The dramatic last-minute Congressional move to fund the federal government until November 17 means that the National Flood Insurance Program will remain intact for at least that long. Created by Congress in 1968, the program insures more than 5 million homes across the country, providing hundreds of thousands of dollars of flood coverage when such is required to secure a federally backed mortgage. The program’s last multi-year reauthorization expired in September of 2017. In the six years since, the program has been extended nearly two dozen times. According to a recent press release issued by the National Association of Home Builders, past disruptions of the program have “caused immediate and widespread impacts on property sales, home values, and consumer confidence.” In a letter sent to Congressional leaders before the budget deal was forged, the NAHB said any disruptions in the program “may have a significant negative economic effect on home builders, home buyers, multifamily developers, and renters.” As reported in the publication Insurance Journal, a lapsing of the flood insurance program could jeopardize as many as 1,300 real estate closings on a daily basis. On the other hand, should Congress prove unable to keep the program funded, “private flood insurers will no doubt see an increase in business.” Analysts studying the program say that while its extension is vital, a more serious financing issue still needs to be addressed: the program is operating in the red, with its flood fund losing nearly $1.9 billion last year. Kentucky Senator Rand Paul has pushed for a complete review of the program’s financing, remarking in open Senate debate, “We’re told that the program is funded through insurance premiums. But the premiums are below the market rate, and so the program is eternally and consistently short of money.” Paul has proposed that the program should not be tapped into by wealthy homeowners. “If you have a half-a-million-dollar mansion on the beach, guess what, you get to buy your own insurance,” he remarked. By Garry Boulard
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Future facility upgrades and heating and cooling system improvement projects may soon see funding in a small western Colorado school district. Voters in the Telluride School District will decide in November on a $31.8 million bond that is also designed to fund science lab upgrades at the Telluride Middle/High School. But perhaps the most unique feature of the bond is its support for the expansion of workforce housing in a part of the state where the average one-bedroom monthly rate now stands at around $3, 000. As proposed, the bond would fund the development of around 30 new housing units and will also being used to acquire land to build future housing. Ultimately, according to district documents, the goal is to provide housing options for roughly one third of the district's roughly 150 employees. Hannah Richman, vice-president of the Telluride Education Foundation, has noted that the district has lost teachers because of a lack of affordable local housing. "We want to make sure we can always attract and retain high quality teachers," Richman told the Telluride Daily Planet. Increasingly, many towns and school districts in Colorado have been trying to tackle the affordable housing challenge through a variety of means. A group called the Colorado River Board of Cooperative Education Services is spearheading the construction of tiny homes for teachers and staff in the towns of Aspen, Carbondale, and Parachute. And the affordable housing efforts has also seen the Colorado Department of Transportation announce a plan to build housing for employees working on road projects. One particular project in the town of Frisco is seeing the building of a 22-unit housing complex. By Garry Boulard Southern Arizona School District Hoping for New Bond to Keep Up with Increasing Facility Demands10/2/2023 Voters in a growing school district in southern Arizona populated with buildings that are more than 30 years old will decide on a big bond this November to fund upgrades to those buildings. Located in Maricopa County, the Gilbert Public Schools district is one of the oldest in the state, having been founded in 1913, and one of the largest, with more than 34,000 students. Earlier this year members of the Gilbert Public Schools’ Governing Board voted to put on the November ballot a question proposing a $100 million bond designed to address a wide array of facility needs. Among the projects to be funded, if the bond passes, is $63 million in both critical building upgrades as well as the replacement of several structures. Some $12 million will target district-wide safety and security work, while another $12 million will go for technology infrastructure work. According to district documents, there is currently a backlog of around $178 million in outstanding facility upgrade projects. A report earlier compiled by the Framingham, Massachusetts-based Amerisco, a firm specializing in infrastructure upgrade work, the average age for a Gilbert school building is now about 32 years old. A recent story in the Gilbert Sun News