Cash for Clunkers or Money Out the Window?

This old wreck is what I thought they meant with this car program so it was a surprise when my friend Ted who works at a local automobile dealership described some of the vehicles they were taking in. You see he knows that I am waiting for the economy to get better so I can get a pickup truck. We used to have one, back when gas was reasonable and real estate was better. But like many folks we downsized and I'm still impatient that I can't get up into the woods and find those airplane wrecks.

Ted was saying that really well-cared for trucks and cars were turning up. He described one gorgeous-sounding 4x4 Ranger which was unsettling because it was so close to what I'm hoping to buy someday. I guess it's gas mileage was bad enough to earn $3,500 for the owner under the program towards a newer truck. It's good looks and excellent mechanical condition did not matter, which is bad enough.

But then he explained that they destroy the engine by pouring some super-bad stuff into the crankcase and then running the engine until it siezes up and thereby ruins itself, rendering the vehicle worthless. It's VIN number can never be used again which apparently is the point of the whole thing . . . delete the guzzlers and sell hybrids thus creating automotive jobs and stimulating consumer spending.

But good grief, and this is the old yankee in me, why pay me to destroy something that works just fine?!? Take the rusted Olds that smokes and gets 5 miles per gallon sure, but a nine year-old truck that's working just fine? Who thought up this dumb plan?

Readers, your input is welcome. Surely I'm missing the point here.

Saving Money in the Garden

This is a Mantis cultivator, the one you see on TV all the time churning up soil so fine it looks cosmetic. Well, for once the TV ads are true, We bought one at the Medford Grange and it works as advertised. This article is not a testimonial for Mantis, however but how a combination of things we are doing with our garden that are not only working well but saving us much of the money we had planned to spend on the garden in the first place.

First, we can get free horse manure which is great fertilizer. We don't have a horse but my daughter-in-law does so we filled her horse trailer with the stuff and Terry Brown at Terry's Nursery in Yreka says the older the better because the weed seeds get cooked out as the stuff ages and decomposes. It's pretty easy to find a horse owner in these parts and most would probably be very grateful to have you haul it away.

The next ingredient was going to be soil conditioner but I learned that Rich Linden at 523 Ski Village Drive in Mt. Shasta (926-3504) has a sawmill and he produces custom-sized lumber and large timbers for local people. He hauls a lot of sawdust and shavings to the dump every single week and he said he is delighted if people come by to pick them up and save him a trip. Bring your own garbage cans and trash bags.

Fine sawdust decomposes readily in the soils here and if the dirt is nutrient-poor like we have here in Lake Shastina and needing amendments such as soil conditioner, this is a free amendment that the Mantis can mix into the dirt along with the manure.

The cedar shavings Rich gives away can go between beds for walkways and they help repel bugs in the process. Cedar smells nice, too but is decay resistent so that's why you don't want to till it into the beds.

Finally we add grass clippings to the mix. We had our own pile to work from but it's not hard to talk a neighbor out of his collection. I even saw a small mountain of cuttings by Hoy Park that we may be able to borrow from, too.

The point is, make the mix 1/4 dirt, 1/4 manure, 1/4 sawdust, and 1/4 cut grass. When tilled several times and deeply the result is a fine, soft, and nutrient-rich soil ready to grow whatever you put in it. And all the ingredients are free for the hauling.

(By the way, I have to run over the beds several times with the Mantis in order to break down the manure clumps and mix everything up well enough and I have learned it is very helpful to have a friend spraying water behind the Mantis. An awful lot of dust is kicked up and that's not good for the air cleaner filter or for you. Be careful whom you ask to do this however, my darling wife got carried away with the hose more times than I could put off to inattention or carelessness.)

The last ingredient is going to be worms. We plan to buy the red wiggler variety the next time we go to the Farmers Market in Medford. It is going strong at this time of year and happens every Thursday on South Pacific Highway just south of the Harry and David mall. As long as we keep the beds wet over winter he little guys should thrive in this mixture and their castings are rich in nutrients which is the idea behind having worms in the first place.

This concoction is going to age over winter and when we plant in the spring I'll sprinkle ground up eggshells into the hole for each tomato, pepper, squash, and others that are subject to the blossom-end rot that got many of our plants this year.

If anyone would like to drop by and inspect our project please feel free. Our phone is 938-0385 and you are welcome to call ahead.

