The tale of how the paddling pup pulled from the middle of San Francisco Bay got there and who owns her remains a puzzle, but more details have emerged about her rescue by a pack of windsurfers and a boating commuter.

The dog, a black pup that appears to be a Labrador mix or a Mastiff, was pulled from the chilly bay waters about one-quarter mile west of the end of the old Berkeley Pier – a good two to three miles from shore – by windsurfers who spotted her struggling in the water Monday evening. They handed her off to Adam Cohen, a Berkeley engineer who commutes to and from San Francisco in an inflatable boat, who her took her to his home to recover.

On Tuesday, the dog was taken to Berkeley Dog and Cat Hospital to see if she had an embedded chip that might identify her owners. She didn’t, and rather than turn the dog over to an animal shelter, Cohen and his family are taking care of her at home while hoping her owners show up.

The Berkeley Dog and Cat Hospital is helping with the search for the owners. Anyone who thinks they may know the dog’s owners is asked to call Katie Corrigan at (510) 225-4545.

The dog, who was wearing a collar but had no tags, seemed to be recovering nicely, said Lisa Grodin, Cohen’s wife.

“The dog follows me everywhere,” she said as the dog licked her. “She is so sweet. She’s lovely.”

While there have been plenty of calls from reporters and people interested in the dog and her story, Grodin said there were not yet any leads to her owners or clues as to how she ended up apparently swimming toward Angel Island in the cold, choppy bay.

The identity of the windsurfers who spotted her did emerge Tuesday, however. Ed Coyne, 62, a real estate investor from San Rafael, and John Newman, a San Francisco attorney, were windsurfing off Treasure Island about three miles west of Berkeley and four miles east of Crissy Field when they spotted a smallish black creature swimming.

“At first, we couldn’t tell whether it was a baby seal or what,” Newman said. “Then we saw it was a dog.”

Coyne said the dog kept swimming against the tide, and in choppy waters, but was struggling.

“She was completely exhausted,” he said. “Waves were coming and she’d get pushed under, then push her head back up and keep swimming.”

Coyne jumped into the water and called out to the dog but couldn’t get her attention. He got back on his board, circled in front and grabbed her by the scruff of the neck. He placed her on the board, where she sat shivering but seemingly grateful to be out of the water.

Soon, nearby windsurfers gathered, keeping the dog out of the water while they used a radio to call the Coast Guard.

After waiting for about an hour, they flagged down Cohen, and called off the Coast Guard, helping lift the dog into the boat and to safety.

“Ed was determined to save and rescue that dog,” Newman said. “On Monday, he was that dog’s best friend.”

Michael Cabanatuan is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. E-mail: mcabanatuan@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @ctuan

Article source: http://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/article/How-SF-Bay-s-paddling-pup-got-wet-still-a-mystery-4730582.php

Five employees of the Sacramento Mountain Lions – including former Raiders defensive coordinator Chuck Bresnahan, who held the same position there – say that owner Paul Pelosi, a real-estate investor and businessman, owes them $250,000, according to the suit filed this month in San Francisco Superior Court.

That would seem like pocket change to Pelosi. He and his wife, the top Democrat in the House, are worth $26 million, according to federal financial disclosure statements. Their investments range from real estate around the Bay Area to their vineyard and home in St. Helena.

The league’s founder is Pelosi’s friend Bill Hambrecht, a San Francisco investment banker who managed Google’s initial public offering.

“It’s a vanity sports league and the people who own them are wealthy men,” said Harmeet Dhillon, a San Francisco civil-rights attorney who is representing the plaintiffs. “They have ignored their obligations to pay these people. Hambrecht and Paul Pelosi could write a check for what they owe these people without blinking, and they haven’t bothered to do it.”

In meetings before the team, Dhillon said, her clients recall Pelosi guaranteeing that they would get paid.

An additional political twist: Dhillon is the vice chairwoman of the California Republican Party – but she said she this is not about politics.

“I didn’t go out and seek this case; these plaintiffs sought me out,” Dhillon said. “You can take this set of facts, you can take out the name Pelosi and take it to any labor lawyer in California and they would file this lawsuit because it is outrageous.”

Paul Pelosi did not return phone calls requesting comment Monday.

When the league canceled the second half of its season in October, Paul Pelosi said in a statement that “it is our first priority to take care of our players, coaches, and staff and then to raise sufficient funds to take care of our other obligations and to resume fully financed operations in 2013.”

Speaking as a “spokesman for the UFL ownership group” in that same statement, Paul Pelosi blamed postponement on “a lack of sufficient funds due to the high cost of workmen’s compensation insurance and other elements.”

Dhillon said, “They never got (worker’s compensation insurance) from what my clients told me.”

Nancy Pelosi has a 95 percent lifetime rating on labor issues, according to the AFL-CIO rating of legislators.

