Important Notices

July 15, 2008

DFI Requests that Licensees Help Stop the Spread of West Nile Virus

TO: The CEOs of all DFI licensees and others in the financial services industry

FROM: William S. Haraf, Commissioner of Financial Institutions

In August 2007, DFI asked its licensees and others in the financial services industry whose responsibilities include managing vacant homes and properties to ensure that pools and other containers that can hold water are drained and maintained empty to prevent the spread of West Nile Virus. Neglected pools and ponds, often associated with foreclosed and abandoned homes, can be a major source of disease-carrying mosquitoes. This request followed Gov. Schwarzenegger's declaration of a state of emergency in counties hit hardest by West Nile Virus.

West Nile positives for 2008 in Sacramento and Yolo counties included 48 mosquito samples and 18 dead birds. Today, the Sacramento-Yolo Mosquito and Vector Control District announced that aerial treatment for adult mosquitoes is scheduled for approximately 23,000 acres of South Sacramento on three consecutive nights beginning Wednesday, July 16, so we are once again asking DFI stakeholders to drain and maintain pools and other containers that can hold water that are located in vacant homes and properties for which they are responsible. SB 1137, signed into law on Tuesday, July 8 requires the legal owner to maintain vacant residential property purchased at a foreclosure sale or acquired through foreclosure and provides for civil fines of up to $1,000 per day for failure to maintain the property.

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