Kernwatch

City Hall Watch Mar 30

UPDATE: Open Letter: Frank Parlato Jr; Predator-Realtor, former-
Buffalo Beat Sr. Writer

FROM: Richard Kern, Housing Activist, former-Buffalo Beat writer

RE: MORE Parlato Victims

Today I learned that my new tenants are among the ever-growing ranks of Parlato victims. Ironically, they have helped clean-up & repair major damage to my house by (Parlato ally ALT Press-owned) Buff. Inst. of Urban Ecology Exec. Dir. Jay Burney, a former tenant in my two upstairs apartments.

My tenants lost their “Parlato house” at 182 Potomac in April 1999. The facts are:

Purchased by Parlato’s Erie Development Corp, 3/15/96 $17,500
Sold 2 wks. later at $25,400 mark-up to my tenants (& 2 children) $42,900
Foreclosed by Countrywide Loans, 12/14/98 (financed most Parlato sales) $63,135
Resold 2/2/00 following foreclosure to investor Keith Canazzi $ 7,000

Although this house was partly remodeled (carpeting, floor-covering, exterior paint, chimney repairs) Parlato profits exceeded $15,000, after holding the house a mere 2 weeks. And the house lost MORE value, re-selling far below Parlato’s $17,500 purchase price. Incredibly, Paralo’s inflated price was a so-called “valid sale” resulting in an assessed value of $46,400 (which drove up assessed values of neighboring houses). Current assessed value is $30,000, despite the recent sale at $7,000, again showing over-assessment of low end housing.

Copy Feb. 6, Open Letter to Parlato

You stand alone as Buffalo’s most successful-ever predatory realtor, more impressive because you masquerade as “progressive”. Your web site: www.manliness.org says it well, “Be wicked, if you must, on a grand scale”. You have skillfully used just a small portion of your ill-gotten millions to repeatedly re-invent yourself while buying-off anybody getting in your way (or “buying out”, as you did in getting Buffalo Beat to give you ‘my’ City Hall Watch after threatening to sue).

Another Parlato web site www.Frankreport.com (down since turned-over to ALT Press) lies, ”I will be the voice of the people. Mine will be the bleeding mouth from which the gag is snatched. I will say everything” (Kipling). You should use ”Golden Rule: He who has the gold makes the rules”.

You charm, or threaten lawsuits, media you control not to print “errors” in my analysis of your Robbin’ da’ Hood schemes. Proving your major role in devastating neighborhoods, there were 7 foreclosed PARLATO sales in Buffalo last week, plus 13 HUD-foreclosured Parlato sales on the current Buffalo HUD inventory:

Sales Jan. 29 – Feb. 2: You engaged in 7 of 32 distressed sales (22%). Perhaps not ‘guilty’ in pre-90 sales, your 5 other sales are:

75 QUINCY: Parlato cost $15000 4/96, sold $37900 5/96, to HUD $56297 8/99, Resold:$1855
127 ESSER: Parlato cost $37000 5/91, sold $48900 6/96, to Ocwen $?? Date? Resold $9000
107 WEISS: Parlato cost $15000 4/96, sold $37900 5/96, to HUD $46822 8/99, Resale?
18 GOODYEAR: Parlato cost $14000 9/95, sold $29900 9/95, to HUD $50624 7/00, Resold $502
27 FORMAN, Parlato cost $ ?? , sold $42000 8/92, to VA $31087 5/95, to Baron $5401 6/96, to Versatile $5500 12/98, to Ameriquest Mortg. $30000 6/99, Resold $7000

Your average mark-up was $15,900, giving you profits exceeding $10,000 per sale (total profits

PAGE 2; City Hall Watch Mar 30

above: $50,000+; you profited $5 to $8 million, or much more, over a dozen years). Foreclosures above total $184,800, while resales total under $17,000, a net loss of $167,000 on 5 sales. Resale, re-forclosed 27 Forman to Versatile Enterprises (Robt Koerntgen) illustrates a common pattern of your “softening” the way for repeat scams.

