An tale of corporate trickery from a reader, accompanied by a copy of a settlement agreement between Countrywide Financial and the State of Hawaii:

I have a friend in Kauai who is losing their home. She is a lifetime resident of the island and has 2 children under five (the home has been in her family over 60 years). They made the mistake of refinancing with Countrywide – and then when they asked to do a loan modification – they were told that they needed to be 3 months in arrears to qualify for the program – so they became 3 months in arrears. When they called to find out more about the status of their application for loan modification, they discovered that in January Countrywide had foreclosed on them. There was no notice, no meeting, nothing – they found out through one of their many phone calls to the mainland —– with conversations of revolving staff at Countrywide. (you will note that the agreement mentions something about having 3900 people working to address the loan issues at Countrywide…how many agreements with states actually specify the number of employees?)

I think that there may be others out there who have stories to tell about Countrywide – and maybe they also need to know about this agreement with the State – and predatory lending practices that may have occurred in Hawaii…..I know that First Hawaiian Bank had some brokers who sent business to them…..and there appears to be little in the way of outreach by the state Consumer Protection Agency (since Lingle thought Bush was the greatest President ever – this comes as no surprise).

Do you think you could ask your blog readers to let me know if they have any stories about being denied a modified real estate loan from Countrywide? Do a little outreach and maybe modify some future misery for others, by arming them with some facts? The news states nationally that one in 5 loans are going south – and the NYT finance writer just wrote about his personal home story – so its very current —–but how many Countrywide homeowners in Hawaii even know that there is a agreement with the state of Hawaii?

The agreement in Hawaii with Countrywide is modeled after the one on the mainland that California was part of (and 10 other states). That one was signed in October of 2008 – the Hawaii one is January 2009…..forever behind the trend.

So if you know of other people facing similar situations involving Countrywide, please let me know (email ian@ilind.net) and I’ll pass it on.

Political news…Okay, you may not have noticed that the conservative Constitution Party launched a drive to get on the 2010 ballot here in Hawaii….The “Kingdom of Hawaii” put out a press release saying that the League of Women Voters will be counting ballots in the Kingdom’s “national election”….Thanks to the Maui News for its story on the Superferry auction.

I couldn’t help noticing City Councilmember Gary Okino’s comments about the mayor’s proposed rail system.

“I wouldn’t have voted for it if it was an at-grade system,” Okino said. “It absolutely doesn’t make any sense to put the system on the ground. … There’s a huge difference in terms of efficiency, speed, capacity and operating cost.”

Okino said he agrees the elevated rail will affect the views, but believes it is a “trade-off.”

Okino said the system is similar to the elevated rail operated by the Vancouver Skytrain, an operation established in 1986 that has been so successful it “pays for itself.”

Hmmmm. I wonder if Okino would be surprised to learn that the particular tradeoffs he’s referring to are no longer necessary. Since Vancouver committed to its Skytrain system more than 20 years ago, the vast majority of urban rail systems have used the more flexible light rail system being advocated by the American Institute of Architects. This system can run on an elevated guideway or at street level, so many fewer of those old tradeoffs are necessary.

Check it out, Councilman Okino. You may be able to get the best of both worlds with the latest technology already in use in many mainland cities.

A San Francisco Chronicle story examined Kauai’s Coco Palms resort. Check out what mainlanders are reading.

Monday morning. We were on the return leg of our early morning walk, and down the beach we could see a couple of people playing with several dogs. Eventually we counted four dogs, two people. As we got closer, we wondered if they were all together or if it was one person with a single dog meeting another person with three dogs, or some combination. Then finally we recognized Jack, Pe’a, and her puppies, Sadie & Reilly. So just click on the photo for a little glimpse of the puppies, their mom (the black Rottweiller), and Jack, the blue heeler. It made for a lot of DOG.