Tennessee State Guard and Katrina

Tennessee State Guard

http://www.tnmilitary.org/State%20Guard/Photo%20Gallery/content/_8672591271_large.html

hurricane Katrina

http://www.wilberforce.edu/cdsp/cdsp_art2_02.html

Assessing the Response

Pres­ident George W. Bush was abso­lutely correct in labeling the national response “inadequate.” When national catastrophes occur, the nation’s resources need to be mobilized to respond immediately. Equally important, Americans must remain confident that their leaders, at all levels of government, are in charge and doing the right things to make all Americans safer. On both counts, the nation fell short, and Americans have a right to understand why and what can be done better

An analysis of what went wrong has to focus on the nation’s capacity to respond to a cat­astrophic disaster. The current national response system is built on “tiered response,” a methodical employment of emergency responder assets very appropriate for dealing with disasters on a “normal” scale. In a tiered-response, local leaders turn to state resources when they are exhausted. In turn, states turn to Washington when their means are exceeded. Both must communicate their requirements to fed­eral officials and manage the response effectively.
read more:
http://www.wilberforce.edu/cdsp/cdsp_art2_02.html


Note: The content on this archive page is dated. Some of the links and contact addresses may no longer be current.

Hurricane Katrina Regulatory Relief and Assistance

E-mail and Telephone Contact:

To assist investors and regulated entities in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, the Commission has established both telephone and e-mail hotlines:

Investors: 1-800-SEC-0330 or https://tts.sec.gov/oiea/QuestionsAndComments.html

Registrants: (202) 551-3300 or cfhotline@sec.gov
Special Information for Investors:

Reaching Your Financial Professional — If you can't reach your Gulf-area investment adviser, click here to see if we have a new telephone number or other contact information. We'll update this page as often as we learn new information.

Checking Your Account Balances — If you've left your home because of Hurricane Katrina, you may not receive your account statements or confirmations in the mail for several months. It is important that you periodically check your account balances and immediately notify your financial services firm in writing of any discrepancies, especially transfers of money or purchases and sales of securities that you did not authorize. Click here for helpful information on how to safely use the Internet to check account balances.

Avoiding and Reporting Katrina-Related Scams — We have begun hearing about investment fraud scams that seek to capitalize on the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. Some claim to be trading programs that guarantee high returns (with a portion going to aid Katrina relief efforts). Others tout individual companies that stand to profit from relief and rebuilding efforts. Still others will surely emerge as fraud artists seek creative new ways to spin their old money-stealing schemes. Scam artists search the Internet for e-mail addresses. Please be aware that if your contact information is posted on the Internet, you are even more likely to receive fraudulent solicitations. If you receive a suspicious solicitation, please forward it to enforcement@sec.gov.

Managing and Protecting Your Credit — If you have lost your credit cards and financial records, click here for information about managing your money and your credit.

Rebuilding Your Banking and Other Financial Records — If you have questions about your bank or issues involving banking services, please click here for information from the FDIC.

Donating to Relief Efforts — If you're thinking about contributing money to help victims of Hurricane Katrina, please read this information first.

SEC Releases:

Exemtpive Order: Order Under Section 17A and Section 36 of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 Granting Exemptions from Specified Provisions of the Exchange Act and Certain Rules Thereunder; Order Under Section 6(C) and Section 38(A) of the Investment Company Act of 1940 Granting Exemptions From Specified Provisions of the Company Act and Certain Rules Thereunder (Release Nos. 34-52444; IC-27067; September 15, 2005)
SEC Press Releases and General Information:

SEC Approves Regulatory Relief and Assistance for Hurricane Katrina Victims (Press Release No. 2005-132; September 15, 2005)

SEC Provides Alternate Contact Information for Registered Investment Advisers Displaced by Hurricane Katrina (Press Release No. 2005-128; September 9, 2005)

SEC Announces Assistance to Katrina Victims (Press Release No. 2005-125; September 2, 2005)


http://www.sec.gov/katrina.htm
Home | Previous Page
Modified: 11/24/2009
http://www.sec.gov/katrina.htm

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2007/08/31/cbsnews_investigates/main3226042.shtml

