Suffolk Judge Jeffrey Spinner wiped out $525,000 in mortgage payments demanded by a California bank, blasting its “harsh, repugnant, shocking and repulsive” acts. The bombshell decision leaves Diane Yano-Horoski and her husband, Greg Horoski, owing absolutely no money on their ranch house in East Patchogue (Long Island).

Spinner pulled no punches as he smacked down the bankers at OneWest — who took an $814.2 million federal bailout but have a record of coldbloodedly foreclosing on any homeowner owing money. YOU OWN IT: Greg Horoski won his battle to keep his Patchogue one-level ranch home, as a judge called OneWest bank’s foreclosure efforts against Horoski and his wife “repulsive.”

“The bank was so intransigent that he [the judge] decided to punish them,” Greg Horoski, 55, said about Spinner’s scathing ruling against OneWest and its IndyMac mortgage division.

It erased up to $291,000 in principal and $235,000 in interest and penalties. The Horoskis — who had been paying only interest on their mortgage — had no equity in the home. Horoski, who had begged the bankers to let him restructure the loan, said, “I think the judge felt it was almost a personal vendetta.” Dealing with the bank, he said, was “like dealing with organized crime.” OneWest said, “We respectfully disagree with the lower court’s unprecedented ruling and we expect that it will be overturned on appeal.”

It claimed it “has been extremely active in working with consumers on home loan modifications through the Obama administration’s Home Affordable Modification Program and other loan modification initiatives.” The bank is owned by a private equity group that purchased the failed IndyMac bank.

Yano-Horoski, a college professor of English and cognitive reason, and Horoski, who sells collectible dolls online, bought their 3,400-square-foot, one-level house 15 years ago for less than $200,000. In 2004, court records show, they refinanced, paying off their original mortgage with part of a $292,500 sub-prime loan from Deutsche Bank. They used what was left for health care and for his business. The loan carried an initial adjustable interest rate of 10.375 percent, which soared to 12.375 percent.

It eventually ended up being either owned or serviced by IndyMac, and the bank sued the couple in July 2005 when they began having trouble making payments because of Horoski’s health problems. After a foreclosure was approved last January, Yano-Haroski successfully asked for a court settlement conference.

Spinner excoriated OneWest for repeatedly refusing to work out a deal, for misleading him about the dollar amounts at stake in the case, and for its treatment of the couple over months of hearings. OneWest’s conduct was “inequitable, unconscionable, vexatious and opprobrious,” Spinner wrote.

He canceled the debt because the bank “must be appropriately sanctioned so as to deter it from imposing further mortifying abuse against [the couple].” The bank is involved in a similar case in California, where it’s trying to foreclose on an 89-year-old woman, despite two court orders telling it to stop.

Source: New York Post

WELCOME TO CEDAR CREEK VOICE.

   Email address: http://cedarcreekvoice.wordpress.com

Cedar Creek Voice is a weekly news magazine and opinion blog dedicated to the citizens of Cedar Creek Township, as well as greater Wexford County, Michigan.

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WEXFORD  COUNTY,  MICHIGAN:



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Want to leave a comment OR submit a letter for publication? 

Click on “Make Comment” at the beginning of each Post. 

[Updates are usually done every week.]

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*EDITOR’S COMMENTS:

(1)  The local gas stations claim they aren’t responsible for pricing, but it hasn’t escaped anyone’s notice that when the stock market goes up and the price of crude oil futures goes up, the price of gas goes up VERY FAST.   I’ve seen it go up anywhere from 10 cents to 25 cent per gallon in one day.  However, when the stock market goes down and the price of crude oil futures goes down,  the price of gas goes down VERY SLOWLY.  The price will go down anywhere from 1 cent to 4 cents per day until the price goes up again.  Somehow the price never goes down to what it had been, but alway goes up higher than what it was when the crude oil futures price reaches a particular level.  I believe this unfair pricing practice is up to the individual gas stations to correct. 

