Foreclosure debate between mayor, deputy comptroller to flare up

Deputy Comptroller Alan van Capelle said he plans to vote against Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s representatives to the city’s Banking Commission today to protest the slow rate at which banks are modifying mortgages for struggling homeowners, City Hall News reported. Van Capelle asked in March that the commission require banks to detail the measures they have taken to to modify such loans, but the other two members of the commission, Andrew Salkin of the Finance Department and Eugene Lee, senior policy adviser for economic development, voted against that proposal. Marc La Vorgna, a Bloomberg spokesperson, said that the focus of the committee is to oversee city deposits in banks and not to regulate bank activities. Pete Nagy, an organizer for the group New York Communities for Change, said his organization plans to protest outside the Brooklyn Municipal building and watch the vote with foreclosed New Yorkers. The group has been critical of the foreclosure practices of Chase in Hempstead, and has advocated for more disclosure by banks. A Chase spokesperson said the bank has been doing everything it can to help homeowners. [City Hall News]