Foreclosure Pets Phenomenon Intensifies

From News 10:

The Sacramento SPCA...is seeing a dramatic jump the number of animals being surrendered by owners who are going through foreclosure...During the last four months of 2007, the Sacramento SPCA took in 176 dogs and cats from people who said they were surrendering them due to "moving," said [Director Rick] Johnson. That is 100 more than the same four months in 2006. Johnson doesn't see the situation getting better any time soon.

From the Sacramento Bee:

The Sacramento City Council approved the $130 million sale Tuesday of its Sheraton Grand Hotel and garage on J Street – along with an unusual agreement to return about $23 million of the city's profits to the buyers as subsidies for additional downtown projects. Council members voted 8-1 in favor of the sale despite a public admonition by interim city Treasurer Tom Berke that more review is needed, particularly given the depressed state of the real estate market. He suggested the city might hold on to the hotel longer and wait for prices to rise.
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Other council members called the price fair, and expressed fear that market conditions would deteriorate further and the deal would evaporate...Councilman Steve Cohn, addressing Berke, said, "If you're correct about how severe this recession is, now is exactly the time to sell.
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In a brief appearance at Tuesday's council meeting, [David] Taylor said the Sheraton deal provides a way to keep downtown redevelopment alive during a bad economic cycle. "We were frankly seeing so many projects die downtown over the past 18 months that we were concerned about our ability to perform on some of the downtown projects we've been working on," he said.

From the El Dorado Hills Telegraph:

More than 70 people packed the main room of the senior center to ask questions and listen to updates about area road issues from a guest panel consisting of Richard Shepard, Department of Transportation director, Russ Nygaard, DOT deputy director, supervisors Rusty Dupray and Helen Baumann, and Captain Bill Donovan, of the California Highway Patrol.
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Shepard and Nygaard were unable to give specific timetables for the completion of many DOT projects because of lack of funding, which Shepard said is directly tied to the housing market. "We’re facing a housing slowdown at the moment," Shepard said. "And 50 percent of our Capital Improvement Program revenue comes from housing development fees."

From the Associated Press via the Washington Post (hat tip Housing Wire):

Anticipating a surge in troubled financial institutions, federal regulators aim to increase by 60 percent the number of workers who handle bank failures. The Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. wants to add 140 workers in the division that handles bank failures, bringing the total to 360, said John Bovenzi, the agency's chief operating officer.
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Gerard Cassidy, managing director of bank equity research at RBC Capital Markets, projects 150 bank failures over the next three years, with the highest concentration coming from states such as California and Florida where an overheated real estate market is in a fast freeze.