Current HUD-foreclosed Inventory: (Parlato Total 13, very likely more)

312 Esser: Parlato cost 6/93 $35000, sold 7/93 $53000, to HUD 5/00 $68,178, HUD asking 17500
96 Loepere: Parlato cost 6/91 $17500, sold $29900, to HUD 11/00 $27320, demo? HUD asking $1350
31 Koons: Parlato cost 12/91 $28900, sold to ??, to HUD 36,239, HUD asking $3600
86 Koons: Parlato cost 7/94 $14000, sold 7/94 32900, to HUD 4/00 $50461, HUD asking $11700
204 Sumner: Parlato cost 1/95 $20350, sold 3/95 $37900, to HUD 7/99 $51500, HUD asking $2700
31 Titus: Parlato cost 3/94 $17000, sold 6/94 $35900, to HUD 3/99 $49988, HUD asking $360
40 Theodore: Parlato cost 7/94 $28000, sold 10/94 $44900, to HUD 6/00 $74999, HUD asking $14000
91 Sayre: Parlato cost 12/89 $?, sold 12/89 $37900, to HUD 8/00 $35511, HUD asking $17100
249 May : Parlato cost 3/96 $7000, sold 6/96 $34900, to HUD 4/00 $49800, HUD asking $12000
359 Rhode Isl: Parlato cost 3/88 $?, sold $28,000, to HUD 5/96 $43171, HUD asking $1000
421 Vermont: Parlato cost 6/94 $13000, sold 3/95 $39900, still with bank, to HUD ??
641 Grant: Parlato cost? Sold 11/89 $48000, to HUD $59520, HUD asking $15400
29 Sherwood: Parlato cost 8/94 $29000, sold 8/96 $48400, to HUD 1/01 $47500, HUD asking $1 or $3250

You made an estimated $1/4 million profit on these 20 sales, as HUD losses on the 5 sales alone last week totaled $167,000. Estimated HUD losses for the 20 eventual resales are well over $600,000.

Please correct any errors above . . . so my “bleeding mouth” . . can be “the voice of the people”

Altho you “beat the rap” (by hiring HUD worker Jerry Wilke for ‘advice’ & top civil rights attorney David Jay), 2 convicted FHA scamsters Chas. & Wm. King (Baron’s Develop.) will be sentenced Feb. 20. Meanwhile your close friend, Independence Party Chair Charlie Flynn, & Venere Hutchinson-Dana Upcher are continuing your scams
But after a decade of stealing $3+ mil. from HUD, Chief City Court Judge Trammell was finally convicted of stealing $25,000. It is my hope that some day you, too, will get a taste of justice.

Comments? Corrections? Call, 881-4266, 882-2388; kernwatch@aol.com
Richard Kern, MSW, Feb.9, 2001 UPDATE: Mar. 30, 01

Venere & Dana . . . Faith Based Initiative?

Nobody in City Hall seems to know them. Nobody knows where they live. Every time they buy a HUD house they give a different address.

In Buffalo’s broken economy an expanding “poverty industry” steadily plunders crumbling city infrastructure. The latest revelation, altho a criminal enterprise, is almost funny. Venere Hutchinson & his girlfriend business partner Dana Upcher (also partner Rhammel Wattley) have invented a variation of the Parlato FHA scam. They buy HUD houses very cheap, “flip” them to each other while increasing their value on paper, then get fraudulent mortgages, and quickly walk away in foreclosure. We have discovered this dynamic in 10 houses. (Foreclosed mortgages currently total $474,000. Late charges & legal fees will push total far above $1/2 million).

However, in Feb. 1 Fine Print (a fraud of a “newspaper” printed by longtime scamster Ron Fleming, which this issue has an enlarged THREE pages [usually 2 pgs.] of GUESS OUR NAMES? photos) has a full page ad for The Art Abode Expose Au Culture Gallery & Amphitheatre (sic) . . . listing 15 services, including concerts, first annual night of 100 poets, plays, trade shows, auctions, Saturday Market . . . God’s Glorious Gospel Explosions. It is Hutchinson’s latest project (scam?) at 1420 Main, the former Channel 7 studio, which he bought several years ago for $30,000, then got a $160,000 mortgage.

The ad, with photos of the building, proclaims “The grand opening is soon to be announced” & is signed by “Manny” V. E Hutchinson. “(NON) Invitations” were sent to councilpersons, including Nick Bonifacio, who has pledged legal action to shut down Hutchinson-Upcher’s scam. It includes their foreclosed house around the corner from Bonifacio at 185 Hampshire & vacant 157 Massachusetts (next door to City Finance Dir. James Milroy, where their “staff” hold late night parties.