Paul Pelosi’s stake in the Sacramento football team is in the range of $5 million to $25 million, according to the broad scale used in federal financial-disclosure forms. He claimed between $1 million and $5 million in losses, according to the disclosures.

Founded in 2009, the UFL has teetered on the edge of viability. It promised to return in the spring of 2013 but didn’t, and a future return is in peril.

Earlier this year, 78 of its players sued the league, its teams and Hambrecht for failing to pay them fully. They were seeking $1.5 million plus fees.

Nearly a year ago, Dennis Green – the former Stanford and Minnesota Vikings and Arizona Cardinals head coach – sued the Sacramento team for $1 million that he said he is still owed for coaching the Mountain Lions. The matter is in arbitration.

Joe Garofoli is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. E-mail: jgarofoli@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @joegarofoli

Article source: http://www.sfgate.com/politics/joegarofoli/article/Employees-of-UFL-Sacramento-team-sue-Paul-Pelosi-4667148.php

The uneven recovery of the Bay Area real estate market over the past year has created opportunities for real estate owners to challenge their property tax assessments. Areas that have experienced the strongest growth, as well as markets in which the recovery is lagging, may be ripe for challenges to property tax assessments.

Pregnant propositions

Under California’s Proposition 13, property taxes are based on the purchase price paid for a property or on the cost of constructing the property. Thereafter, Proposition 13 caps value increases (and property tax increases) at 2 percent annually.

When property values decline, Proposition 8, the bookend to Proposition 13, requires county assessors to reduce taxable property values below Proposition 13 value caps to reflect current market conditions. As real estate values recover following a downturn, assessors restore taxable values back to Proposition 13 levels.

Over the past year or so, core Bay Area markets (primarily San Francisco and the Silicon Valley) have experienced strong growth in market rents and declines in capitalization rates, particularly as compared to other Bay Area real estate markets. Because of the brisk recovery in core markets, county assessors have aggressively moved to restore 2012 values, determined as of Jan. 1, 2012, back to Proposition 13 levels. Such value restorations can bring major increases in assessments and taxes.

Assessors exercise value judgment

In order to restore property values to Proposition 13 levels, California requires county assessors to evaluate market sales and rental information. In so doing, assessors consider ranges of information on sales and rentals, and exercise their judgment as to whether values should fall in the top, middle or bottom of a range.

While assessors generally determine values for residential properties using computerized mass appraisal techniques, commercial properties tend to be more complex and require individual attention by assessor staff.

This year, the assessors in San Francisco and Santa Clara County have restored property values and assessments to levels at or near Proposition 13 amounts, which, in some cases, has dramatically increased tax bills as compared to 2011. In doing so, assessors may have justified assessments using more recent rental rates or cap rates, rather than using average rates during the 12 months prior to Jan. 1, which tends to accelerate value increases.

In 2012, most Bay Area counties announced increases in their property tax rolls.

The 2012 roll increases are due, at least in part, to increasing sales and leasing activity, which tend to be reflected in higher property tax values and assessments. However, these increases also reflect Proposition 13 value restorations described previously, and highlight those counties which merit increased consideration as far as whether to review and appeal property tax assessments.

Property tax appeal opportunities

The current situation presents several types of property tax appeal opportunities. First, for properties in San Francisco, San Mateo and Santa Clara counties, it is possible that assessors have been overly aggressive in restoring values to Proposition 13 levels. Taxpayers should request backup information supporting full or partial restoration of Proposition 13 levels and if the assumptions appear excessive, file an appeal.

This same advice goes for properties in secondary and tertiary markets, particularly where there have been Proposition 13 value restorations. Properties in these markets should also be reviewed, however, to determine whether they have participated in the economic recovery that San Francisco and the Silicon Valley have experienced. Economic recovery among Bay Area counties has been uneven, and hasn’t benefited every city within a county consistently.

In San Mateo County, for example, property values in Atherton have increased significantly, but values in East Palo Alto have continued to decline. Similarly, in Contra Costa County, values in five cities increased while in the county’s remaining 14 cities values generally declined.

Finally, property owners should not assume that a “no change” assessment or that a lower assessment by the local assessor is correct. Values in some areas declined during 2011, which means that market values as of Jan. 1, 2012 may be lower than 2011 values, and should not reflect value increases that have occurred during the first nine months of 2012.

Cris K. O’Neall specializes in property and local tax matters as a partner in the law firm of Cahill, Davis O’Neall LLP, the California member of American Property Tax Counsel, the national affiliation of property tax attorneys.

Article source: http://www.nuwireinvestor.com/articles/bay-area-homeowners-appeal-tax-assessments-59956.aspx

Drever, 71, has made a career of seeking opportunities in unusual places and times. At age 7, he set up a mushroom farm in the basement of his family’s Geneva, Ill., house – an enterprise his parents quashed when he started hauling in manure. So he started a business painting house numbers on curbs.