(2)    Tuesday, November 17th,  we had to call the police because we were the victims of a theft.   I had bought a tent-type deer blind for my husband’s birthday in September.   He was all excited, but due to recent surgeries, he did not want to sit and freeze, so he bought himself a small portable propane heater to go with it.    He anchored his new deer blind down and left it in place for over a month so the deer would get used to it being there.   He invited one of his brothers to come up for a visit. so they could go deer hunting from his new blind.    His brother was excited, too, and bought himself a birthday present — a bi-pod on which to rest his gun.  They went out Sunday and Monday, but when they got there onTuesday,  the deer blind was GONE!   It was stolen in the middle of the night by thieves who came onto the middle of our 14 wooded acres to take it.  They stole my husband’s new portable heater and his brother’s bi-pod, too.   My husband and his brother were really angry, as was everyone else who’s heard about the theft.   People in this part of Michigan take their deer hunting seriously, and word gets around fast.   Stealing their equipment is like taking away their identity.   My husband called the Sheriff’s police and an officer came out to take a report, but told my husband that they have many similar thefts every year at this time.    Translation:  Nothing will be done and we’ll never see our deer blind again.   Our land is posted exactly as the law demands, yet someone ignored the posting and came onto private property to steal from us.   All of us felt that we had been “violated” every bit as much as if it had been a home break-in.   What I worry about is the anger and resentment that’s left behind that goes far beyond the price of the equipment.   If  other people are as angry as we are and many thefts occur every year,  it’s just a matter of time before some poor slob gets lost after dark and wanders onto someone’s private property by accident … and gets shot or attacked by dogs.

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ATTENTION:
For those of you who have tried to get to TRAVERSE CITY from points south & east, like the  CADILLAC area,  but were surprised when you got to the Manistee River bridge on U.S. 131 and found it was closed due to construction:    Like many people, you may have noticed there were no signs anywhere near the bridge offering an alternate route or pointing the way toward a detour.   Actually we found one sign between Cadillac and Traverse City that tells you not to use M-113, but rather to take M-115 West (to Mesick), then turn right  onto  M-37 North, which will take you across the Manistee and  all the way into Traverse City.   We did find shorter alternate routes, but they were complicated.   This route is longer, but direct.  Hope this helps!
Editor -
 
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HAPPY  NOVEMBER  BIRTHDAYS …
  
 
NOVEMBER 5 …..Remembering CHARLES RAMSEY.
NOVEMBER 13 …..HAPPY BIRTHDAY, SHERRIE FUSCONE!
NOVEMBER 14 …..HAPPY BIRTHDAY, JERRY LOFTIS!
NOVEMBER 17 …..HAPPY BIRTHDAY, LOIS STANCIAK!
NOVEMBER 19 …..HAPPY BIRTHDAY, LOUIE FUSCONE!
NOVEMBER 19 …..HAPPY BIRTHDAY, JANET LOCK!
NOVEMBER 20 …..HAPPY BIRTHDAY,  SEAN AHRENS!
NOVEMBER 28 …..HAPPY BIRTHDAY,  GERRY AHRENS!
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                     H A P P Y    T H A N K S G I V I N G !

      thanksgiving turkey kevatron flickr.com

                                                                     

                                                        thanksgiving25802 jpg 250 x 235 | 12k

                                                                          distinctgiftbaskets.com

ThanksgivingFeast jpg… cbdyag.wordpress.com

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November 25, 2009

Top 5 Surprising Turkey Facts

Reuters – A turkey stands in its enclosure at the Seven Acres Farm in North Reading, Massachusetts November 25, …

Robert Roy Britt
Editorial Director
LiveScience.com

The average American eats 17.6 pounds of turkey per year, more than double the figure for 1970, according to the National Turkey Federation. To feed the growing appetite, some 273 million turkeys will be raised in the United States in 2009, and a good number of them will be consumed on Thanksgiving, after which many Americans will loll about, overstuffed, sleepy and in many cases intoxicated.

This is not what the Pilgrims had in mind.

The first Thanksgiving was a moment for the Pilgrims to thank God for allowing them to kill enough game and grow sufficient crops to get through the winter, says Anne Blue Wills, assistant professor of religion at Davidson College. Those Pilgrims would have spent much of their day in church contemplating the mercies of God’s covenantal love, Wills argues.

Not until Sarah Hale, editor of Godey’s Lady’s Book and Magazine promoted for 50 years the idea of a regular Thanksgiving holiday did President Abraham Lincoln make it one in 1863. In the years since, the turkeys we eat have changed dramatically, and so has scientific knowledge of them. Among the things you might not know:

1. Turkeys Can Fly
Wild turkeys feed on the ground, which might explain the myth of their flightlessness. They can in fact soar for short bursts at up to 55 mph. But their tendency to stay on or near the ground contributed to successful hunting that brought the wild population of turkeys down to about 30,000 in the 1930s. There are now 7 million of them.