reports that the district has been spending between $20 million and $25 million to maintain the condition of its facilities. The district’s enrollment growth, jumping from around 29,000 in the year 2000 to the current just over 34,000, reflects the overall population growth of the city of Gilbert itself, which has gone from 109,000 two decades ago around 270,000 today. By Garry Boulard In a swift series of moves, both houses of Congress passed a stopgap plan to keep the federal government running until mid-November, with President Biden signing the measure just hours before a government shutdown deadline. In so doing, Congress and the President agreed to extend government funding at current levels. With a divided membership and angry debates, the action was focused on the House, where the plan was approved on a 335 to 91 vote. The vote in the Senate was 88 in favor to 9 opposed. “The American people can breathe a sigh of relief: there will be no government shutdown,” Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer of New York declared after the upper chamber approved the plan. “We’re going to keep the government open,” exclaimed House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, who is facing a move calling for his ouster among some members of his caucus for backing the plan. In signing the bill, Biden declared: “We should never have been in this position in the first place,” noting that the administration and Speaker McCarthy had forged a budget agreement several months ago. Despite the vote approving the stopgap plan, notes the New York Times, the measure is “only a temporary solution to the spending fight, which is likely to be quickly rekindled.” In the weeks ahead, members of Congress are expected to tackle such thorny issues as the overall size of the federal government budget, and both increased funding for border security and aid to Ukraine as the November 17 government funding deadline nears. The bill signed by Biden includes $16 billion for disaster relieve, and also reauthorizes, at least until November 17, the Federal Aviation Administration. Had the measure not passed, it was expected that up to 800,000 federal employees would have been sent home, with a variety of agencies closing down. According to sources, a government shutdown would have also put on hold any number of federal transportation construction projects and would have also seen the closing of some federal museums and parks. The shutdown would have additionally forced the Small Business Administration to delay processing small business loans. Congressional attention is now expected to focus on the appropriations for fiscal year 2024. Top funding levels, notes the publication Government Executive, “were previously set under the Fiscal Responsibility Act, a law that raised the debt ceiling and set spending caps through fiscal 2025.” By Garry Boulard New Mansion Purchase Underlines Denver Area's Cherry Hills Village Continuing Price Dominance10/2/2023 A new home purchase in metro Denver's Cherry Hills Village illustrates the prices that property in the exclusive section can fetch. According to multiple sources, former Denver Broncos running back Terell Davis has just purchased a 7,000 square-foot home in the Village for $3.3 million. The seven-bedroom mansion, located at 10 Foxtail Circle, was sold through the offices of Realty One Group Premiere, and represents only the latest significant sale in a thriving neighborhood where the median family income is more than $430,000. Last year Denver Broncos quarterback Russell Wilson and his wife, singer-songwriter Ciara, also made a Cherry Hills Village purchase of a $25 million, four-bedroom estate. Just before the pandemic outbreak, a home belonging to former Level 3 Communications chief executive officer James Crowe sold for $11.6 million, Cherry Hills Village, notes the publication Forbes, "regularly ranks amongst the wealthiest towns in America," with an average home value of around $4.8 million. Recent listings on the site Realtor show mansions of a fairly recent vintage ranging in price from $1.9 million to just under $29 million. With an average size of 7,000 square feet, according to the Denver Post, homes in the village in the last 12 months "stayed on the market for an average of 40 days." Located around 10 miles to the south of downtown Denver, Cherry Creek Village has enjoyed a steady, but not explosive population growth over the last two decades. Just under 6,000 called the village home two decades ago, while today that number is up to around 6,400. Although Cherry Creek's numbers are all on the buoyant side, it is still not the richest town in America, says the publication Veranda. That distinction belongs to Atherton, California, 35 miles south of San Francisco, where the average median family income is $525,300, and the average home value around $7.8 million. By Garry Boulard Plans have now been announced for the building of a modern research and academic library on the Tempe campus of Arizona State University. The facility will honor the late John McCain, who served in Congress for 35 years, representing Arizona, and was the 2008 