The Green-Miller-Waters-Shays plan would re-authorize and reform non-profit downpayment assistance and secure it as an allowable source for FHA borrowers. The bill seeks to ensure that providers of the downpayment assistance operate in a transparent manner to guard against conflicts of interest. The bill also includes language to ensure that FHA maintains its financial stability by permanently authorizing the Secretary to assess higher premiums to higher risk borrowers.

It is important that you contact your elected officials in Congress and tell them that you support downpayment assistance and urge them to support H. R. 6694. To reach your elected officials, please call the US Capitol Switchboard at 202.224.3121.

To learn how you can support it, visit Click Here.

I usually keep up with the antics of the Prince George's County Sheriff's Department and the Prince George's County Police Department through the print edition of the Washington Post. 

However, I am out in beautiful (and hot!) Scottsdale, AZ for the next week attending a seminar facilitated by Jack Canfield called Breakthrough to Success.  It's seven days long and based on his best-selling book, The Success Principles: How to Get From Where You Are to Where You Want to Be.
(By the way, if you want to read the book, it's in the sidebad of this blog. Just click and it'll take you to the Amazon site.  It's an easy read and very interesting.)

I usually like to take in a couple of these types of seminars every year in order to keep mymotivation level up and to remind myself that it's impportant to keep my clients and their needs out in front.  It's easy, sometimes, to forget that especially if there are challenges to overcome. And you can believe that, in real estate, there are plenty of challenging issues.

So, I may not be posting as many commentaries about the Mayor or anything else real local for the next week.  I hope you'll bear with me.

It seems that the drugs were delivered to their home as part of a ruse by the real drug smugglers to send pot to the homes of unsuspecting people but to intercept the drugs before they actually got delivered. Unfortunately, in this case, the police thought it would be a good idea to disguise themselves as the delivery people and drop the package off themselves.

Without checking anything other than motor vehicle records to verify that Trinity Tomsic actually lived at the address the package of pot as addressed to the police then conducted a ruthless, lighting quick raid of the Mayor's home killing the couple's two black Labrador Retrievers in the process.

Not that the police are apologizing, of course.  They can't.  After all, they're under review by the FBI for civil rights violations and any admission that they did something wrong would send them straight to the County Treasury to pay the Calvo damages for their bungled law enforcement work. 

Instead, the taxpayer will need to pony up for the reviews - both the FBI review and the internal reviews by the Prince George's County Sheriff's Department and Prince George's County Police - and for the inevitable defense of these two law enforcement agencies when civil rights litigation moves forward.

Here's another twister.  County Sheriff, Michael Jackson (no relation to the pop singer) is "upset" that they are under review and that Mayor Calvo - the wronged and injured party in this affair - has asked for the review.  It seems that Sheriff Jackson's department never does anything wrong and, if they did, they would take care of thing in house. 

As if.....

On a side note, I received an e-mail yesterday from a work colleague (Barbara Erskine of Virtual Business Solutions) telling me that this story has hit the newspaper in St. George, UT.

You don't have to read about it in the St. George, UT newspaper.  You can read it this article in today's Washington Post (Metro section).

It'll be interesting to see if the police ever do apologize for busting through the door of an innocent family and killing their two family pets.

It seems that the local police have really bungled this one and it won't be a pretty picture by the time the FBI are through with their investigation.  At this point, it's probably a good thing that the Berwyn Heights police were not informed of the raid.  At least their hands are clean of this whole sordid affair.  If course, if they had been notified it is possible the raid and subsequent killing of the Mayor' s dogs would have been avoided.

Here are a couple of sources to review more details, related stories and video --

The Washington Post -- today's Metro section (with video)
Fox 5 TV -- all the related stories and video

By referring to the whole adventure as something out of the Keystone Kops, the Washington Post was emphasizing the totally inept and outrageous behavior of a Sheriff's Department and County Police Department with too much time on their hands.

Now, it seems, law enforcement has made some arrests and uncovered a ring that specifically targeted unsuspecting people's addresses in the hopes of intercepting the illegal drugs before they were picked up by the residents.  In this case, the police deflected the real culprits so they could perform their B movie raid on the Mayor of Berwyn Heights and kill some innocent, non-threatening dogs in the process.

I certainly hope that, when all the dust settles, and life in this pleasant residential town resumes to anything like normal the police will, at least, apologize (something they are refusing to do, at this point in time) and compensate - is such a thing is possible - the Mayor and Trinity Tomsic for the loss of their two family pets.

In today's episode -- this article in today's Washington Post (Metro section) -- it appears that the police did not have the "no knock" warrant they said they had obtained from a local judge. Of course, all the police spokespeople are unavailable for comment.  The wagons are circling.

Not only were no arrests made (the Mayor and his wife are "persons of interest") and the black Labrador Retrievers belonging to the couple killed in cold blood but now, it seems, the police raided the Mayor's home without the proper authorization.

There is a theory circulating that the package (32 lbs of marijuana) was meant for a deliver person and not Trinity Tomsic, after all. It may have been meant for a delivery person and the address was just a sham.  Of course, we'll never know since a police officer was the substitute for the delivery person that day.

I'm hoping this little saga is resolved soon so Berwyn Heights can go back to being the nice, quiet community of neighbors it was before the SWAT team went on a practice drill at the Mayor's house.

From a Realtor's point of view, it doesn't do anyone any good to have this kind of publicity ("Oh yeah, it's a great house and a fabullous yard right next door to the Mayor. Watch out for the SWAT team, though.").

What's amazing to me is that the police are now re-thinking the reason for the delivery of the 32 pound package of marijuana that was a) left on the doorstep and b) unopened even when the mayor mistakenly bought it into his house thinking it might be gardening supplies for his wife. 

No arrests have been made. So, obviously, this is not an open and shut case. In the meantime, two dogs have been killed and the mayor and his mother-in-law terrorized.

It'll be interesting to see the outcome of this case.  Was the mayor and/or his wife involved in drug dealing?

From my point of view, these are the areas that will create the most value for your home:

• kitchen and baths
• floors and walls

Take a look at the article and the "Cost vs Value Report" compiled by Remodeling Magazine -- CLICK HERE.

If you want a more focused look at the DC Metro area -- CLICK HERE.

Active Listings �?? 159
Pending Listings �?? 37
Sold Listings (within the last 90 days) �?? 50
# of months of housing supply = 9.54
avg. # of homes sold per month based on last 90 days = 16.6
Low Price = $103,900
High Price = $600,000

Here is a .pdf file of the number of Days on Market houses are experiencing.

Click Here

• there will be a vigil in support of the Mayor of Berwyn Heights, Cheye Calvo and his wife Trinity Tosmic and
• the police are exploring the possibility that the 32 pounds of marijuana that was delivered to the mayor's house was not really intended for the Mayor or his wife after all.

It seems like the Mayor and his mother-in-law may have been terrorized for no good reason and the Labrador Retrievers were killed for no good reason.  To be fair, the investigation is ongoing so the final outcome is still unknown.

It seems like a little police overkill (literally), to me.

Click Here to head the entire article.