Following the Money Donated in the Aftermath of Hurricane Katrina ...
Aug 29, 2006 ... Four billion people donated [money to Katrina victims] in this country, is that unbelievable? ... KASICH: And what happened with that money? ...
www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,210954,00.html



http://www.hurricanekatrinarelief.co
Why did the levees break in New Orleans?
On the contrary of what you might have heard, the levees did not break in New Orleans. The levees were actually able to withstand the storm surge of Hurricane Katrina. What happened was that the levees were replaced in some areas of the city with a wall approximately 2 feet thick that fell during there hurricane. These walls were built in order to widen the canal, but they could not withstand Katrina’s storm surge. Therefore, it was the replacement walls that broke, NOT the levees.m/faqs.html

What type of fraud happened after Katrina and how much did it cost?
The United States government gave out a reported $1.4 billion as fake assistance to hurricane Katrina Victims, who used the money clandestinely. Federal investigators found out that men and women were using donation assistance for their personal life such as football season tickets and even long vacations.

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Nov 7, 2000 - Also standing by in Chattanooga was country singer Billy Ray Cyrus, a 1996 supporter of Bill Clinton but this year the composer of "We the People," the song that begins and ends many Bush rallies. Joe V. Williams, a commercial real estate broker wearing a white Bush T-shirt.


Chattanooga
Deputy Commanding General - East
COL Joe V. Williams
1801 S. Holtzclaw Ave.
Chattanooga, TN 37404
T: 423 634-4085
Website: www.4thTennessee.com

Services Provided: The Tennessee State Guard is the all-volunteer arm of the Tennessee Military Department. It is authorized by Tennessee Code Annotated 58-1-401. The purpose of the Tennessee State Guard is to provide a professional complement of personnel to support the State mission of the Tennessee National Guard, by assisting the Tennessee Army National Guard as a force multiplier, and at the direction of the Adjutant General, to assist civil authorities with disaster relief, humanitarian causes, ceremonial service, religious and medical support for the well being and safety of the citizenry of Tennessee.


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Marion and John Campbell are suing Joe V. Williams III, trustee for the Joe V. Williams Jr. heirs; and Merrill and Margaret Sexton.

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Chancery Court Judge Jerri Bryant issued an order on March 30, 2010, against “Louisville Land Company and its alter ego, Mr. Joe V. Williams” to pay $250,000 in punitive damages and attorney fees of $37,000. In addition, the chancellor awarded Rogers $45,000 in compensatory damages.

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http://drpop.org/2010/04/how-to-research-a-slumlord/

Far too many of our people are forced to live with rats, roaches, peeling paint, mold, an absence of heat, raw sewage, leaking pipes… the list goes on, as does my fury. If you’re going to dig deep and put the hours in to finding out exactly who is profiting off of such daily assaults upon their tenants, then I would first recommend love and fury in equal measures. They will make up for your learning curve, and sustain you in your attention to numbing detail and bureaucracy.

And so! For the agony and ecstasy of corporate research in 5 “easy” steps (and my apologies that specific sources are American though the theory is the same everywhere), keep reading…



Know them up and down, backwards and forwards before you do anything, and I mean anything. Slumlords don’t like tenants or tenant organizers getting uppity, so be extremely prepared.

Dig out those contracts, read them, find out exactly what you’ve signed up for if you didn’t already know. I’m afraid to say there are often some nasty surprises in there. Those lawyers know what they’re doing.

Cities and states have different laws protecting tenants, find out which ones apply to you. All of them have basic requirements for building maintenance. At best you also have your rent control (which limits how much an owner can increase your rent), and you have your just cause eviction (which limits the reasons you can be evicted). If your town has neither, then it’s just down to you and whatever you can negotiate into your contract. Make sure you have back up, and check out Vida Urbana/City Life to see just how much tenants working together have been able to negotiate into collective contracts.



Knowledge alone isn’t power, I’m afraid. If it were my life would be much different. What knowledge does is allow you to use your power most effectively to place pressure where pressure will make a difference. You need to consider your options on how best to use it.

You can pressure the owner directly. For example when I worked at SAJE, we once took a tenant delegation to meet with their landlord’s pastor. That stopped the harassment and threatened evictions pretty quickly.

Another obvious target is the city or county, who are more likely to try and act effectively after you have built a picture of the landlord’s evil business operations and their effects on their tenants and community.