Mediation vs Binding Arbitration in Real Estate

Most real estate contracts contain clauses for these two procedures and while mediation is agreed to by all parties when they sign the contract, binding arbitration requires initialing. The why of that may be because they seem to be the same thing to some people, but they are very different. And while I have personally been through both activities as part of my own real estate transaction some years ago, once again I urge you to seek legal advice if you are considering either action.

Mediation is simply trying to talk your way through a disagreement with the aid of a a professional mediator. This is not between a buyer and a seller because each has an agent who negotiates for you in that arena. Rather, this is when you have a disagreement with your own broker over something and just can't work it out. So rather than hiring a lawyer and filing a lawsuit you sit face-to-face with an neutral third party to try and work through your disagreement(s). The mediator might be a retired judge or other professional and you pay for his or her services.

If this doesn't work and you have agreed in the contract to arbitration you are agreeing to obey the decision of the arbitrator and in the process, agreeing to give up two civil rights: trial by jury and the right to appeal. It is crucial that some one going into arbitration realize this ___ you can't hope a jury of your peers will decide the rights and wrongs, the arbitrator's decision is final and unappealable. This is why it must be separately intitialed on the contract, it's that important. In fact, if this clause is not initialed by both parties in the same way (both accept or both decline) the law says there is no contract.

Of course the idea is to avoid misunderstanding from the get-go and not have to go to either mediation or arbitration. This is partly why contracts are SO long and involved and, despite the work it takes, you should read every single line and ask all the questions that come to mind. That's what your Realtor is for. But once again if you are facing either of these actions and need legal advice, ask your lawyer.

CC&R Corner__September 2009

What Do You Mean My Dog Run Needs Pre-Approval?
by Will Bullington

As many of you know when you buy or rent a home in a planned unit development such as Lake Shastina there are certain rules that must be followed. These are the Covenants, conditions and Restrictions or the CC&R’s. The CC&Rs help maintain the high standards of our community. Property values statistically are higher and crime is lower in planned unit developments like Lake Shastina. Almost half the homes sold in Siskiyou County in 2006 were in Lake Shastina and over 260 homes were built here in the last few years. Everyone that buys a property agrees to these CC&Rs and any one that rents their home to another must:

1. Notify the Association in writing of the names of the tenants.
2. Give the tenants a copy of the CC&Rs.

Tenants are subject to the CC&Rs and may be evicted by the Governing Board and the cost of doing such paid by the owner of the property. Owners and tenants may be fined for violations of the CC&Rs by the Governing Board per its rules enforcement procedures.

The most important and critical role of our planned unit development is the Environmental Control Committee (ECC). Some homeowner associations call this an Architectural Control Committee. Both bodies must pre-approve improvements to properties throughout the development. This approval helps guarantee that the modifications meet the minimum construction standards of the CC&Rs, stay outside of setbacks and easements, don’t encroach into neighboring lots, and are aesthetically pleasing. Many cities control these same items through their ordinances.

The section of the CC&r states:


Section 5.1. Environmental Control Committee Approval of Improvements.

(a) Approval Generally. Before commencing construction or installation of any Improvement within the Properties, the Owner planning such Improvement must submit a request for approval to the Environmental Control Committee. The Owner's request shall include structural plans, specifications and plot plans satisfying the minimum requirements specified in the Architectural Rules (see Section 5.5 of this Declaration). Unless the Committee's approval of the proposal is first obtained, no work on the Improvement shall be undertaken. The Committee shall base its decision to approve, disapprove or conditionally approve the proposed Improvement on the criteria described in Section 5.5 of this Declaration.

(b) Definition of "Improvement". The term "Improvement" as used herein includes, without limitation, the construction, erection, or installation of any buildings, decks, fences, swimming pools, patios, driveways, ground-based satellite reception dishes, or any other structure of any kind. In addition, it also includes alteration by painting, roofing, siding, or remodeling of the exterior of any buildings or any other structure of any kind and the filling, grading, or excavation of any Lot or portion thereof.

(c) Modifications to Approved Plans Must Also Be Approved. Once a proposed work of Improvement has been duly approved by the Committee, no material modifications shall be made in the approved plans and specifications therefore and no subsequent alteration, relocation, addition or modification shall be made to the work of Improvement, as approved, without a separate submittal to, and review and approval by, the Committee. If the proposed modification will have, or is likely to have, a material affect on other aspects or components of the work, the Committee, in its discretion, may order the Owner and his or her contractors and agents to cease working not only on the modified component of the Improvement, but also on any other affected component.

