Yes, it may sound familiar to you faithful readers, about Perata’s mortgage and foreclosure relief bill currently in the Assembly, but here it is:

In Oakland, you can see a house or two in foreclosure and it’s obvious right away,” he said, saying the bill was an important step to preventing further deterioration of neighborhoods. “It’s like watching a house burn and you can’t do anything about it.”

Perata said that the bill gives local governments the ability to put liens on the property until it’s maintained. That means if the property owners, whether a bank or investors or a mixture of the two, do not clean up the property they could lose the property to the city or county.

“Cities and counties could be in the housing business,” he said.

 Well, I thought that was an interesting point of view. Cities or counties owning some of these foreclosures … hmmm. Start dream sequence … OK, end it. I’m not sure that will happen, but perhaps it’s enough of a threat that the foreclosure owners may start maintaining them. Ideas, anyone?