Republican nominee for president. The facility, to be called the John S. McCain III Library, will be built on a 22.5-acre site to the direct north of the main campus. According to plans, the building will include an archive housing McCain’s papers relating to his long public career, as well as a visitors’ center. The structure will also be the Arizona home to the McCain Institute, which is headquartered in Washington and tasked with studying leadership and public policy issues. By design, the new 80,000 square-foot library will be located so as to provide an elevated view not just of the campus itself, but also the Rio Salado riverbed and Tempe Town Lake. The new library project will actually see the construction of several buildings surrounding a landscaped site that has been owned by the university, but underused, since the 1980s. The site itself is regarded as historic Native American land, a fact alluded to by Jacob Moore, special advisor to ASU President Michael Crow. In a statement, Moore said the university intends to work with area Native American communities to “ensure that the planning and design process incorporates their interests and sensitivities and honors those lands as Native American lands.” While a timetable for both the development and eventual construction of the McCain library has not yet been released, the ASU Foundation, which focuses on donor support for the university, has announced that it will soon launch a fundraising campaign for the project. By Garry Boulard Congressional analysts are predicting that Congress will not be able to reach a budgetary agreement in time to avert a government shutdown this coming weekend. That shutdown, notes USA Today, is “moving from possible to likely as Congress has failed to cut through gridlock and reach a deal to fund the federal government.” With the government scheduled to run out of funds on Sunday morning, the Senate is closing in on a bill that will allow for the government to be funded until November 17. But the picture remains muddled in the House, where a handful of members are continuing to hold out for substantial budget cuts that most likely will not win approval among a majority of members. Meanwhile, House Speaker Kevin McCarthy has told reporters that he’s open to establishing a commission that would be tasked with coming up with solutions to decreasing the national debt. If established, the commission could be used as a tool to keep the government operating until a budget deal can be reached. “A number of members have been pushing the debt commission,” said McCarthy, adding that it would be a “very bipartisan committee.” According to a variety of sources, a shutdown would impact the operation of national parks, the funding of federal college grants and loans, a wide array of food assistance programs, and federally funded preschool programs, among other services. New Mexico Congressman Gabe Vasquez has remarked that a government shutdown would see the closing of the White Sands National Park and the Carlsbad Caverns, adding that those closures would “affect the local economies of those areas like Carlsbad, Alamogordo, and Las Cruces.” In Arizona, Governor Katie Hobbs has promised to use revenue from the state’s lottery to keep the Grand Canyon National Park open. “The Grand Canyon is Arizona’s greatest treasure,” Hobbs remarked in a statement. “My administration’s commitment to keeping this wonder accessible remains unwavering.” Similarly, Colorado Governor Jared Polis has issued an executive order mandating the Colorado Department of Natural Resources to develop a plan to keep the federal parks in the state open. In issuing that order, Polis remarked that the “closure of the national parks and other federal lands would hurt state and local economies, small businesses, and park employees.” In order to keep the government funded, Congress is required to pass a dozen appropriation bills, with each of those bills providing funding for a defined government function and needing to be approved by the appropriations committees of both the House and Senate. Because time is short, it is thought that lawmakers will instead approve a short-term stopgap measure to keep the government in business, although some House members have previously expressed displeasure with the stopgap process. Those members have sent a letter to McCarthy saying that until spending cuts are implemented, among other things, “no member of Congress can or should be expected to consider supporting a stop-gap funding measure.” By Garry Boulard An historic mansion built in 1889 in downtown Denver that has in recent decades been used for office space is on the market with an asking price of $2.3 million. Located at 1244 Grant Street, the two-story Creswell Mansion was designed by well-known regional architect John Huddart and has been listed on the National Register of Historic Places for nearly fifty years. The 5,700 square-foot building, with a sturdy red sandstone exterior, is in every way a visual wonder, with a unique combination of Queen Anne and Romanesque Revival design styles, and an interior featuring original wooden floors, detailed paneled