Fillmore’s Flimflam Fleming . . .& Andy Cuomo

Fine Print’s promotion of Hutchinson’s scheme fits well with Fleming’s plan to leverage devastation into a council seat. He got a $25,000 a year part-time job as community organizer at United Neighborhoods (an arm of BMHA) after going to Washington 3 times free, sponsored by activist NPA (Chicago-based National People’s Action) to “report” NPA’s exposure of a devastating national FHA scandal. Fleming is a leader in BEST Block Club, which profiled Frank Parlato Jr. as a posterboy of the scandal. . . no matter that Fleming used to work for Parlato. Fleming has never reported anything about the FHA scandal . . as Fine Print (which prints less than 1000 issues) now regularly has _ page HUD FHA ads . . as well as HUD-funded BMHA ads.

HUD Secretary Andrew Cuomo refused to address FHA issues at the annual NPA conference 3 years ago, so NPA hired 16 yellow school buses for 600 neighborhood activists for a Sunday ‘visit’ on Cuomo’s front lawn in upscale McLean Virginia, We predict Cuomo for Governor ads in Fine Print soon. Also, Frank Parlato, Jr., Chair of the Tonawanda Independence Party, may well endorse Cuomo (who did nothing to correct Parlato’s profiting $5 to $8 million from his FHA scam, heavily focused in Fleming’s Fillmore Dist.).Watch for more

BMHA . . . Really Stupid Housing

Last evening 200 neighborhood residents gathered with North Dist. Councilman Golombek to oppose BMHA’s proposed secret plan to purchase 158 unit Hertel Homes across Hertel from BMHA’s Jasper Parrish Project (37 vacant of 193 units). The plan was unanimously opposed, as nobody from BMHA was present. Masiello-aide Tom Gleed conveyed the Mayor’s opposition to the plan, but BMHA Exec West wrote “ in our ongoing efforts to be responsive to our neighbors . .we have heard the concerns expressed by some . .& have decided not to conduct any further negotiations for the sale of the property at this time” (my italics).

But most incredible, BMHA (with 1500 vacancies & an economic cost of $1500 to house 2 persons a month, while housing 7% of Buffalo’s 115,000 poor) proposes: “We believe, taxpayers would benefit with the Housing Authority taking a more entrepreneurial position . . “ that is, buying up private property, in a city with 25,000 vacancies & a plummeting tax base. That’s stupid. And SCARY!

Comments? Corrections? Call, 881-4266, 882-2388; kernwatch@aol.com Richard Kern, MSW, Feb.6, 01




