To: robert b furman who wrote (7390 ) 8/6/2019 1:54:53 PM From: Kirk © Respond to I'm pretty lucky... that $250K exemption is noise and I'd still owe over $1M in taxes to sell and move... so I look at the costs to live here as a deal in that I pay less in debt service and property taxes than it costs now to rent a small apartment. It is almost embarrassing but it is good we have Prop. 13 that sets taxes to only go up 2% a year... even though the taxes are huge compared to my current income... they are small compared to what my neighbor over the back fence will pay after he finishes the home he paid $3.05M for the lot, demolished it.... dug a huge basement and is just about ready to start the next phase.... my guess is he'll spend $2M and have to pay over $50K a year in property taxes! Incredible that people can actually afford this but I've been out of the real workforce for awhile and some can.Downtown may get hundreds of homes one of the few fuel stations in downtown San Jose — and says it is planning a mixed-use residential and retail development on the key street corner.The parking for the new project will be above ground and is going to be configured in such a way that the parking structure could someday be converted to residential units, should people drive fewer cars as time passes , Burroughs said. mercurynews-ca.newsmemory.com With the most recent purchase, Urban Catalyst, which describes itself as the first opportunity fund in Silicon Valley, has spent $ 30.6 million buying sites in the Bay Area, all of them in downtown San Jose. The company intends to eventually undertake 10 projects in San Jose’s urban center. Did you ever watch Treme on HBO? A lot of the show depicted how "carpet baggers" came in to collect government money that was intended to go to victims but they got rich paying off the local politicians for contracts to rebuild, etc... and you know the rest...Set in post-Katrina New Orleans, this hourlong drama series, from "The Wire" executive producers David Simon and Eric Overmyer, follows the lives of ordinary residents as they struggle with the aftereffects of the 2005 hurricane. Says star and New Orleans native Wendell Pierce, "The only things people had to hang on to were the rich traditions we knew that survived the test of time before: our music, food and family, family that included anyone who decided to accept the challenge to return." The large ensemble cast is supported by notable real-life New Orleanians, including many of its famous musicians.