The picture below shows the kind of strategic information that maybe be useful and where the pressure points might lie, but don’t let this limit you! Every landlord and city is different. There are undoubtedly other possibilities.





Tenants: Collectively tenants tend to know quite a lot about the owners, particularly the ones who have lived there for a while. Talk to the neighbors, and pool your paperwork for company names and logos, manager or owner names, and mailing addresses.

Google: I don’t know that it needs saying, but you should be googling any individual or business name, and the address. It’s quick, it’s free, you can do it in your jim jams; it’s always the best place to start.

Allies: Who is working on tenant issues in your town? Chances are that they’ve run into the landlord if he owns a lot of properties, and they can tell you a lot — both facts about him and his other buildings, and his likely reactions to your organizing. Good things to know.

Databases: These are often expensive and hard to access, it all depends on where you are. One of the best resources is Lexis Nexis. Any university student should be able to access this for you on their library’s computers, and you might well be able to get in there as well. Dataquick is another that contains California’s property records. Again, the CDs can usually be accessed by university students. And then there’s Merlin, your local Legal Aid might be able to access this. Merlin basically it gets you pretty much anything at all you want to know about an individual, it’s scary really. And therefore it is restricted to certain users and non-profits.



Sometimes you know exactly who it is, but often you have no idea. It’s technically public information, and in a lot of places you can get the officially listed owner easily online. Of course in some places, like California, the state has essentially sold rights to this information to a private company (yeah, don’t get me started on that), but the information is still accessible if you go in person to the Tax Assessor’s office or the County Registry. Still, your new generation of slumlord will have protected himself from liability (though we’ve proved it doesn’t always work, no fear) by registering the property in the name of a limited liability company (LLC), a trust, or some other legal shield. Some of the sketchier landlords have been known to register properties in the names of their dog, a dead aunt, or an imaginary tenant, those are trickier and require street work. Think Sam Spade and go to it, but some of the below will still apply.

If you’ve got a company name, all U.S. businesses have to file paperwork with the SEC. You can access that via their online search function at http://www.freeedgar.com. For a publicly traded company there’s lots of information as investors seem to like that. Sadly, landlords stay private and favor minimum disclosure, but the names of principals and mailing addresses is plenty to start with. Lexis Nexis is, however, the best resource really.



So get your (virtual) file folders, your colored pens and stickers, bring every organizational capacity you have to bear from the beginning and it will all go easier, because the information becomes very overwhelming very fast!

This is where you really want Lexis Nexis, unless the owner is kind enough to have lists of properties lying about online. The Public Records database will contain corporate and business filings and property deed information. You should search by company name, but often the real gold will come via a search using the mailing address…most large landlords set up multiple LLCs, but they all report to the same handful of addresses.

Again, hit Lexis Nexis — their News, Company, and Public Records databases should cover everything. In one of our campaigns we found out that the landlord owned the hardware store which provided receipts as “proof” of repairs, as well as the management company. And a couple of restaurants. More than useful knowledge.


You can establish who these are using the business information above. They might also be involved in the nefarious business of making money off of poverty, or they might not be happy about associating with someone who is. You can see the potential.


This is one of the most useful resources. You can either find this via Lexis Nexis, or alternatively by a trip to the local civil and criminal courthouses. Lexis nexis is by far the best, as it doesn’t limit you to local jurisdictions. Being able to show that there have been other legal actions against the owner definitely establishes a clear pattern of wrongdoing. It’s also worth pulling the files from the courthouse, especially if the owner was ever deposed. Essentially that means the attorney asked him questions while he was under oath, and if you’re lucky she asked good questions about how the business was run, additional properties, and other things you’ve been dying to hear from the horse’s mouth. The lawyers and plaintiffs in previous lawsuits can also be an amazing source of information, and are definitely worth trying to get into contact with. Oh, and divorces…that whole divying up of assets thing.

These also help establish a pattern and practice of wrongdoing, as well as proving the landlord’s burden on the average taxpayer. Most cities and counties have building and safety, housing, and health departments that either regularly inspect apartment buildings or respond to complaints. If the system is working in any sense (I’m showing my idealism here, I know), major slumlords should have lengthy records in many if not all of their buildings.


