Democracy on the Front Lines
City Administrators Blog
Walter Denton
May 19, 2009
Channel 4 is running a story tonight on their 10 p.m. news on the Family Sports Park expansion. They were at the City Council meeting last night to cover the condemnation resolution but I talked them into coming back to do a good news story about upgrading our bond rating, refinancing the bonds, getting an additional $10M for the Sports Park and $600K for infrastructure all at no additional cost to the taxpayers (more on this in a future blog).
Erica Byfield interviewed me and Parks and Recreation Director Mary Jeanne Hutchison on one of the Sports Park’s baseball fields. Her question was, "How can you do something like this in our current economy at no cost to citizens?" It is counter intuitive, but the poor economy created the conditions for us to benefit with refinancing the bonds. Our conservative financial planning made us eligible for a bond rating upgrade from AA- to AA, the recession has driven interest rates to historic lows, and the federal economic stimulus plan created "Buy America Bonds" that allowed us to save more than $2 million in bond payments over the term of the 30-year bond.
It is always a mystery how they reduce 20 minutes of footage into a 90 second story, but it will be nice to have positive news on TV for a change.
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