Yesterday I sent this PROPOSAL,via email, to the Mayor of Camas - Barry McDonnell and the Seven(7) members of the the City Council.

By now you have all seen, heard and been overwhelmed by the BAD FINANCIAL NEWS coming at us from all directions.

Getting past the COVID-19 effect on the World, Nation, State, City and Personal finances we will be left dealing with the aftermath.

Analysts are talking of a wipeout of 30% of our GDP and unemployment reaching 35%.

Two Sectors most affected are LABOR and HOUSING.

Both of which have major ramifications on the City of Camas Financials.

LABOR

Yesterday we got another dose of preliminary fall-off-the-cliff data about the lockdown economy: 6.6 million people filed initial unemployment claims in the week ended March 28, seasonally adjusted, about 10x the prior record set in 1982. This is on top of the upwardly revised 3.3 million that had filed during the week before. Combined, this makes for nearly 10 million unemployment claims processed in two weeks.

Jobs lost, as announced today reflect total nonfarmpayroll employment fell by 701K in March, 2020.

States indicated in their comments that the breadth of the industries at the epicenter of the unemployment crisis has widened, with sharply rising claims now including:

• Hospitality

• Food services

• Health care (areas not related to treating COVID-19 patients)

• Social assistance

• Manufacturing

• Construction

• Retail

• Wholesale

We are just seeing the first level of layoffs at this point. Very soon we will start seeing layoffs in the sectors that depend on Service and Retail such as Property Management, Restaurant Supply companies, Clothing and Sportswear brands, and then the Software, Accounting and Legal firms that are suppliers to all those firms. More Tech related will soon follow.

HOUSING

The first glimpse of what the new housing market might look like is provided by a weekly report on the number of mortgage applications by the Mortgage Bankers Association (MBA).

In states where lockdowns started first – they were kicked off in the San Francisco Bay Area – the year-over-year plunge in purchase-mortgage applications was the most severe:

• California: -36.4%

• New York: -35.6%

• Washington: -32.5%

And this is happening despite the lowest average mortgage rates in the MBA’s survey data. During the reporting week, the average contract rate for 30-year fixed-rate mortgages fell back to 3.47%.

Summation:

The way for the City of Camas to make it through to the other side  FINANCIALY sound is to make the hard decisions both QUICKLY and VIGORUSLY to cut spending on everything possible.

I propose that the City of Camas draw on the knowledge and expertise of its experienced citizens to help in putting a plan of attack into place now.

The TAXPAYER DRIVEN TASKFORCE TO REDUCE CITY EXPENSES NOW can help accomplish this.

Let us help our City.