Representatives of the Occupy Los Angeles movement announced today that they plan to meet with Wells Fargo Bank executives on Monday, February 6 to discuss possible measures the bank can take to ease the foreclosure-fraud problem. According to the Occupy activists, the meeting with Wells Fargo will be the first of its kind in the nation in which bank executives and Occupiers come together to discuss the economic issues which led to the Occupy protests that began on Wall Street last September.
Representatives from Wells Fargo, America’s largest residential-mortgage originator in terms of both market share and mortgage servicing, reportedly had first approached lawyer and Occupy activist Pete Thottam and members of Occupy the Rose Parade during their preparations for last month’s Tournament of Roses Parade in Pasadena, California. Occupy the Rose Parade had singled out Wells Fargo, which they say was the largest financial contributor to this year’s Parade and participant with two large floats in the processions, as an example of how the Parade had been overtaken by corporate interests.
Parties in Attendance
Wells Fargo has reportedly agreed to have at least six senior executives at the meeting with Occupy L.A., including its heads of Mortgage Banking, Community Banking/Community Relations, Communications, Community Redevelopment, Government Relations, and Wells Fargo Foundation. Wells Fargo reportedly has also invited Regina Birdsell from the Center for Nonprofit Management and Cooke Sunoo, a Los Angeles community leader and Director of the Asian Pacific Islander Small Business Program.
Five members of Occupy LA, Occupy the Hood LA, and Occupy the Rose Parade also plan to attend the meeting, along with Ellen Hodgson Brown, lawyer and author, and Marcy Winograd, anti-war activist and former candidate for the U.S. Congress from California’s 36th District, which includes portions of Los Angeles County.
Topics to be Discussed
The Occupy representatives say they will press Wells Fargo for an extended moratorium on foreclosures to help families until unemployment rates return to pre-2008 levels, and push Wells Fargo (and other banks) to offer more immediate and long-term relief principal, interest rate, and payment reduction relief to borrowers. In addition, the Occupy activists say they will demand that Wells Fargo fix its lending practices to eliminate allegedly discriminatory lending, i.e., “redlining”, based on age, gender, and race.
According to Thottam, “[b]anks have turned the American dream of home ownership into an American nightmare…. Banks must be held accountable for their fraudulent acts that harmed innocent home buyers as well as employees and municipal pension fund investors.”
© 2012 Matthew Emmer -- All Rights Reserved
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