County banking with LOCAL BANKS & credit unions! Email action
Dear fellow folks for making the world better:
Two weeks ago, Santa Cruz County took a bold and wonderful move, issuing a directive to stop doing all county business with the 5 BIG BANKS (convicted felons). ...ABOUT TIME a governmental body did this.
I have emailed Supervisors Gorin (Chair) and Carrillo and proposed that this item be on the agenda for the July 28th meeting, or another meeting, soon:
That Sonoma become the second California county to cease all business with the 5 largest banks (all convicted for felonies for billions of dollars) and that the County have fiduciary relations with local credit unions and banks only.
The language of Santa Cruz County can be used intact:
29.1 Direct that the County's investment policy be modified to reflect that the County of Santa Cruz will not do new business for a period of five years with Citigroup, JP Morgan Chase, Barclays, Royal Bank of Scotland, and UBS as specified, and further direct that the County unwind existing relationships with these five banks to the greatest extent feasible, as recommended by Supervisor Coonerty
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The MAJORITY vote of the Supervisors will put this on the agenda.
To support his, please contact Susan Gorin and other Supes. EMAILS at bottom. Thanks!
If you CC me, I can keep track of support, and notify you of progress.
Blessings of integrity and actual democracy,
Judith [email protected]
[email protected]
[email protected]
[email protected]
[email protected]
[email protected]
Re: County banking with LOCAL BANKS & credit unions! Email action - REPLY
Well, folks, here's the letter I got from the county's Treasurer. Note that he says that it's just "a few rogue individuals who TARNISHED THE COMPANY NAME"- clearly unaware of (or unwilling to admit to) the pervasive national and international systems which have completed the largest redistribution of wealth in history upwards to the super-ultra-rich.
MY QUESTION to you readers is:
How many of you emailed or called your supervisor about this? I got zero cc's.
How many of you still keep your money with the banksters?
How much are YOU willing to actually DO to make change happen?
Onwards, Judith
Ms. Iam:
Thank you for contacting the County of Sonoma with your suggestion. Supervisors Carrillo and Gorin asked that I review your email regarding a proposed board item for the July 28th Board of Supervisors meeting. After reviewing the proposal, however, I cannot recommend pursuing the suggestion that we cease doing business with the five banks indicated because such a change would ultimately harm the County and/or the Treasury and this office has a fiduciary responsibility to both. For example, you may have read about our recent refinance of the Open Space bonds in the Press Democrat last week. The process of refinancing those bonds included many bidders, including some of the banks you mention. Without their participation in the bidding process, the final interest rate may not have been as low, costing us part of the savings we were able to realize as a result of the process. Likewise, the Treasury does some business with a couple of the firms listed and cannot operate by dealing with local banks only since they are not able to provide the safety and liquidity needed for Treasury operations.
While it is true that the firms you indicate in your email each had a few rogue individuals that tarnished the company name, I cannot support a proposal that may not be in the best interest of the County and its Treasury.
Thank you again,
David E. Sundstrom, CPA
Auditor-Controller-Treasurer-Tax Collector
County of Sonoma
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Quote:
Posted in reply to the post by Jude Iam:
Dear fellow folks for making the world better:
Two weeks ago, Santa Cruz County took a bold and wonderful move, issuing a directive to stop doing all county business with the 5 BIG BANKS (convicted felons). ...ABOUT TIME a governmental body did this.
I have emailed Supervisors Gorin (Chair) and Carrillo and proposed that this item be on the agenda for the July 28th meeting, or another meeting, soon:
That Sonoma become the second California county to cease all business with the 5 largest banks (all convicted for felonies for billions of dollars) and that the County have fiduciary relations with local credit unions and banks only.
The language of Santa Cruz County can be used intact:
29.1 Direct that the County's investment policy be modified to reflect that the County of Santa Cruz will not do new business for a period of five years with Citigroup, JP Morgan Chase, Barclays, Royal Bank of Scotland, and UBS as specified, and further direct that the County unwind existing relationships with these five banks to the greatest extent feasible, as recommended by Supervisor Coonerty
****************************************
The MAJORITY vote of the Supervisors will put this on the agenda.
To support his, please contact Susan Gorin and other Supes. EMAILS at bottom. Thanks!
If you CC me, I can keep track of support, and notify you of progress.
Blessings of integrity and actual democracy,
Judith
[email protected]
[email protected]
[email protected]
[email protected]
[email protected]
[email protected]
Re: County banking with LOCAL BANKS & credit unions! Email action - REPLY
dian, i'm a bit preoccupied right now - it would be GREAT if you'd answer that and let us all know! best, judith
Quote:
Posted in reply to the post by sealwatcher:
Judith - you put some work into this and the response was disappointing both from wacco readers and the county. How did Santa Cruz bring this into being?
Re: County banking with LOCAL BANKS & credit unions! Email action - REPLY
AHA: here's information (in the interview) on that very thing, and from the PUBLIC BANKING INSTITUTE, the very direction we need to go in...
https://prn.fm/its-our-money-with-el...-now-07-22-15/
Re: County banking with LOCAL BANKS & credit unions! Email action - REPLY
sorry to add another post, but this just in (also from PUBLIC BAKING INSTITUTE), with good response to our county treasurer Sundstrom:
The Bank-Banishment Campaign: News from Multiple Fronts
posted by Matt Stannard
July 26, 2015
In May, Citigroup, JPMorgan Chase, Barclays, Royal Bank of Scotland and UBS Group AG pled guilty to felonies, while Swiss Bank had cooperated with federal authorities early on; all had manipulated international exchange rates and national currencies, ruining millions of lives. The federal government made them pay paltry fines. Nobody went to jail and no serious threat to any of those banks' profits exists.
