A couple dozen people showed up outside the Roundhouse this morning in support of a
by
, D-Santa Fe, to move public deposits of the giant financial institutions that helped cause the financial crisis and subsequent recession.
Egolf's proposal,
, got some national play
the other day.
"
It's not going to be Brian Egolf going around giving big bags of cash to [local] banks
," Egolf said, waving his arms as though he were wielding invisible moneybags, and drawing a laugh from the crowd.
"If [the study called for in his bill] comes back with the result that there aren't any [local] banks that can handle this, then that's the result."
SFR asked how Egolf could have confidence that community banks would behave more responsibly than, say,
, which holds at least $1.4 billion in state government deposits. Especially given the
of Santa Fe-based Charter Bank.
"I have tremendous confidence.
Charter Bank got caught in a in a federal regulatory vice grip
," Egolf said. "There's a lot more to the story about Charter Bank than they just got shut down."
Alan Hoffman, a
who organized the press conference and rally, says federal regulators' overreacted in assessing Charter's loan portfolio. "It's the pendulum swing," Hoffman says. "
For eight years they regulated nothing
."
Also in attendance: Santa Fe Alliance executive director Vicki Pozzebon and Santa Fe Area Home Builders Association executive officer Kim Shanahan (who's holding the "State $$ in State Banks" sign, above).
Not surprisingly, Egolf has the support of the Independent Community Bankers Association, whose lobbyist, Domonic Silva stood by his side. State Sen. Tim Keller, D-Bernalillo, cosponsored Egolf's bill. And Sen. John Arthur Smith, D-Hidalgo, signed on this morning, Egolf said.
Egolf also sent US Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner an email about his proposal, although, he tells SFR, "
I don't know for a fact that he read it
."
Egolf says he knows Geithner from when they both worked under former Treasury Secretary
, for whom Geithner served as undersecretary for international affairs.
The bill will go before the House Business and Industry Committee before moving on to House Appropriations, Egolf said.