In the event that it comes to the knowledge and attention of the Association, its Environmental Control Committee, or the agents or employees of either, that a work of Improvement, or any modification thereof, is proceeding without proper approval, the Association shall be entitled to exercise the enforcement remedies specified in this Declaration including, without limitation, ordering an immediate cessation and abatement of all aspects of the work of Improvement until such time as proper architectural review and approval is obtained.

The process is really painless. You may view all the CC&Rs and look for applications under “information” at our website: www.lakeshastina.com. You can print or scan the application and mail or e-mail them to our offices. Landscaping in your own yard (within your property pins) does not need ECC approval. Any landscaping done outside towards the road right-away must have the approval of the ECC and the public works department (because they might just snow plow your landscaping lights and rocks into your yard). They also have active and future utilities in these areas: gutters, drainage, curb and sidewalk, etc.

As always if you have any questions please call me at 938-3281 extension 101 and I will be glad to meet with you at our offices or your home to help you with the process.

With over 1,100 homes we have a very active ECC of five dedicated volunteers that represent all of you in maintaining high property values and they should be thanked for their excellent work.

St. Kilda

St. Kilda is a group of rocky islands west of Scotland in the Outer Hebrides, the westernmost part of the British Isles. The main one is Hirta and this is a photo of Village Bay where the small population lived. The island has been inhabited since about 2000 BC. Vikings may have settled there later although not permanently.

The island group is on the receiving end of the North Atlantic weather systems which makes landing on the islands dangerous, especially in winter. The highest recorded wind speed (198 mph) in Britan was recorded here. The only visitors were trawlermen seeking refuge from storms in this small bay. Life was primitive to say the least and the people were subsistence farmers / hunters for centuries in near total isolation from the outside world. None could read or write and the only spoken language was Gaelic. Most, adults and children, were barefoot and hygiene was poor.

The isolation defines this story. The people were crofters for the past 600 years, paying rent to MacLeod of MacLeod, the laird (chief) of the Scottish clan that owned the islands. They harvested the abundant nesting sea birds for their feathers and oil which they traded to the owner for the rent he charged them. The meat they salted for eating during winter when boats could not land to bring supplies.

This went on for generations. The small families all lived in one tiny area of the gale-blown isle (Hirta) called Village Bay. With a population never more than 200 souls everyone knew everyone else and they depended on eachother almost to the extent of being a single organism.

Then religion arrived. In the late 1600's Scotland was in the throes of a religious upheaval. Fundamental protestantism spread to Hirta and was embraced to the extent that productivity suffered. Subsistence living leaves no room for days off work but church services changed that and life became even harder. To make up for the hours lost in church, families worked into the early morning hours plucking the birds and preparing the oil before retiring. The stone hut in the foreground of the photo is a "cleit", the sod-roofed shelter St. Kildans used to dry the turf they used for fires and to dry the bird meat they used for food.

Then came the tourists. Brits by now had heard about the 'primitives' on this forgotten isle and they became curiosities. Soon the islanders were selling blown puffin eggs and the knitting they did during the dark winter months.

Enter money.

The islanders had for generations depended on eacth other. Every morning for example the men would meet in the street and decide what to do that day. (They were a talkative folk and the meeting sometimes lasted all day, with no action coming from it at all). There was no "boss", pure democracy ruled.

The seabird slaughter was always shared .... the elderly who could not climb the cliffs to catch the birds still got an equal share. Feathers and oil were for barter, to pay the annual rent to the owner of the isle.

But the population (rarely over 150) began to decline and reached a critical mass when there were not enough young men to harvest the birds. More and more the young men were supporting the older parents and some began to leave in search of a better life. As a result, fewer children were born each year and tetanus killed many. Working age men died too on the cliffs and from the boats, and the elderly and infirm suffered even more.

So in August of 1930 the Scottish government evacuated the entire village to the mainland where, unused to working for money, unaccustomed to living apart in different villages (with the man gone all day), and surrounded by English, not Gaelic-speaking strangers, the 36 survivors from Hirta struggled to make sense of it all.

Their (government) homes were better than the "black houses" on Hirta certainly. For the first time St. Kildans had running water, toilets, electricity, and dependable heat. But much of this went unappreciated by the islanders so drear was their longing for the simple island life.

