurrents column]

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