Fed up with this kind of garbage, County Supervisors in Santa Cruz, California, directed the county not to do business with any of those banks for five years--after which they'll be subject to review. The idea was widely lauded and the press coverage widely shared. Citizens are pressing for similar measures in San Louis Obisbo, and in Sonoma County, a private citizen, Judith Iam, saw what Santa Cruz County had done and wrote an engaging email to Efren Carrillo of Sonoma's Board of Supervisors asking that Sonoma make a similar decision. Supervisor Carrillo gave the email to David E. Sundstrom, Sonoma County's Auditor-Controller -Treasurer-Tax Collector, who then responded to Ms. Iam that he could not "recommend pursuing the suggestion that we cease doing business with the five banks indicated because such a change would ultimately harm the County and/or the Treasury," which does "some business with a couple of the firms listed and cannot operate by dealing with local banks only since they are not able to provide the safety and liquidity needed for Treasury operations."
Chicago teachers feel differently. Risky interest rate swaps have ruined the funding source for Chicago public schools. In the early 2000s, Chicago Public Schools, taking the advice of traders rather than responsible policymakers, switched from bonds that had reliable fixed interest rates to bonds issued at floating rates that could be "swapped" with other bonds, hopefully to decrease the impact of cost fluctuations. As market conditions deteriorated, the swapped payments got much, much higher, a worst-case scenario that CPS had failed to consider.
But teachers and their allies are fighting back in a way that honors Santa Cruz and the need for a national strategy. According to Chicago public schoolteacher Jim Vail: I along with almost a thousand other people quickly signed onto the latest Chicago Teachers Union email blast to boycott the Bank of America for helping wreck havoc on the Chicago Public School system.
"I pledge to Boycott Bank of America until they renegotiate toxic swaps that have cost Chicago Public Schools and the City of Chicago more than $1 billion. I also ask that Illinois Attorney General, Lisa Madigan, begin public hearings to investigate the tremendous financial damage caused by toxic swaps on Chicago and our schools."
The CTU email further stated that Bank of America among others (how about JP Morgan - Chase?) manipulated the real estate market that caused the Federal Reserve to bring interest rates down to almost zero percent and then cities like Chicago lost millions having bet that interest rates would rise.
The Bank of America "knew that the market was headed for a 'meltdown,' (but) the bank did not warn CPS, which is in violation of the federal fair dealing rule," the flyer reads.
Chicago recently paid $200 million to terminate the "toxic" deals, about the same in cuts to school funding by the Emanuel administration, CTU further states.
But Vail asks: where should CTU members (almost 30,000) put their money? Into other too big to fail banks like Chase or Citibank who also negotiate toxic swaps with cities and screw the schools?
The answer, of course, is a public bank, and Vail and his group should sit down with Amara Enyia and others in Chicago to discuss the benefits of either Illinois legislation or a Chicago-specific public bank.
That's also an answer to skeptical county officials in Sonoma, of course. Where the credit process is made public and easy for reliable and important public entities, there's no need for risky behavior, or for cities and counties to do business with criminals--convicted or unconvicted. What better way to guarantee the oversight and "fiduciary duty" Mr. Sundstrom writes of than for the city or county to run its own bank?
Re: County banking with LOCAL BANKS & credit unions! Email action - REPLY
Two weeks ago, encouraged by the news from Santa Cruz County, I wrote a letter to the Santa Cruz County supervisor Ryan Coonerty, who made this bold move. I asked how we could continue the movement here in Sonoma County. He replied promptly, and told me we could get information on which of the Wall Street banks we are involved with from our County Treasury.
Mr. Coonerty told me it was "relatively easy." I told him was concerned that it would negatively impact a county financially and asked that question point blank to him. He replied that "there have been no financial repercussions so far."
He also offered to work directly with our administrators to help them get the ball rolling, if they contact him.
I sent this information to Efren Carrillo, and asked him to contact Ryan Coonerty himself, and to respond to my letter that he was going to do so. As of today, I have no response from Efren Carrillo's office.
I then sent an open letter to residents and officials of Sonoma County to be published in the Sonoma County Gazette suggesting that Sonoma County follow suit. I believe it will be printed in the next issue.
Efren Carrillo writes a monthly column for the Gazette, so if he somehow did not see my email to him, he most surely will see my letter in the paper. Maybe he is on vacation, so I am giving him time.
To everyone who reads this post, Judith Iam is right on. Sure, it is almost impossible to fight the government on the federal level, and I can understand disgust, resignation, complacency. But I believe change happens locally, small, with passionate people, and spreads to another small passionate group, until there is a groundswell... a movement.
THIS IS OUR CHANCE NOW, to put pressure on our county officials to do what they can to punish the felons.
But it can't be done with a few posts in Wacco. It has to gather momentum.
1. Contact supervisor Carrillo (or your supervisor) and ask him why we can't begin to divest from the Wall Street banks.
2. Transfer, if you can, your accounts from a large corporate bank to a local community institution, like a credit union.
3. Tell your friends and family members. Post of Facebook, and attend meetings that address the issue.
4. Get informed. Robert Reich, former Secretary of Labor and current Professor at U.C. Berkeley, is vocal and passionate about the movement, and maintains a blog at www.robertreich.org.
I will follow up if I ever get a response from Supervisor Carrillo, and report what he says.
Chris