All efforts before the evacuation to enable them to survive proved fruitless due to the intransient attitudes subsistence living had created. For example the little farming that was done was communal. Each family had several 3 by 25 foot strips of land to cultivate. Not very efficient in the unforgiving climate and soil conditions of Hirta, Stac Lee, and the other rocky prominences.

Even the Soay sheep, wild since time immemorial were "herded" by dogs who had their teeth filed or pulled to prevent damage when they finally grabbed their prey. Many sheep simply jumped off the cliffs to avoid brutal capture. Yet, when evacuation loomed most owners drowned their dogs rather than have them put to sleep humanely such was their limited willingness to accept new things. According to Tom Steel author of "The Life and Death of St. Kilda" (and producer of the BBC documentary "A Far Better Place"), this parochial mentality may explain the islander's sudden willingness to take the strict religion of the time so much to heart.

But cragsmen though they were, reality won out. Feathers became obsolete when cotton took over pillows. Gannet oil lost out to petroleum. Subsistance died and a money economy became the way of the world. A few McDonalds and Gilleses lived on but when this book was published (1988), most native St. Kildans were gone.

Google it. There is a big heart-felt story here.

B24 Genealogy Update....Thornburg Family Found

This is the man. Our instructor-pilot. One of four who bailed out and survived the crash on 12 June 1943 just west of Truck Village. Jennifer Bryan from the Genealogy Society of Siskiyou County actually ran down a cousin of Lt. Douglas Thornburg and she connected me with Elizabeth Thornburg of Santa Ana, CA. Elizabeth not only had this photo but a full story of his last flight, which follows:


At 7pm on the evening of July 3, 1943, B-24 #42-7011 took off from Salinas Army Air Field on a night time navigation training mission over the Pacific Ocean. A few hours into the flight, the crew discovered the plane was using fuel at an excessive rate, and turned immediately for the coast. About an hour west of Point Conception, one engine quit. Pilot "Skip" Johnson told the crew to be ready at any time to bail out, but to wait for his order.

As they sighted the light beacons at Point Conception, a second engine quit, and the bomber went into a steep dive. Navigator Peter Dannhardt and bombardier Robert Prosser panicked and exited the plane through the front landing gear doors. Johnson and co-pilot George White were able to pull the plane out of the dive and limp to Santa Barbara on two engines. At 2am on July 4, Johnson gave the bailout order and then it was discovered that Dannhardt and Prosser were missing.

All eight crew members who bailed out over land survived. #42-7011 crashed in the mountains ten miles north of Santa Barbara. Several B-24's were sent out from Salinas to look for the two missing crew members. One of them was B-24 #42-7160.

In addition to its normal ten man crew were pilot Douglas Thornburg and navigator Justin Marshall. Thornburg was in command. On the foggy morning of July 5, 1943, they were flying an east-to-west zigzag pattern over the ocean between Santa Barbara and Point Concpetion.

Another bomber reported spotting a life raft near San Miguel Island, so the crew of #42-7160 decided to go in for a closer look. They were last seen headed west, descending below the fog layer at 500 feet. At about 8am they slammed into 800 foot tall Green Mountain on San Miguel Island at full speed.

Two parachutes washed up on a beach west of Santa Barbara, but Dannhardt and Prosser were never found, and were presumed drowned. The surviving crew of #42-7011 swore their fuel system and radios had been sabotaged,but the Army Air Force accident report concluded the pilot and flight engineer had not set the fuel mixture correctly on the bomber's engines.

The wreck of #42-7160 was discovered on San Miguel Island by a sheepherder named Robert Brooks on March 19,1944. The Navy removed the remains of the crew. In 1954, hikers on the island found additional human remains near the wreck and reported this to the Air Force.

A Coast Guard cutter was dispatched from Long Beach, and en route to the island, it struck the civilian sailboat Aloha, killing two passengers. After this final incident, the Navy began using San Miguel Island for bombing practice, and blew up 20(% ?) of the wreck of #42-7160. Pieces remain there to this day.
Thank you so much Elizabeth. I hope one day you can visit our display at the museum. I will print out this photo and get it framed. And the poem which was written for his parents and reads:

TRIBUTE TO DOUGLAS THORNBURG
Just feel proud, dear mother heart,
Your precious son, a glorious part
Has taken in this world wide fray
To free all lands from Axis sway;
The silver wings that bore him hence
While you each day endured suspense,
Flashed through the sky on duty bent
The job to do with full intent;
And though his ship may missing be,
Perhaps on land, perhaps on sea,
At conflict's end your gallant son
May come again when war is won;
But should there be a different story,
Just know he flashed his way to glory.
-Gertrude J. Hager
Written for Mr. And Mrs Hix Thornburg of Casa Grande whose son Douglas is reported missing.

