News notes from around the interweb:
- How Napa wineries are re-opening for tastings
- Where the 2 survivors were sitting when the Pakistan International A320 crashed
- Caesars, MGM and Cosmopolitan bring back free parking while charging highest-ever resort fees, natch.
- Alaska Airlines reduces mileage-earning on Cathay Pacific and Emirates
- A local Country Inn & Suites was appraised at $4.88 million before the pandemic when hotel occupancy dropped and hotels became worth a whole lot less. So my city is buying it for $8,255,000 – and they’ve allocated an additional $500,000 so that they – rather than the seller – can cover closing costs, and also lease the property during due diligence. It’s planned as homeless housing.
Argue that the tax appraisal doesn’t reflect market value all you want (though legally it’s supposed to). I will agree with you. Market value of the property has fallen substantially over the past three months and the deal hasn’t been renegotiated to reflect the new reality.
- When the US government announced it would be banning travel from Europe – but gave plenty of notice – people rushed to the U.S., many carrying the virus with them.
Napa link goes to wrong article.
How about this Napa Wine tasting update article in its place:
https://www.sfchronicle.com/wine/article/California-wineries-say-they-re-safer-than-15287337.php
@AlliW. Your link is to an article behind a paywall, so isn’t much use to most. I can, of course, google and find articles about how Napa is opening. I was just letting Gary know his link is wrong.
The last piece, re. folk flying in from overseas, is from the WaPo. Being the WaPo, it aims to fault President Trump (of course). In fact I instead thought it was a perfect study in pure selfishness. The self-centered Mr. Siebert traveled on aircraft and mingled in crowds knowing full well he was unwell and had symptoms consistent with coronavirus. What a disgraceful human being he is.
Your Austin hotel purchase blurb is misleading since that may not be the final price and the $500K is to lease it for 90 days so they can use it while the price is being determined. So it may not be as bad a deal as you make it out to be.
From the linked article:
“The City cannot pay more than fair market value and a third party is completing an appraisal to determine this,” he wrote in an email. “The $500,000 is to lease the facility during the due diligence period… During the due diligence period – over the next 90 days – we’ll conduct the associated inspections and appraisals before we can finalize the deal.”
“Here’s Where They Were Sitting”
Shame on you for fostering click bait.
Gary you have complete control over what your links say. You chose to take the easy way and keep the click bait.
Lame lame lame.
I disagree with assertion that when the US government announced it would be banning travel from Europe they “gave plenty of notice.” The messaging was muddled and/or inaccurate, plus incomplete. Many Americans boarded planes not knowing that they were not included in the final wording (which wasn’t initially available) — doing so to avoid getting stuck in Europe. Additionally US gateways were also not prepared for the swarm of incoming arrivals for the next 36 hours, especially with proper tracking that would have greatly reduced the number of subsequent infections.