				City Hall Watch Mar 30 UPDATE: Open Letter: Frank Parlato Jr; Predator-Realtor, former- Buffalo Beat Sr. Writer FROM: Richard Kern, Housing Activist, former-Buffalo Beat writer RE: MORE Parlato Victims Today I learned that my new tenants are among the ever-growing ranks of Parlato victims. Ironically, they have helped clean-up & repair major damage to my house by (Parlato ally ALT Press-owned) Buff. Inst. of Urban Ecology Exec. Dir. Jay Burney, a former tenant in my two upstairs apartments. My tenants lost their “Parlato house” at 182 Potomac in April 1999. The facts are: Purchased by Parlato’s Erie Development Corp, 3/15/96 $17,500 Sold 2 wks. later at $25,400 mark-up to my tenants (& 2 children) $42,900 Foreclosed by Countrywide Loans, 12/14/98 (financed most Parlato sales) $63,135 Resold 2/2/00 following foreclosure to investor Keith Canazzi $ 7,000 Although this house was partly remodeled (carpeting, floor-covering, exterior paint, chimney repairs) Parlato profits exceeded $15,000, after holding the house a mere 2 weeks. And the house lost MORE value, re-selling far below Parlato’s $17,500 purchase price. Incredibly, Paralo’s inflated price was a so-called “valid sale” resulting in an assessed value of $46,400 (which drove up assessed values of neighboring houses). Current assessed value is $30,000, despite the recent sale at $7,000, again showing over-assessment of low end housing. Copy Feb. 6, Open Letter to Parlato You stand alone as Buffalo’s most successful-ever predatory realtor, more impressive because you masquerade as “progressive”. Your web site: www.manliness.org says it well, “Be wicked, if you must, on a grand scale”. You have skillfully used just a small portion of your ill-gotten millions to repeatedly re-invent yourself while buying-off anybody getting in your way (or “buying out”, as you did in getting Buffalo Beat to give you ‘my’ City Hall Watch after threatening to sue). Another Parlato web site www.Frankreport.com (down since turned-over to ALT Press) lies, ”I will be the voice of the people. Mine will be the bleeding mouth from which the gag is snatched. I will say everything” (Kipling). You should use ”Golden Rule: He who has the gold makes the rules”. You charm, or threaten lawsuits, media you control not to print “errors” in my analysis of your Robbin’ da’ Hood schemes. Proving your major role in devastating neighborhoods, there were 7 foreclosed PARLATO sales in Buffalo last week, plus 13 HUD-foreclosured Parlato sales on the current Buffalo HUD inventory: Sales Jan. 29 – Feb. 2: You engaged in 7 of 32 distressed sales (22%). Perhaps not ‘guilty’ in pre-90 sales, your 5 other sales are: 75 QUINCY: Parlato cost $15000 4/96, sold $37900 5/96, to HUD $56297 8/99, Resold:$1855 127 ESSER: Parlato cost $37000 5/91, sold $48900 6/96, to Ocwen $?? Date? Resold $9000 107 WEISS: Parlato cost $15000 4/96, sold $37900 5/96, to HUD $46822 8/99, Resale? 18 GOODYEAR: Parlato cost $14000 9/95, sold $29900 9/95, to HUD $50624 7/00, Resold $502 27 FORMAN, Parlato cost $ ?? , sold $42000 8/92, to VA $31087 5/95, to Baron $5401 6/96, to Versatile $5500 12/98, to Ameriquest Mortg. $30000 6/99, Resold $7000 Your average mark-up was $15,900, giving you profits exceeding $10,000 per sale (total profits PAGE 2; City Hall Watch Mar 30 above: $50,000+; you profited $5 to $8 million, or much more, over a dozen years). Foreclosures above total $184,800, while resales total under $17,000, a net loss of $167,000 on 5 sales. Resale, re-forclosed 27 Forman to Versatile Enterprises (Robt Koerntgen) illustrates a common pattern of your “softening” the way for repeat scams. Current HUD-foreclosed Inventory: (Parlato Total 13, very likely more) 312 Esser: Parlato cost 6/93 $35000, sold 7/93 $53000, to HUD 5/00 $68,178, HUD asking 17500 96 Loepere: Parlato cost 6/91 $17500, sold $29900, to HUD 11/00 $27320, demo? HUD asking $1350 31 Koons: Parlato cost 12/91 $28900, sold to ??, to HUD 36,239, HUD asking $3600 86 Koons: Parlato cost 7/94 $14000, sold 7/94 32900, to HUD 4/00 $50461, HUD asking $11700 204 Sumner: Parlato cost 1/95 $20350, sold 3/95 $37900, to HUD 7/99 $51500, HUD asking $2700 31 Titus: Parlato cost 3/94 $17000, sold 6/94 $35900, to HUD 3/99 $49988, HUD asking $360 40 Theodore: Parlato cost 7/94 $28000, sold 10/94 $44900, to HUD 6/00 $74999, HUD asking $14000 91 Sayre: Parlato cost 12/89 $?, sold 12/89 $37900, to HUD 8/00 $35511, HUD asking $17100 249 May : Parlato cost 3/96 $7000, sold 6/96 $34900, to HUD 4/00 $49800, HUD asking $12000 359 Rhode Isl: Parlato cost 3/88 $?, sold $28,000, to HUD 5/96 $43171, HUD asking $1000 421 Vermont: Parlato cost 6/94 $13000, sold 3/95 $39900, still with bank, to HUD ?? 