stairwell, fireplace mantles, and stained-glass windows. In documents nominating the mansion for admission to the Register of Historic Places, it was noted that the structure "sits on a stone foundation and is capped by a multiple gable roof with three dormers, two on the south side, and one on the north." Built for businessman Joseph Creswell, who was president of the Colorado Marble and Mining Company, the building later housed both physician and lawyer's offices. A separate two-story building to the rear of the property, built in 1933 and measuring around 2,300 square feet, is also a part of the listing, which is being offered by the Denver office of realtor Marcus & Millichap. By Garry Boulard Colorado voters may be confronted next year with a referendum asking for new taxes to fund construction of a long-planned passenger rail service. That service, as envisioned, would be supported by the building of 180 miles of tracks from Fort Collins in the north to Pueblo in the south, running roughly adjacent to Interstate 25. An eventual future expansion of the line could well include parts of Wyoming and New Mexico. A November 2024 referendum, as pushed by Colorado Governor Jared Polis, would propose funding for a project that some experts believe could eventually cost as much $14 billion to completely build out. According to an earlier study, the Front Range rail service would have the ability to accommodate up to 2 million passengers a year in the eastern half of Colorado that is seeing the greatest population growth. State officials have previously commissioned technical studies laying out the scope and parameters of the new line and have been buttressed by public opinion polls showing that nearly two-thirds of voters support the creation of the service. To move things along, members of the Colorado State Legislature voted to approve a Front Range Passenger Rail District, which became official in the summer of 2022 and is empowered to study and design the new line. The district will also be tasked with maintaining the rail line itself should it someday become operative. State officials throughout the West have been particularly interested in the passenger rail question primarily because so much funding out of Washington, in the tens of billions, is currently in play. Speaking to a gathering of transportation experts last week, Polis, according to the site Colorado Newsline, remarked: “It’s not a question of whether there’s going to be any passenger rail service within the United States, but the question is, will Colorado get a train, or will Texas or California get a train?” The Governor added: “We want to make sure Colorado gets passenger rail.” Supporters of building the Front Range rail service have worried that even though opinion polls have shown support for the concept, a backlash over raising taxes may doom the referendum. At the same time, they note that putting the question on the November 2024 ballot at the same time as the presidential election would guarantee a larger voter turnout presumed to favor of the proposal. By Garry Boulard Latino-Owned Businesses Seeing Big Increase in Small Business Administration Loans, Says New Report9/28/2023 The number of Small Business Administration individual loans to Latino-owned businesses has increased by more than 2,200 since 2021, representing an unprecedented dollar value of more than $2.8 million. Those figures, just released by the SBA, show that in 2017 the agency approved just over 5,600 individual loans, a number that fell to just under 3,900 in the year 2020. But an active outreach effort on the SBA's behalf in the past two years has seen the numbers jump from around 5,200 in 2021 to just over 7,300 this year. In a statement, Isabella Casillas Guzman, SBA Administrator, remarked that "America's more than five million Latino-owned businesses create jobs, deliver over $800 billion to our economy every year, and add to our nation's competitiveness." The share of Latino-owned business loans, when compared with all SBA loans, has increased as well, jumping from 8.2% in 2017 to 12.2% this year. Two SBA loan programs have proven particularly useful for Latino businesses: the 7(a) Loan offering, which provides guarantees to lenders supporting financing to small businesses for working capital. A second initiative, the 504 Loan program, provides long-term, fixed-rate financing of up to $5.5 million for major fixed asset purchases by small businesses. According to Census Bureau figures, the states with the largest percentage of Latino-owned businesses are all located in the Southwest, with New Mexico, at more than 15%, leading the way. Texas is a solid second with just under 12% of its businesses being Latino-owned, while the number of Latino-owned businesses in Arizona and Nevada stands at around 6%. In announcing the increased government loans for Latino-owned businesses, an SBA release also noted that a current small business boom has seen the "fastest creation rate of Hispanic owned businesses in more than a decade--over 20% faster than pre-pandemic levels." By Garry Boulard |
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