2. Dark Meat is Rare Because …
Meat is muscle. And muscle is fed by blood. In the blood is myoglobin, which binds with oxygen and stores it in muscles for when it’s needed. Myoglobin also makes meat dark. Muscles that are used most, like those in drumsticks (legs), have more myoglobin. Domestic turkeys are too fat to fly, so they don’t use their breast muscles much, which is why breast meat is white. The breast of a wild turkey is entirely different, darker (and far tastier for those who are game).

3. Turkey Eggs Wouldn’t Sell
Chickens are champion egg-producers. Turkeys, not so good. Turkey eggs are bigger, so their nests tie up coop space. And farmers have learned that they make more raising turkeys for meat rather than eggs. Oh, and some turkeys are protective of their eggs, making the gathering more challenging.

4. It’s Not the Turkey That Makes You Sleepy
Turkey contains a natural chemical called tryptophan, which we need to build proteins for our bodies. Indeed, tryptophan is also related to the production of serotonin, which helps us sleep. But all meat has about the same amount of tryptophan. Cheddar cheese has a lot more. What really makes you sleepier after a Thanksgiving meal compared to other meals is eating too many carbohydrates, from potatoes to pies. Alcohol can contribute, too.

5. Dinosaurs Had Wishbones, Too
The wishbone, called a furcula, is the fusion of two collarbones at the sternum. It’s where a bird’s flying muscles hook up. It’s elastic and great for flapping. Turns out T. Rex and the Velociraptor had wishbones, too. While they didn’t fly, this fairly recent discovery is one of the many bits of evidence that shows birds evolved from dinosaurs.

Sarah Hale probably never thought about any of this back in the mid-1800s. She just wanted the nation to celebrate a pious, patriotic holiday, said Wills, the Davidson College researcher. Hale used columns and stories in her magazine to portray Thanksgiving as a triumph of domesticity and rural simplicity over urban sophistication. She urged President Lincoln to create a single day on which all states would mark the holiday as a national event.

“The message is that the simple, pure, honest rural life, away from the temptations of the city, puts you in touch with true values,” Wills said. “If we can just travel back to the old home place once a year we’ll be protected from temptations and evil.”

While some of that spirit might remain in the holiday, much indeed has changed about American culture in general and in how people view and partake in the holiday.

“For instance,” Wills said, “I don’t think football games and making the day after Thanksgiving the biggest shopping day of the year ever crossed her mind.”

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    S     E     R     V     I     C     E     S

___________________________________________________________________
 
For FREE  PRESCRIPTIONS,  HEALTH CARE
 
(including diabetes & hypertension clinics; 
 
diagnostics including mammogram & pap smear
 
 
with follow up care if results abnormal);  
 
 
PREGNANCY HELP; and  DENTAL CARE in the
 
 
Cadillac area: 

See the Page titled: 

“Can’t Afford Your Prescriptions

  or Health Care”

 (Names of agencies, locations, and/or

telephone numbers are included.)

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 ::::: H E L P ::: W I T H ::: H U N G E R ::::   

 * Check Page titled: 

“FOOD PANTRIES in MISSAUKEE, OSCEOLA, and WEXFORD COUNTIES.”

            – Or call the Chamber of Commerce of town nearest you and ask where you may donate (or obtain) needed food items.

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-FOOD STAMP HOTLINE…..

          1-800-481-4989.

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-Call DEPT. OF HUMAN SERVICES OF 

      WEXFORD & MISSAUKEE COUNTIES

 re:  food, housing, and other basic needs  ……..  (231) 779-4500.

                        Our thoughts and prayers are with you.

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  H  O  M  E  S

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Governor Granholm Announces Toll-Free Number to Help Families Facing Mortgage Foreclosure.  

“Save the Dream” campaign toll-free number is ………………….1-866-946-7432.

ALSO:  See Link titled, ”HELP FOR THOSE FACING FORECLOSURE”  with information from HUD.

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VETERANS:  Please see the 10/11/08 Post, “U.S.Troops & Veterans’ News” regarding President Bush signing the Veterans’ Benefits Improvement Act,  especially the part about V.A. home loans:

“…One change in the benefits law that would be vital to many veterans at a time of turmoil in the home mortgage is an overhaul of the veterans’ home loan program that makes it easier for people with non-VA loans to refinance their mortgages through VA. This is done by raising the amount VA will guarantee and reducing the amount of equity a homeowner must have in order to refinance…”

[Editor's note:  For information regarding many Veteran's needs, see the Post "VETERANS'  HQ"]

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   I   N   C   O   M   E  

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 Call, Visit, or Write your local MICHIGAN WORKS! at:

Michigan Works! Service Center,  401 Lake St., Ste. 700,  Cadillac, 49601,

Telephone: (231) 775-3408.