It’s always good to know who has liens against the property, these can be found through lexis nexis or with the deed records. Lenders are often unhappy about a property they have invested in being allowed to fall apart, and there’s a possible argument that they have some liability. They have a lot of power given the owner owes them money, and they can step in as receivers of a building on the order of a judge, essentially taking over management.


If the landlord is involved in local politics it could be bad news, large campaign contributions generally mean political support. But on the other hand, if you do your job well and wield press effectively, it could be fun watching politicians scramble to put as much distance between themselves and a known slumlord as possible. For Federal contributions you can search Federal Electoral Commission Info http://www.tray.com/fecinfo/. For the State see Follow the Money at http://www.followthemoney.org, though it’s not complete. A google search should turn up political connections if not hard dollar amounts, once you’ve got the names behind the companies.


Community ties may also expose some pressure points. Is the slumlord active on charity or community boards? Where do they go to church, synagogue, mosque? Whose opinion do they care about and who might be able to talk them into doing the right thing? I would say google and networking are equally likely to turn something up here.





Finally, some of those business partners might actually be family members, which may be a way to hide assets. Double-check key relationships that keep coming up in your research.




Here’s a last word on what to do with all of this information. (You know what they say a picture is worth.) Below you will find a chart of one family of owners I researched, along with their business partners (in purple), property holding companies (in blue), properties (in yellow and orange), additional businesses (in green), lawsuits and city actions (red squares).

It started as a collection of circles and lines on butcher paper that I added to over months. Turning the data into a graphic had a lot of impact. In this case we worked with the City Attorney’s office to actually take the owners to trial, and at the end of the day, the slumlords, as individuals as well as their corporations, were found guilty on 21 criminal counts. You can read more here
.

It is always nice to win.






Other people were invaluable resources to me when I was starting to figure out how to research a slumlord. So here are a couple of my favorites:

The Data Center was extremely helpful back then, and they continue to support the forces of good in all of their research efforts. Check out their website which contains a wealth of information on conducting campaign research of all kinds.

I didn’t know it when I started, but the work we did to map out and analyze the relationships that emerged as a “slum empire” is called social network analysis. Valdis Krebs, a social network analysis expert, was of immense help in the resource process, and his org.net website is a great resource. There is even a case study of our example on his site that will give you good sense of the work involved in doing this kind of analysis. There is also ever more and more better social network analysis software to easily look at the kind of networks I painstakingly mapped by hand above, in a way that can be easily updated, including Inflow, which Valdis authored and we later used.

Finally, what I found in researching landlords is that there was no easy way for activists and researchers to pool their information, although they collectively possess such a wealth of information. One site that has popped up in the time since is LittleSis, “an involuntary facebook of powerful Americans, collaboratively edited by people like you.”

We certainly could have used one of those on landlords in LA, and I think such sites have tremendous potential as ways of building transparency and accountability.We are working to start up a UK version that will link to the US, and will be looking forward to your contributions.

Tags: housing, research, slumlords, tenants

You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
Comments
Greg Spiegel says:
I was just looking for something like this. What better source than the Queen of Slumlord Research (coincidentally, this is also the name of my new favorite band). The Danpour chart is still staggering behold.

04/28/2010 at 2:55 pm
Gilda Haas says:
you’ve got that right, bucko.

04/28/2010 at 3:25 pm
Albert Lowe says:
This is a lovely five step plan. I have a couple of other suggestions in acquiring public data.

1) Figure out the best way to acquire public information
2) Familiarize yourself with the physical space that houses public records

Any researcher should familiarize him/herself with the public records and their offices. You may have the right to access public records, but let’s make it as easy as possible. Try visiting public offices (land records, tax records, planning records, court records, and housing inspection records are all maintained locally). Find out the staff’s day-to-day practices. They have to deal with jerks and entitled developers all of the time. Just being friendly, respectful and possibly flirty may go a long way before you threaten anyone with a lawsuit for denying you information. Find out how these offices prefer to dispense information. They may have their own customized Public Records Act request forms or may require formal letters. If you need a quick and dirty form, try the Student Press Law Center. They have a FREE Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) letter generator set up for each State in the U.S. To start generating your own FOIA requests go to:

