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Australia's warships should built on home soil even if it costs more, a Senate committee has recommended. In its report on Australia's naval shipbuilding sector, the Senate foreign affairs defence and trade committee acknowledged that building locally may come at a cost premium. .
Building permit numbers are down, but not drastically, the county's permits and inspection chief, Jim Torrington, reported to the Garrett County commissioners this week. But the total builder declared value and square footage have increased, he added. Between January and November last year, the Garrett County Department of Planning and Land Development issued a total of 697 building permits, which includes single family stick-built homes, modular homes, duplexes, town houses, and commercial buildings. The declared val-ue of those projects was $106.4 million, and the square footage was about 1.61 million. For the same period this year, 650 permits have been issued for buildings with a total declared value of $116.1 million and a total square footage of about 1.68 million.
Nearly two years after the sudden demise of Temecula portable-classroom builder Turnkey Inc., a bankruptcy attorney has begun auctioning the remains of the company and the lavish lifestyle of its founder and owner, Harry Clark. Even after everything is sold, however, the money won't be enough to pay back creditors -- including Bank of America and the Santa Maria-Bonita School District in Santa Maria -- who claim Clark and his wife, Linda, owe more than $15 million. The exact amount of the debt hasn't yet been determined, but the Clarks' assets will probably bring in less than $7 million, court documents show. Founded in 1998, Turnkey built modular classrooms for school districts around the state. It grew quickly, but collapsed in 2004 and filed for bankruptcy, leaving behind dozens of unfinished projects and unpaid employees and subcontractors.
NEW ORLEANS (AP) - About 50 people demonstrated in front of Mayor Ray Nagin's house today, demanding the reopening of public housing in New Orleans. Nagin was not present for the demonstration, which capped off a week of several major developments concerning public housing in the city. Before Hurricane Katrina, where were about three thousand apartments that typically rented for 85 dollars a month. During the week, Nagin sent a letter to the Department of Housing and Urban Development, asking Secretary Alphonso Jackson to immediately place a thousand units into service and open an additional thousand units with in 90 days. Nagin also asked that 750 scattered sites, possibly using modular homes, be set up. On Friday, the National Housing Partnership Foundation announced it would build three thousand units in the New Orleans area by 2009 to help with the housing crisis.
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