641 Grant: Parlato cost? Sold 11/89 $48000, to HUD $59520, HUD asking $15400 29 Sherwood: Parlato cost 8/94 $29000, sold 8/96 $48400, to HUD 1/01 $47500, HUD asking $1 or $3250 You made an estimated $1/4 million profit on these 20 sales, as HUD losses on the 5 sales alone last week totaled $167,000. Estimated HUD losses for the 20 eventual resales are well over $600,000. Please correct any errors above . . . so my “bleeding mouth” . . can be “the voice of the people” Altho you “beat the rap” (by hiring HUD worker Jerry Wilke for ‘advice’ & top civil rights attorney David Jay), 2 convicted FHA scamsters Chas. & Wm. King (Baron’s Develop.) will be sentenced Feb. 20. Meanwhile your close friend, Independence Party Chair Charlie Flynn, & Venere Hutchinson-Dana Upcher are continuing your scams But after a decade of stealing $3+ mil. from HUD, Chief City Court Judge Trammell was finally convicted of stealing $25,000. It is my hope that some day you, too, will get a taste of justice. Comments? Corrections? Call, 881-4266, 882-2388; kernwatch@aol.com Richard Kern, MSW, Feb.9, 2001 UPDATE: Mar. 30, 01 Venere & Dana . . . Faith Based Initiative? Nobody in City Hall seems to know them. Nobody knows where they live. Every time they buy a HUD house they give a different address. In Buffalo’s broken economy an expanding “poverty industry” steadily plunders crumbling city infrastructure. The latest revelation, altho a criminal enterprise, is almost funny. Venere Hutchinson & his girlfriend business partner Dana Upcher (also partner Rhammel Wattley) have invented a variation of the Parlato FHA scam. They buy HUD houses very cheap, “flip” them to each other while increasing their value on paper, then get fraudulent mortgages, and quickly walk away in foreclosure. We have discovered this dynamic in 10 houses. (Foreclosed mortgages currently total $474,000. Late charges & legal fees will push total far above $1/2 million). However, in Feb. 1 Fine Print (a fraud of a “newspaper” printed by longtime scamster Ron Fleming, which this issue has an enlarged THREE pages [usually 2 pgs.] of GUESS OUR NAMES? photos) has a full page ad for The Art Abode Expose Au Culture Gallery & Amphitheatre (sic) . . . listing 15 services, including concerts, first annual night of 100 poets, plays, trade shows, auctions, Saturday Market . . . God’s Glorious Gospel Explosions. It is Hutchinson’s latest project (scam?) at 1420 Main, the former Channel 7 studio, which he bought several years ago for $30,000, then got a $160,000 mortgage. The ad, with photos of the building, proclaims “The grand opening is soon to be announced” & is signed by “Manny” V. E Hutchinson. “(NON) Invitations” were sent to councilpersons, including Nick Bonifacio, who has pledged legal action to shut down Hutchinson-Upcher’s scam. It includes their foreclosed house around the corner from Bonifacio at 185 Hampshire & vacant 157 Massachusetts (next door to City Finance Dir. James Milroy, where their “staff” hold late night parties. Fillmore’s Flimflam Fleming . . .& Andy Cuomo Fine Print’s promotion of Hutchinson’s scheme fits well with Fleming’s plan to leverage devastation into a council seat. He got a $25,000 a year part-time job as community organizer at United Neighborhoods (an arm of BMHA) after going to Washington 3 times free, sponsored by activist NPA (Chicago-based National People’s Action) to “report” NPA’s exposure of a devastating national FHA scandal. Fleming is a leader in BEST Block Club, which profiled Frank Parlato Jr. as a posterboy of the scandal. . . no matter that Fleming used to work for Parlato. Fleming has never reported anything about the FHA scandal . . as Fine Print (which prints less than 1000 issues) now regularly has _ page HUD FHA ads . . as well as HUD-funded BMHA ads. HUD Secretary Andrew Cuomo refused to address FHA issues at the annual NPA conference 3 years ago, so NPA hired 16 yellow school buses for 600 neighborhood activists for a Sunday ‘visit’ on Cuomo’s front lawn in upscale McLean Virginia, We predict Cuomo for Governor ads in Fine Print soon. Also, Frank Parlato, Jr., Chair of the Tonawanda Independence Party, may well endorse Cuomo (who did nothing to correct Parlato’s profiting $5 to $8 million from his FHA scam, heavily focused in Fleming’s Fillmore Dist.).Watch for more BMHA . . . Really Stupid Housing Last evening 200 neighborhood residents gathered with North Dist. Councilman Golombek to oppose BMHA’s proposed secret plan to purchase 158 unit Hertel Homes across Hertel from BMHA’s Jasper Parrish Project (37 vacant of 193 units). The plan was unanimously opposed, as nobody from BMHA was present. Masiello-aide Tom Gleed conveyed the Mayor’s opposition to the plan, but BMHA Exec West wrote “ in our ongoing efforts to be responsive to our neighbors . .we have heard the concerns expressed by some . .& have decided not to conduct any further negotiations for the sale of the property at this time” (my italics). But most incredible, BMHA (with 1500 vacancies & an economic cost of $1500 to house 2 persons a month, while housing 7% of Buffalo’s 115,000 poor) proposes: “We believe, taxpayers would benefit with the Housing Authority taking a more entrepreneurial position . . “ that is, buying up private property, in a city with 25,000 vacancies & a plummeting tax base. That’s stupid. And SCARY! Comments? Corrections? Call, 881-4266, 882-2388; kernwatch@aol.com Richard Kern, MSW, Feb.6, 01