As an Oakland real estate agent in the 1960s, he noticed a glut of neglected apartment buildings. That spurred him to find nine partners to join him in putting up $5,000 each for a dilapidated triplex in Sausalito. He and one partner renovated the building, subdivided and sold the land, and the investors made a 400 percent return.

That launched his career of buying run-down apartment buildings in distressed markets nationwide, and reinvigorating them. At one point, he was Houston’s largest landlord.

He has sold off his portfolios a couple of times over the decades. Now, as chairman of Drever Capital Management, he has embarked on a new buying spree.

Drever pumps iron and swims almost daily in the chilly bay outside the 100-year-old boathouse that he’s converted into his office. His son Noah, 29, one of seven children ages 25 to 53, has followed him into the business as a managing director.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

Q: You are known as a contrarian investor. What’s an example?

In 2004, we told people to keep their powder dry (meaning don’t invest in real estate). We turned back $100 million in commitment (funds) to GE (Capital Real Estate); no one could believe we said we didn’t want their money. Most of my peers loaded up (on properties) and those things turned to mud. Now we’re buying what they overpaid for in that 2008 era.

Q: What are you buying now?

A: Right now we are targeting lenders with problem loans on multifamily buildings. It’s not the glamour part. This is supplying garden apartments to the nurses and schoolteachers and service people. We started doing it way back when, and didn’t even realize we were being socially responsible.

Q: Will you provide workforce housing in San Francisco or elsewhere in the Bay Area?

A: The housing need here is so critical, but prices in San Francisco have gone so crazy that you cannot develop workforce housing right now. You just can’t do it. We are not interested in competing in $3,000 rental apartments. We would go to the outlying parts of the Bay Area, challenged areas.

Q: Where specifically? Pittsburg, Antioch, Vallejo, Fairfield are areas that had huge bubble-fueled run-ups and now have been hard hit by the housing downturn.

A: All of those are of interest.

Q: But what about the core Bay Area? There are lots of service workers in San Francisco and Silicon Valley who need affordable housing. Don’t you want to be socially responsible in helping them?

A: Investment capital has no heart. Our first obligation is to maximize returns for our partners.

Q: What is the market like for purchasing distressed apartment buildings now?

A: We have closed at least a dozen transactions in the past year or so (in places like Clearwater, Fla.; Houston and San Antonio; Evanston, Ill.). This is the most opportunistic time I’ve ever seen in my life, for three reasons. One, there is such a shortage of housing. Two, a tremendous number of nonperforming loans were written in the heady, go-go years from 2005 to 2008. It is very difficult for owners to service those loans. When they come due, they can’t be refinanced because the properties are underwater. Three, interest rates are under 4 percent, which will probably last another year.

Q: What kind of discount do you seek?

A: For example, we just bought the loan on a senior housing facility in South Carolina for 50 cents on the dollar of what it cost them to build it in 2008.

Q: How much money do you have to spend?

A: The institutional war chest is topping out at $300 million; we have (investments from) some big life-insurance companies and pension funds. We just started a parallel fund for high-net-worth families and are shooting to raise $100 million to $300 million.

Q: What is demand like for rental units now?

A: Instead of homeownership, we have renters by necessity. We think this will continue on for another five years at least. The (pool of) Millennial/Gen Y renters is huge. There has been so much doubling up (grown children living with their parents) and now as the economy improves (and those children want their own places), it puts increasing pressure on housing.

Q: Describe the kind of housing you provide.

A: Our average rent across 10,000 units is $793. We provide really nice housing for that. Buying challenged apartment buildings is something many people shy away from, even in our industry. We (specialize in) turning problematic properties into well-run, attractive places to live; where people not only move in but stay. That’s where we make money: When people stay, it cuts your costs down.

Q: At one troubled complex, you offered prominent apartments at reduced rents to police officers so they’d park their patrol cars out front, deterring criminal activity. What are other ways you transform apartment complexes?

A: We always try to make the street scene look attractive. We spend significant money enhancing the entry to a property and we also fix up the inside of the apartments. They call it “Dreverizing” in the industry. By the time we’re done, it looks like a Four Seasons hotel. We create a resort atmosphere, which is unusual for workforce housing; a pool area with cabanas and a barbecue. My pool house out here has a barbecue set-up to die for. You go to one of our apartment projects, you’ll see the same set-up. That’s a real magnet. That’s why when families move in, they stay.

Q: What do you think of the growing interest by major investors in buying multiple foreclosed homes in certain cities, rehabbing them and renting them out, trying to treat these scattered homes as if they were a multiunit building?

A: I think it’s an excellent concept. I also think the best opportunities are gone in that arena. There’s an overload of investors looking for that product.

Q: What kinds of missteps have you made?

