CUTS: Recording fees would help

Regarding Saturday's howlingly funny story about county budget cuts: The money is in their face but they refuse to do anything about it.

Mortgage-backed securities are traded multiple times per day and each of those trades should be recorded at the county courthouse in the county in which the property is located. Because we accept MERS, it isn't.

When I asked about it, I was told by the county prosecutor that unless the legislature acted to make recordation mandatory, there was nothing they could do about it. So the county starves.

All Boise need do is mandate recordation of changes in beneficial ownership and the problem is solved. The county has missed out on hundreds of thousands if not millions of dollars in recordation fees over the last 10 years because in ID, there are no mandatory recording laws.

We starve, so Wall Street can have a little bit more.

Jeff Thigpen, county recorder in Greensboro, N.C., is doing something about it. John O'Brien, Sussex County (MA) recorder calls his office a crime scene. Our guys have to sit on their thumbs because Boise won't act.

And as an aside, does anyone besides me find it ironic that the county is cutting back while the city spends how many millions on McEuen Field against the citizens' wishes?

Talk about a disconnect! I wonder what it will take to spark change?

VERMONT TROTTER

Coeur d'Alene