Tomorrow’s (June 23, 2015) city council agenda has items on it that would authorize the sale of about $200 million of bonds
The way it breaks out is:
$35,375,000 from the $473,250,00 quality of life bonds that we voted for in 2012. That will bring the total amount issued to $49,375,000. It only took three years to handle 8.3% of what we voted for.
$110,000,000 of refunding bonds. These bonds will be used to pay off bonds that we sold in 2007. The bonds that we sold in 2007 were used to pay off bonds we issued before that.
$62,000,000 in certificates of obligations. Council doesn’t think that we need to vote on these since they know a lot more about what is good for us than we do ourselves.
Debt policy
Council actually has a formal debt management policy. They passed it last week. In part is says:
“Bonds are generally issued with an average life of 20 years or less for general obligation bonds, certificates of obligation and revenue bonds but may be greater for some projects such as landfills and major utility facilities whose lives are greater than 20 years.”
Baloney!
The proposed bond ordinance says:
“the maximum maturity date for any Bonds issued to refund the Refunded Bonds shall not exceed December 31, 2033”.
Let’s see, 2015 to 2033, that’s 18 years.
Refund the Refunded Bonds
That’s 18 years for this sale. What they are re-financing is bonds that were sold in 2007. That brings us to 26 years.
Oh wait! The bonds that were sold back in 2007 were actually sold to refund bonds that had been issued prior to 2007.
Talk about kicking the can down the road.
We deserve better
Brutus
elpasospeak 
What a mess for our grandchildren (if the whole family has not left town before it is their turn, that is).
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How many times can we rob Peter ?
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The city is going to end up in the same mess as homeowners who buy homes using mortgages structured with interest-only payments at the front end of the mortgage term. Easy to get in. Not so easy to pay off if your income and savings do not rise significantly.
Moody’s recently cut the city of Chicago’s credit rating. It’s only a matter of time before they get around to cutting El Paso’s rating.
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On the subject of CO’s you can force the issue to a vote but people choose to whine instead.
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Another thought occurs to me. Since it has now been nearly three years since the so-called QoL bonds were voted in, and since there has been no real progress on any of the proposed projects, let alone the actual effort to sell the bonds, maybe it is not too late for a general recall election to cancel the whole damn idea, and start efforts for force these spend now, gouge future generations later City Leaders to learn to budget.
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I was looking online at homes for sale in Las Vegas.
A $100,000. home had property taxes of under $1,000. per year.
About . . . HALF. . . of El Paso’s property taxes.
During the length of a 30 year mortgage, that’s a savings of about $30,000.
(And while living in the city that has the MOST things to do.)
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Also, Nevada, like Texas, does not have a state income tax, so all of the property tax savings is a net savings.
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What is the average value of real estate in LV as compared to EP?
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Not sure about average, but median price in El Paso is about $144,000 as compared to about $200,000 in Las Vegas and $208,000 nationally.
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