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Marchese says he’ll pay house payment
By Ed runyan
WARREN
Robert Marchese, Warren City Council president and former executive director of the Boys and Girls Club of Youngstown, says he has money in his savings to get current on his mortgage so that a foreclosure action filed against him can be dismissed.
Marchese, who also ran for county commissioner in 2006, said the foreclosure filed last week on his Country Club Drive home in Warren came about because of a miscommunication between his bank and the federal agency handling his federal home-loan modification.
Marchese, who suffered a badly broken leg in 2009 that required nine months of rehabilitation, has a new job in Cleveland, he said. He has declined to talk about the circumstances surrounding his departure from the Boys and Girls Club last November.
Marchese said his wife, Claranne, also has been sick this year, and her income has been drastically cut as a result.
Nonetheless, he is able to make the payments on his home and will become current on the loan as soon as the bank, PNC, gives him the figure he needs to know how much the payment and fees are. He should know within a week, he said.
“I’m going to pay it. I am able to pay. I’ve never missed a payment,” he said.
The problem came when he was given a new loan payment amount that was about $800, reduced from $1,862, but because of “a lot of confusion” between the bank and the federal agency working on his home-loan modification, the bank expected him to make the $1,862 payment, Marchese said.
Marchese makes no apology for making use of a government program designed to help people stay in their homes who are experiencing financial difficulties, he said.
“Fifteen million Americans are using such programs,” he said. “I’m going to take advantage of that. That’s what it’s for.”
The foreclosure action filed in Trumbull county Common Pleas court said Robert and Claranne Marchese took out a $333,700 loan in July 2004, at 7 percent interest and now owe $292,747 at an interest rate of 6 percent.