Santa Ana Opens a business bank in this environment

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NoWowway_IHB

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http://blog.redfin.com/orangecounty/2008/07/santa_ana_opening_a_bank_now_somethings_not_right.html



A local blogger from the OrangeJuice opined about the odd timing of opening a business bank run by council members in Santa Ana. Julie Lance at Redfin picked up the story, too. I have to agree, it IS an odd time. btw, No_Vaseline has been haunting the OJ and I think he's really stepped up the conversation ;-)



The city has raised taxes thru bonds for infrastructure as well as bonds for the school district, DESPITE the fact that past taxes and bond monies have been mismanaged. New bond measures for the school district are supposed to be up for a vote this November. It looks like the new Business Bank expects the revenues from these multiple sources of taxed money. Why in the world would you choose to live in an over-taxed, under-served Santa Ana, anyways?
 
[quote author="NoWowway" date=1216968613]btw, No_Vaseline has been haunting the OJ and I think he's really stepped up the conversation ;-) </blockquote>


I hope so. It's like herding cats. I've never seen a group (both sides) more fact averse. Thank you for the comment.



Here I will cut it up, diss folks who deserve it, and be snarky. Lassners' blog I'm just there to, well, 'mix it up'. OJB, I'm all facts, all cites, all down the middle, all the time.



I don't know enough about the Santa Ana business bank to comment about it. It is my opinion that Santa Ana is a victim of the population growth they had in the 1980's (i.e. poor immigrant Mexicans and others) who displaced higher earning middle class people and Proposition 13, but I'll have to save that manefesto for another day. Frankly, I could write a thesis on it.
 
A couple of weeks ago I was talking with someone who grew up in SA in the 60's and 70's. I asked how the city went to sh*t. He basically said that in the 70s, it was the influx of poor Mexicans. We tossed the idea around for a short bit and I asked about suburban expansion into the 92705. He thought that that could have been part of it too. If you look at the old Delhi (pronounced "Del-high") neighborhood, it was composed of poor Mexican farmworkers. They lived there because it was near the fields. But as those fields turned to homes in the late 60's and into the 70's, those farmworkers had no place to work so they came to the city center and filled in where the whites left (and, to a certain extent, pushed out the predominantly white businesses - but downtowns were slowly on their way out anyway).



I thought the bank opened up last year or the year before. I remember seeing it and commenting on it. Of course, if they are marketing themselves as a "business bank," then they are probably underwriting a lot of SBA loans. There are several small banks in OC that started that way and then sold themselves for a wild profit to big banks (BofA, WaMu, etc.) in the early 2000's. Of course, big banks probably won't be buying little banks for awhile unless those banks are very well capitalized (so that broke big bank can raid well capp'ed small bank). It is a good business plan in theory, but given big banks' problems now, I don't foresee a quick sale of SABB.



I hit up the OJB every couple of days. Sometimes I'll drop a comment. More than anything, I really want write an open letter to the SA posters and say, yeah, the City Council and admin aren't great, but what have <em>you</em> done today to make SA a better place? It's easy for people to complain, but people need to work together, even if it's only picking up trash out of the park or volunteering to tutor kids after school.
 
In the event it doesn't make it through moderation, here was my comment to that thread:



<blockquote>Nothing personal Art, but if you know anything about banks or public finance, your post reads like sequential non-sequiters.



FWIW, SABB is teeny, tiny. They have 10 employees. If you want to check out their stats, you can go tohttp://www.fdic.gov.Click on ?Industry Analysis? and then click on ?Bank Data & Statistics.? From there, choose ?Institution Directory.? Under the blue/black banner of ?Find All? click on ?Institutions.? In the box for ?Institution Name? type ?Santa Ana Business Bank,? and click on the ?Find? button. When SABB pops up, click on the cert number (58390) and you will get a new page. For assets and liabilities (the default), just click ?Get Report,? and bingo - you?ve got your info.



Then pick another local bank - maybe First Federal of California - and compare the numbers. SAAB has only 10 employees. They certainly won?t be handling the bond indenture trusts. That will likely be US Bank or Wells Fargo, who have the staff and expertise to handle such matters. SABB may hold some city deposits, but that?s hardly nefarious. Just about every city I know of spreads the love, er, deposits, as a safety measure (IndyMac, anyone?).</blockquote>
 
Well, I think you guys make a difference over there. You should do your open letter, Eva, if you have the time/inclination.



Herding cats is a good description. Or a headless chicken. I will say that the blog has been helpful to at least alert the citizens there who's who in the zoo and give a heads up on some of the shenanigans that are classic Santa Ana. It's a novella!
 
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