Comments on: Decatur City Commission To Vote on Bond Projects Tonight

By: Marshall

Marshall — Wed, 08 Sep 2010 16:14:53 +0000

So what happened?

I guess I’ll have to go over to Decatur News Online to find out.

http://www.decaturnewsonline.com/news/article_0c0e5e1a-bb3f-11df-a34c-001cc4c002e0.html

By: Decatur Metro

Decatur Metro — Tue, 07 Sep 2010 20:27:46 +0000

Yeah, that was sort of a scattered post. I was struggling with the server being down while I was writing it. I changed the title to better summarize what the majority of the post is actually about.

I agree that how to pay for the funds isn’t currently on the table for tonight. They’re just checking off the next item on the laundry list to move this financing forward. I sent a note of clarification about this to the City Manager this morning, but she’s OOO until September 13th and I haven’t heard back from anyone else.

My GUESS based on the commissioners’ comments at the last meeting and this new “no millage increase!” option is that the commissioners are leaning hard on the city to figure out a way to do this without raising the millage. They see the value in doing it now, but don’t want to raise taxes in this climate. Interest-free loans are no small savings, so the only way to do it is to use the reserve funds to cover the gap and then once DeKalb is paying us HOST money again, use it to pay back the loan. I think they’re assuming that in two-years they’ll know whether they’ve lost the DeKalb lawsuit or not and at least be receiving their $1 million/year, which will cover the loan payments going forward.

As for the Build America Bonds, that’s been Peggy’s stated impetuous for doing this since she wrote her original letter to the commission back in June.

http://www.decaturmetro.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/09/Public-Works-DRC-Financing.pdf

By: Judd

Judd — Tue, 07 Sep 2010 19:50:49 +0000

Actually, that’s much more definitive than what the City told the AJC (worth linking to) or what was said on Thursday night. In a way, it’s less definitive, though, since she doesn’t actually make the recommendation to pay for the debt by using the City’s reserve funds and the HOST money we hope will kick in within a few years. I don’t see that the decision of how to pay for the new debt is on the table tonight. I also don’t see anything about these interest free loans you mentioned, DM.

What do you make of this, DM? Do you read this as confirmation that the City will recommend to eat into the reserve fund and is fairly confident in getting the HOST funding sooner rather than later — i.e. is ready to cut bait on collecting the back taxes? I wouldn’t have been inclined to make so much out of the line you highlighted and would have thought the AJC report was more accurate.