http://www.splc.org/foiletter.asp

Second, databases like Lexis-Nexis or Westlaw are great because you can do that research anytime of day as long as you’re in front of a computer. However, the mortgage record or grant deed in Lexis-Nexis only has limited information (grantor, grantee, address, parcel number, may or may not include grantee business address). If you spend the extra time going to land records, you may find leases, other agreements, names of business partners, strange conditions of land transfer. What is a one page summary on Lexis-Nexis may be a 100-page document in land records. Also, with court records, the plaintiff-defendant names are the most common search terms but it is the documents inside the dockets that contains the juicy material. Once you find the interesting cases in the third party databases, go to the court house and look-up the case number. If you’re not a lawyer, the documents may seem really “jargony.” I recommend looking for swore testimonies, and “motion for summary judgment.” Unlike a “complaint” that can make the most egregious assertions (and complaints should NOT be quoted unless consulted with legal professionals), if the court file contains a “motion for summary judgment” – that document contains a summary _with evidence_ on why the court should dismiss the case.

Main moral – be thorough in your research and get out of the office!

05/25/2010 at 10:56 am
Sherprinia Bonner says:
Hi my name is Sherprinia, and I am trying to find the real owner of the building that I used to live in and because a lot of the search engines want you to pay them I don’t have a credit card do you have any information how I can find a land lord in Cook County IL without paying for the service or if I go to pay I can pay in cash , the address that I am looking for is 1617 S. Avers Ave. Chicago, IL 60623

10/06/2010 at 12:17 pm
Andrea Gibbons says:
Hallo Sherprinia! So you can start online, I just googled your county and deed office and found this online search page for basic ownership information at http://www.cookcountyassessor.com/Property_Search/Property_Search.aspx, if its complicated then of course that won’t be enough, but you can get the Property Identification Number, which you can take to the deed office itself, information on that here: http://www.co.cook.il.us/portal/server.pt/community/recorder_of_deeds___registrar_of_titles/279, it depends on their policies whether you have to pay, often you have to pay for the copying, but you should be able to pay in person in cash…there should be a lot of information there, be friendly to the staff and see if they have ideas about where else you might find something useful. You can get some additional information from http://www.freeedgar.com if the owner is a company. If that’s still not getting you far enough I’d have a chat with the librarian at your local community college or university and see about getting access to lexis nexis through the school…

10/08/2010 at 1:12 am

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Century 21 Williams-Lankford Realty - Residential 4509 Highway 58 ...
Century 21 Williams-Lankford Realty - Residential 4509 Highway 58, Chattanooga, TN 37416,Phone : (423) 892-4292.
www.businesszz.com/.../16_Century-21-Williams-Lankford-Realty---Residential-4509-Highway-58----Chattanooga-TN-37416/


http://www.chattanoogan.com/articles/article_31790.asp
Lankfords Sue Joe V. Williams Over Realty Office
posted January 28, 2003

Phyllis and Jimmy Lankford have sued Joe V. Williams in a disagreement involving the sale of Phyllis Lankford to Mr. Williams.

The Chancery Court suit says Phyllis Lankford has been a real estate broker for 22 years and Jimmy Lankford for seven years. It says Phyllis Lankford Realty opened in 1988 and bought an office on Highway 58 in 1993.

The suit, filed by attorney John Cavett, says in 2001 the Lankfords agreed to sell the business to Mr. Williams for $600,000.

It says there was a 10-year agreement not to compete.

Mr. Williams was to become president and manager and Ms. Lankford stay on as a broker.

The suit says that Mr. Williams "began to conduct the business affairs of the business in an exceedingly poor manner."

It says he consistently wrote and passed "bad checks" written on the business bank account.

The suit says he neglected or refuse to pay ordinary expenses, including the utilities. The suit says the water was cut off and employees had to use the bathroom in an adjacent business during work hours.

It says Mr. Williams has employed approximately 13 different bookkeepers within a 12-month period.

The suit says he has neglected to pay advertising fees so that ad firms that formerly did business with the company are now refusing to do so.

It was also charged that he has failed or refused to pay staff, including Phyllis Lankford.

The suit says some of the business practices of Mr. Williams expose Ms. Lankford to personal liability.

The suit asks that the non-compete clause be ruled unenforcable and that the business be returned to the Lankfords.







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