Community Banker Alert

1) PACB had previously alerted our membership that GSE Reform is very much an issue in the 109th Congress and making grassroots contacts in support of the Federal Home Loan Bank System is critical to ensuring there is sufficient support and advocacy within the Congress to maintain the FHLBs.

Very few members have taken the time to contact their Congressional representative and our two U.S. Senators with their support of the FHLBs. There is still time to do so but we need you to take action now.

Please write or email your Congressional Representative and Senators Santorum and Specter with your support for the FHLBs. I have included a sample letter you may utilize and a one-page background document. These documents and our earlier Alert may be accessed on the PACB website at www.pacb.org. Please be sure to send PACB a copy of anything you generate to your Congressional representatives.

2) On a separate issue, the Pennsylvania Human Relations Commission has entered the predatory lending fray issuing proposed guidelines on what constitutes “predatory lending.” PACB has filed comments in reaction to the guidelines. If you are interested in reading our comments, please see a copy under the “Government Relations” section of the PACB website, www.pacb.org, “2005 Comment Letters.”

We are alerting you to this issue requesting that if your institution has any encounters with the PHRC on predatory lending, PACB needs to be alerted to this. You may contact either Dave Transue in the PACB office or Steve Lovejoy with Shumaker Williams, P.C. if you have any interaction or encounters with the commission. Steve may be reached at (410) 825-5223.

Thanks so much.

Attachments (Sample Letter, One-Page Backgrounder)