September 28, 2010

Paladino for the People
PO Box 447
Buffalo, NY 14205
Attn: Campaign Manager

Dear Campaign Manager for Carl Paladino,

Please allow me to ask a few simple questions about your opponent:

Since when does the executive branch of a state get to write law?  Does not American Politics 101 explain that it is the legislative branch that writes the laws and the executive branch that executes it?  Then why is Andrew Cuomo as Attorney General allowed to write new law (or rather regulation) for Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac?  How can a man whose job it is to enforce the law, not know the law?  I thought ignorance of the law is no excuse!

Please thank Mr. Paladino for running against Andrew Cuomo.  I see from his web site that he is a true conservative and even is supported by the Tea Party Movement.  As a former New Yorker, I still take an interest in New York politics.  Most recently I have taken an interest in Andrew Cuomo, who, by all the information that I can gather, has single handedly destroyed not only my business, but also my industry.

I am a builder of unique homes called dome homes.  (If you wish to know more about my business you can either go to www.LeitgebIndustries.com or www.Monolithic.com.)   Below outlines the “accomplishments” of Andrew Cuomo and how he destroyed my industry:

New York Attorney General Andrew M. Cuomo, with just a simple threat of a lawsuit, got Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae to agree to never again purchase a single loan from lenders that refuse to meet new appraisal standards these folks have come up with. Now Fannie and Freddie happen to still be the largest purchasers of U.S. home mortgages in the country. They HOPE that the new standards will ensure independent and reliable appraisals.

Read more: http://www.articlesbase.com/mortgage-articles/fannie-mae-and-freddie-mac-adopt-new-appraisal-standards-354663.html#ixzz10haawqcM
Under Creative Commons License: Attribution

Andrew Cuomo is credited with the Home Valuation Code of Conduct (HVCC).  Dave Biggers wrote an article entitled, “HVCC: The Cure Is Worse Than The Disease” and in this article published by Appraisal Press, he wrote the following:

At first glance, the HVCC and the agreement that spawned it seem like an appraiser's dream. Both lead off with language regarding the need for sound appraisals produced free of any influence or coercion on the part of the lender or any other party. Perhaps for that reason, many appraisers initially applauded it. But, as is always the case with any governmental or even de facto regulation, the devil is in the details. And in this case, here at a la mode we believe the details create a misleading and dangerous environment for both borrowers and for appraisers.

The rest of the article can be found at their web site and offers many valid points in addition to my own.

Here is how these regulations impacted my business.  As a builder of unique homes, there are not always many appraisers in an area familiar with my kind of home.  If there was one person in an area familiar with dome homes, then that is the person who should do the appraisal.  Because the appraisals are now required to be chosen independently in a round-robin style, there is no guarantee that the bank  or mortgage company will get an appraiser familiar with this kind of home.   I am told that mortgage companies, fearing complexity, have stopped asking for appraisals for any kind of unique home and that appraisal companies, fearing fines, have stopped giving them.   This “appraiser independence” is actually detrimental to the building industry under circumstances such as mine.

Monolithic dome homes are unique homes constructed with concrete.  Considering that these style homes can protect a man's family from hurricanes, tornadoes, earthquakes, floods and even nuclear attacks, one would expect the government to “roll out the red carpet” for the industry.  One would think that government would have an invested interest in building a stronger America.  This is apparently not the case.

One might think that a man as prominent as NYS Attorney General Andrew Cuomo would have thought of allowing for exceptions for unique homes, but he did not.  One might also think that a man as prominent as NYS Attorney General Andrew Cuomo would realize that such regulation/law would be better if it was debated in Congress, but apparently this is not the case.  (As my grandmother used to say, “Two heads are better than one... even if they are cabbage heads.”)

Apparently I am not the only one to feel this way.  The American Spectator wrote the following in a September 24th article by John Berlau entitled, “No Regulation Without Representation”:

On page 8 of the 21-page document [Pledge to America], in the section entitled "Our plan to end the uncertainty and create incentives for job growth," there is an important sub-pledge to "rein in the red tape factory in Washington." It makes the important point -- one that CEI and other free-market groups have long been stressing -- that "excessive federal regulation is a de facto tax on employers and consumers."

More importantly, this section contains a substantive idea that would in effect regulate the growth of the regulatory state. The document states: "We will require congressional approval of any new federal regulation that has an annual cost to our economy of $100 million or more. This is the threshold at which the government deems a regulation 'economically significant.' If a regulation is so 'significant' and costly that it may harm job creation, Congress should vote on it first."

There are also rumors of additional regulations.  These regulations allegedly require an appraiser to do a comparison to a similar home that has sold within x miles within y months.  So I recently sent in a FOI request to Andrew Cuomo's office asking this very question.  I received the following response, “Your request requires that we perform legal research.... The Freedom of Information Law does not require us to perform legal research to locate a record.”  This response leaves me feeling stonewalled.  If they wrote the law, then they should have the law at their finger tips.  No legal research should be required.

Additionally, I am appalled at the hypocrisy.  Here the man is applauded for solving the mortgage loan crises when by all indications, he was the one who caused the problem in the first place.  The following is the start of an article found on directorblue.blogspot.com entitled, “The Fannie Mae testimony that will make you scream in anger” posted September 27, 2008.  

In 1997 President Clinton's HUD secretary, a man named Andrew Cuomo, claimed Fannie Mae had exhibited "racial discrimination" and proposed that 50 percent of the GSEs' (Fannie and Freddie) loan portfolio be made up of loans to low- and moderate-income borrowers by 2001.

[Clinton appointee] Andrew Cuomo... made a series of decisions between 1997 and 2001 that gave birth to the country's current crisis. He took actions that... helped plunge Fannie and Freddie into the sub prime markets without putting in place the means to monitor their increasingly risky investments. He turned the Federal Housing Administration... into a sweetheart lender with sky-high loan ceilings and no money down, and he legalized what a federal judge has branded "kickbacks" to brokers that have fueled the sale of overpriced and unsupportable loans. Three to four million families are now facing foreclosure, and Cuomo is one of the reasons why.

Of course, I have come to understand that technically Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac are not truly government agencies, so Andrew Cuomo will likely argue that he simply influenced these two private companies to implement his “good” ideas.  We all know the complexities of these quasi-governmental agencies.  It appears that government can circumvent even our constitutions by changing a few definitions.  I hope and pray that Mr.  Paladino will address this issue as well when he is in office.

I can be reached at 864-433-1410 if you have any questions.  Additionally, please consider talking to David South, President of Monolithic Inc.  His number can be found at www.monolithic.com.

Today I found the following in the South Carolina Constitution:

Section 8. Separation of powers.

In the government of this State, the legislative, executive, and judicial powers of the government shall be forever separate and distinct from each other, and no person or persons exercising the functions of one of said departments shall assume or discharge the duties of any other.

If you could find a similar article in your New York State Constitution, Andrew Cuomo's career is over.  You can remind him of the old adage, “Ignorance of the law is no excuse.”

Sincerely,

Larry Leitgeb

CC: Monolithic, Russ & Lisa Show, other news sources