A: We bought a property in Austin, and the highway department came in (shortly afterward) and made the front into a construction staging area. It blocked our entrance entirely. It was supposed to be one year, but they were there for five years. It was a disaster. But we were able to work with the lender. The construction finally ended and we were able to restructure the loan and now it’s a solid asset. It turned out to be lemonade.

Q: What is your exit strategy? Do you sell entire buildings, do condo conversions, hold onto them for many years?

A: All of the above. In this cycle I could see a prolonged hold with long-term cash-flow benefits. But we’ve sold to REITS and done a lot of condo conversions that worked out really well.

Carolyn Said is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. E-mail: csaid@sfchronicle.com

Article source: http://www.sfgate.com/realestate/article/Maxwell-Drever-talks-real-estate-strategy-3787290.php

For more than four years a chiropractor, a financial advisor, a sheet metal contractor, a paralegal, a real estate investor and a bisexual prostitute have met every month in a yoga studio on San Francisco’s Sansome Street to discuss a shared interest in small government, modest foreign policy, and antipathy toward the U.S. Federal Reserve.

In August, the group began telephoning voters in Iowa, urging them to support a certain Texas Republican’s presidential campaign.

This week, some members of the group traveled to Iowa to help Congressman Ron Paul win the Jan. 3 Caucuses.

The focus on Iowa represents a strategic shift for the group. Members decided to apply their time, money, and ingenuity to Iowa, after spending the 2008 presidential primary season fruitlessly waving Ron Paul banners over Bay Area freeway overpasses and staffing tables in front of local stores.

In 2010, some of Paul’s supporters rallied behind John Dennis, a Republican who tried to unseat Congresswoman Nancy Pelosi (D-San Francisco). Dennis lost, but his campaign raised about $2 million, earned national media attention, and helped the group develop its more strategic approach.

This summer, before the Ames, Iowa Straw Poll, Dennis and Jun Dam helped set up a local phone bank operation using voter data from the Iowa Secretary of State and special telemarketing software. In a typical weekend, between five and ten volunteers make calls to Iowa voters, according to Dam.

“One woman said she wasn’t sure about Ron Paul. Then I told her about his anti-war views,” said Pat Lamken. “She had just gone to a funeral of a boy who’d been killed in Afghanistan. She said, ‘If Ron Paul will end that war, I’ll vote for him.’”

Another member of the group, Dan Pickell, 52, a Pacifica sheet metal contractor, said Iowans have been surprisingly receptive to unexpected phone calls from the San Francisco Bay Area.

“People are a lot more open to the message now because, for one, things are a lot worse in the country as the economy goes,” Pickell said. “Before, people just said he was some kind of kook. But now I think people who are actually paying attention do grasp the message of sound money, and the liberty message, and a humble foreign policy, and following the constitution.”

Dam, a 36-year-old financial planner, said he was inspired by Paul when he heard him advocating for noninterventionist foreign policies during a 2007 debate with Rudy Giuliani.

“I was never politically active before that,” said Dam. “But ever since them I’ve been helping out, trying to spread the ideas of freedom and liberty.”

Members of the Sansome St. group pride themselves on their iconoclastic views. Lamken, a 60-year-old paralegal, said she is a registered Republican who is also involved with the anti-war group Code Pink.

“A lot of us are self-employed, or small business owners in one way or another. I don’t think we have any member of the group who works for the government,” Lamken said. “One person who worked with a defense contractor had to quit because it didn’t fit well with her job.”

While San Francisco may be a liberal bastion, the region is also fertile ground for Libertarian ideas, including those espoused by Paul, according to Dorien Zandbergen, an anthropologist at Leiden University in Amsterdam, who studies Bay Area culture.

The region’s mix of New Age, hippie, and tech-reverent ideas produces “first and foremost an anti-authoritarian stance — the notion that there’s no authority higher than yourself,” Zandbergen said in an e-mail.

In the days before the Jan. 3 Caucuses, at least three members of the Sansome St. group traveled to Iowa, to knock on doors and campaign for Paul.

On Wendesday, Dam was in Davenport chaperoning out-of-state volunteers.

“I’ve been renting them hotel rooms, getting people connected through phone banking, and getting them connected with people here in Iowa,” he said.

A man named Starchild, who described himself as an erotic services provider and refused to reveal his age, left San Francisco for Iowa Wednesday. A perennial Libertarian candidate for office in San Francisco, Starchild has long been a fixture of the Bay Area’s underground political scene. Like the other members of the Sansome Street group, Starchild says he sees a kindred spirit in Ron Paul.

“I really like his authenticity. He’s a humble guy who’s an ideologue. He’s genuinely passionate about the ideas,” Starchild said, “And he sees the potential of having a major impact, and changing the course of history, by running for president.”

Article source: http://www.baycitizen.org/politics/story/ron-paul-strategy-four-years-making/