Our hope is that we can complete the crew roster history and find the stories of the other crewmembers of tail number 42-7219. "Our own B24". To rest in obscurity is not an option, for me anyway.

Bruce Batchelder

Composition__A Lost Art?

Had an eye-opening talk with a buyer who is a professor at COS, a Ph.D. in fact. He has been here since '01 and got a rude awakening about educational standards when he started. He had a standard 15 question exam with ten of the fifteen questions being of the essay or critical thinking type.

"We don't do that here" he reports being told. "You have to do multiple choice or true false questions." "Why?" he asks. "Because we are open enrollment and since we can't reject applicants and since they can't write a complete sentence, we must adapt to current conditons."

Well, when I went to school composition was important. Being able to express yourself in writing sort of equalled whether or not you could think clearly. I attended the University of California in Santa Barbara and Berkeley, and so did Sally. In fact I followed her there. But I digress.

All the classes were huge; 2 or 3 hundred of us listened (and took copious notes) to famous people like Edward Teller (H bomb) and Eugene Burdick who wrote (The Ugly American). And then we took 3 or 4 hour long passing exams which were COMPLETELY essay form in the famous Blue Books.

These were 32 page lined composition booklets that you had to buy and bring to the tests to write your answers in and give to the professor. They were what, maybe a nickel? But the pressure ! You felt like you had to fill the darned thing up to pass.

So you wrote and you wrote and hoped it made sense enough to earn a B or better. The point isn't that it was in penmanship, a word not often used now, but that we were educated to express ourselves in writing. Not on the phone. Not in email. Not texting, but in words. Complete, full words which we had to check in the dictionary if we wanted high marks.

So to close the circle, we apparently are now accepting students who not only cannot do that but are not required to. My client-friend blamed the public schools for this but I wonder if it is more accurate to look right in our own homes and blame ourselves. How much reading and writing do we ourselves do? Do we value and urge those skills in our children?

An even larger question, and more bothersome is whether our society values these skills. How can we prosper and be a world power if our major vein of communicating is texting "R U OK?"?

Appraisal vs BPO vs CMA

All three of these terms are getting heavy play in this real estate slump so here's a quick overview from our perspective.

An appraisal in the formal sense can only be done by a licensed appraiser who is registered with the state and his professional association. Buyers normally pay for one as a condition of getting the bank to loan them the purchase money. Obviously the lender does not want to loan more than the home is worth and in fact inflated appraisals were one of the infection sites in the crash ___ crooked buyers made deals with bent appraisers to overstate the value so the bank would lend more than the home could sell for and the buyers would walk off with the cash difference, paying off the appraiser in the doing.

Now though appraisers are under tight scruitiny and the vast, vast majority are taking extra steps and trouble to insure their appraisals are bulletproof. This requires enormous skill, time, and experience and thus the result is the only one the lenders will accept. It is by far the most accurate and current measure of the market capturing as each one does even foreclosure prices.

A Brokers Price Opinion on the other hand is at the opposite end of the scale, often comprising no more than driving by a home and guestimating value. BPO's are the down and dirty, off the cuff estimate of home value used primarily between real estate offices to decide asking prices for homes that are abandoned or given back to a lender. In this increasingly more common situation cost is king ___ the lender is stuck with the place and does not want to spend any more than it has to so an appraisal does not matter until a buyer comes along and HIS lender needs to see how much the place is worth.

CMA stands for comparative (or sometimes "competitive") market analysis and involves an agent researching sales on the local Multiple Listing Service, or MLS. Sales have generally been considered the golden ruler when it comes to what home value is. After all, what a willing and able buyer paid should be the home's value, right? But the trouble now is that foreclosed homes are not on the MLS because they go to auction and they were not "listed" on the MLS in the first place. So a CMA won't show the (increasing number of) sales because they are off the MLS radar.

Appraisers can catch this though and that's why their work is worth the two or three hundred bucks or so that they charge. Some sellers are even starting to buy their own appraisals before even listing their home with an office although the figures are almost always less than what the agent's CMA will show and thus sometimes discouraging.

As will all these posts on real estate never take these opinions to the bank. Always, always see your personal tax, legal, or real estate professional before acting.