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FOR THOSE LOOKING FOR

A FIRST JOB, 

A NEW JOB,

OR ANY JOB: 

 Be sure to check the job listings and career information in the (NOW 20) LINKS under

the heading: JOB SEARCH!  To go directly to  these websites to check “help wanted”, ”employment” or “careers” - just click on the name of the Link itself  (all start 

with  “JOB SEARCH:…”).   The link will take you directly there.

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VETERANS:  Try checking the Link: JOB SEARCH:  DESTINY GROUP – “Employers Seeking Those Who Served in the Military.  Search over 100,000 jobs.”

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UNEMPLOYMENT   BENEFITS  in MICHIGAN:

• Are not employed full time.

• Have been employed during the past 18 months.

• Live in Michigan.

• Were employed by only one Michigan employer during the past 18 months.

• Filed a claim for unamployment benefits during the past 10 years.

• Did not work in family employment.

• Were not in Military Service during the past 18 months.

• Were not employed by the federal government during the past 18 months.

• Did not work in another state during the past 18 months.

• Did not file a claim against another state during the past 12 months.

• Did not work under more than one social security number diring the past 18 monhts.-

• Are not trying to claim past weeks of benefits.

How Do I File for Unemployment Insurance?

Claims by Mail:

Jobless workers may take cuts in line by using our convenient Claims By Mail service.  Mail-in applications are available in Bureau branch offices, most Michigan Works! service centers and in the FORMS section of our Web site…

Internet Claims:

To use the on-line servcice, applicants must be filing a new or additional claim.  An additional claim is one filed to reactivate benefits when a person already has a claim in existence, interrupts the payment of benefits on the claim by returning to work and then becomes unemployed again.

Applicants filing new claims must meet these criteria:

UNEMPLOYMENT INSURANCE AGENCY:

To File a Benefit Claim, Call (toll free): ………………….1-866-500-0017.

Click on website:  http://www.unemploymentoffice.net/State_resources/Michigan

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1116-41638-781-1124

DECEMBER 4, 2009 @ 10:00 A.M.

1.  PAUL H. ARNEY, FILE NO. 09-CVD-1633

 Property Address:  H/L 228 Branch Street, Morganton, N.C. 28655, PIN # 2704626423

DECEMBER 7, 2009 @ 10:00 A.M.

2. ATLANTIC ENTERPRISES, FILE NO. 09-CVD-1795

Property Address:  H/L 2150 Creek View Drive, PIN #2783794176

3.  C.W. MYERS, JR., FILE NO. 09-CVD-1792

Property Address:  V/L 1727 North Powerhouse Rd, PIN #1764338117

DECEMBER 9, 2009 @ 10:00 A.M.

4.  GARY ROBBINS,  FILE NO. 09-CVD-1789

Property Address:  V/L 6, The Ridge Subdivision, Linville Township, PIN #1755597092

5.  TONG YANG, FILE NO. 09-CVD-1953

Property Address:  H/T/L 1823 Moos Nyaj Valley (address on tax card), PIN #2706794767

1-877-448-1211

En Español [PDF]

Thousands of Arizonans are facing difficult times. Amidst higher prices at the supermarket and the gas pump and out-of-control credit card debt, many are also dealing with the very real possibility of losing their homes.

The Arizona Department of Housing has partnered with several agencies throughout the state to help individuals and families facing foreclosure. Community Information & Referral hosts Arizona’s Mortgage Foreclosure Hotline to help people through the foreclosure process and possibly keep their homes.

What will the foreclosure counselors do for me?

• Counselors will educate you about your options.
• Counselors will explain what the foreclosure process is about and how it will affect you.
• Counselors will try to negotiate with your lenders to keep you in your home.

How do I get help with my foreclosure?

If you’re currently having difficulty keeping up with your mortgage payments or you’ve already started the foreclosure process, call 1-877-448-1211. Our trained Specialists will connect you with agencies that can help you through this difficult time.

Read the Arizona Foreclosure Information Workbook [PDF] for information about the foreclosure process in Arizona.