JOHN BISSET/Stuff

Sonya Lane of Waimate, and has started a chimney sweep business, and aims to donate 10% of her profit to firefighters.

Sonya Lane is hoping her new chimney-sweeping business has a thank-you element will reduce fire call-outs and also raise money for the fire service.

More than five years after firefighters used the jaws of life to get Lane out of a crashed car, the Waimate woman has launched Sootless Chimney Sweep to try to reduce fire call-outs, and as a way to raise money for the fire service.

The idea of ​​donating 10% of the profits from her businesses to the firefighters through the New Zealand Firefighters Welfare Society was to give back to the organization of people that “saved my life”.

“I can’t stop fires but what I can do is stop some from happening.

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“Prevention is better than cure.

“I don’t want anyone suffering from something that can be preventable.”

Lane launched the business two months ago but is not the one climbing the ladder because of ongoing health issues, instead employing someone “who knows what they are doing”.

JOHN BISSET/Stuff

Sonya Lane said the reason behind the Sootless Chimney Sweep slogan, get it swept, is that prevention is better than cure.

“I have hired a staff member who is great, he learned how to clean chimneys from his father who learned to clean chimneys from his father,” Lane said.

Although she does not get up to do the sweeping, she has been able to see “some interesting things,” on job sites.

JOHN BISSET/Stuff

Sonya Lane has a goal of having Sootless Chimney Sweep all over New Zealand.

“I have seen many charcoaled birds,” she said.

“That’s why it is really important to get bird netting, as birds easily get into the chimney, in summer and winter, so we include bird netting in our chimney sweeping.”

Lane said the businesses had an amazing two months with word of mouth taking them all over South Canterbury, and she hopes one day, Sootless Chimney Sweep will be all over New Zealand.

JOHN BISSET/Stuff

Ten per cent of Sonya Lane’s profits are being donated to firefighters through the New Zealand Fire Fighters Welfare Society.

“I am also in the beginning of working with Work and Income to become a provider, so people will be able to get help to afford it if they need it,” she said

“People should be able to have the help to prevent chimney fires, and I think being able to do this will make it more accessible to more people.”

The post Crash sparks chimney sweeping enterprise with some income going to firefighters’ welfare appeared first on Los Gatos News And Events.

April 26, 2022

Payment processing giant Visa’s profits rose 21% in the first three months of the year fueled by a large jump in spending on the company’s namesake credit and debit card network.

The San Francisco-based company reported Tuesday that it earned $3.65 billion, or $1.70 a share, in its fiscal second quarter that ended March 31. That was up from $3.03 billion, or $1.38 a share, in the same period a year earlier.

Its earnings adjusted to exclude one-time items amounted to $1.79 a share. The results topped the expectations of analysts who were looking for Visa to earn $1.65 a share on an adjusted basis, according to FactSet.

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The post San Francisco-Primarily based Visa’s 2nd Quarter Earnings Leap 21% As Pandemic Eases appeared first on Los Gatos News And Events.

Speculators who evict tenants under the Ellis Act in San Francisco are seeing staggering profits, and paying only a tiny fraction of that money to help the victims relocate, a new city study shows.

In some cases, the value of Ellised properties have increase by more than 400 percent, and the average profit from selling the vacated units is $429,000, the report by the city’s Budget and Legislative Analyst shows.

Only 5.2 percent of that money goes to relocation fees and expenses to displaced tenants, the data, which covers the past ten years, shows.

The report shows the need to significantly increase the modest relocation fees that landlords have to pay tenants who are evicted under the Ellis Act, Sup. Myrna Melgar, who asked for the report, told me.

“That’s what we’re looking at,” she said.

The Ellis Act, one of the most abused state tenant laws, allows landlords to throw all of their renters out in the name of “going out of business.” Then they can sell the vacant buildings as tenancies in common, the rough equivalent of condos.

Most of these evictions don’t involve longtime landlords who are tired of managing rental property. In the vast majority of San Francisco cases, speculators buy apartment buildings with longtime tenants under rent control, cite the Ellis Act to evict everyone, then flip the building for a quick profit.

Under current local law, the evictors are required to pay $7,419 to each tenant, up to a maximum of $22,257 for a household. That, the report says, is just 5.2 percent of the profit that the typical speculator makes on the deal.

More: The relocation costs aren’t even enough to cover first-and-last month’s rent on a new apartment:

The required relocation payments for a single tenant in a 1 bedroom unit moving to a market rate 1 bedroom unit would not be sufficient to cover first and last months’ rent, a security deposit (one month’s rent), moving costs, and lost wages for five days spent packing and moving (conservatively assuming a minimum wage job in San Francisco). We estimate the deficiency in such a scenario to be $2,470 based on a relocation payment of $7,419 and relocation costs of $9,889.

The BLA examined 59 properties, representing 135 housing units, over the period of 2011-2021.

We found that the median assessed value of … such properties … increased by 464.5 percent from $299,470 in FY 2011- 12 to $1,690,650 in FY 2020-21, or by approximately $1.4 million. This rate of increase exceeds the 223.4 percent increase in assessed value for all properties for which Ellis Act Withdrawal Petitions were filed during that same period (which includes those that were not sold after the Ellis Act Withdrawal Petition was filed). It also exceeds the increase in all home values ​​in San Francisco of approximately 116 percent between 2011 and 2021 as reported by Zillow. All of this data indicates that evicting tenants through the Ellis Act corresponds to increased value of the properties, particularly if they are sold, but even if they are not.

More:

Finally, we further analyzed the financial impacts of Ellis Act evictions by analyzing the change in sales price for just those properties for which the owners filed an Ellis Act Withdrawal Petition and subsequently sold the property. Comparing the most recent sales prices prior to the Ellis Act Withdrawal Petition with the sales price after the Ellis Act Withdrawal Petition was filed for 38 properties representing 73 housing units, we found a median change in price of $949,688 for all properties, or $429,000 per unit .

This is pretty dramatic information, and it shows why so many speculators want to buy buildings in San Francisco and evict all the tenants: the profits are giant.

In 2014, then-Sup David Campos introduced a bill to raise the relocation fees; Under his proposal, an evictor would have to pay tenants the difference between their current rent and market rent on a similar apartment for two years.

(The federal standard for people forced to move when the government wants to, say, build a freeway, includes that same level of payment for four years.)

Then-Sup. London Breed tried to derail it, but it wound up passing the full board.

A right-wing property-rights group sued in federal court, and Judge Charles Breyer struck it down.

The city decided not to appeal.

So now it’s going to be up to Melgar, her colleagues, and the city attorney to figure out a way to use the data in the BLA report to craft legislation raising the relocation fees in a way that will pass court muster.

The post San Francisco Bay Guardian | The gorgeous speculator income in Ellis Act evictions appeared first on Los Gatos News And Events.