I wanted to take a look at the city’s internal reports about the financial advisor mess.
Last week I found this page:
Following the links I got this each time:
We deserve better
Brutus
Look, but not too closely
December 20, 2015
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City government | 
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Posted by Brutus
Just for show?
December 19, 2015The district 8 city representative has a link on her web page titled “Street Closures”. I followed the link Saturday, December 12, 2015 to see what she had to tell us.
This is what came up:
Wasn’t that good?
Actually the closure happened back in November.
We deserve better
Brutus
7 Comments | City government | Permalink
Posted by Brutus
Can this be true?
December 18, 2015A citizen told me the other day that the reason we see sections of roads blocked off with orange cones for long periods of time without any work being done is that the contract for the cones is separate from the contract for the construction.
Evidently one contract calls for a company to place cones at a given location beginning on a certain date and ending on another date.
If the construction crew is not able to start at the same time we have to endure needless inconvenience.
It seems like this would be easy to fix.
We deserve better
Brutus
10 Comments | City government, State Government | Permalink
Posted by Brutus
Who had the power to sell the ballpark bonds?
December 16, 2015Yesterday’s post did not include proof of our assertion that the trigger was pulled on the baseball park bond sale May 28, 2013.
That date was well before the difficulties in the bond markets caused interest rates to go up.
Some members of city council tried to blame the bond advisors for the delay and that has led to a scandal concerning an effort to fire the bond advisors and bring in ones that have ties to at least one member of council.
Reports were requested from city staff explaining how the delay was caused. An email from the former city manager confirms that the delay was deliberate and was intended to influence the outcome of the upcoming city election.
The fact is that the bonds were authorized for sale on May 28, 2013 and that any one of three people were “hereby authorized to act on behalf of the Corporation in selling and delivering the Series 2013 Bonds …”. The issue was out of city council’s hands.
Who were the three people? Our former city manager, our former chief financial officer and the city clerk. The failure to issue the bonds until after the election and the consequent $22 million or so cost increase lies squarely on their shoulders.
Follow this link to read the whole document.
The agenda item proposing the resolution is below:
and the portion of the minutes showing approval:
The city has commissioned yet another report on the subject.
The facts seem clear. It looks like these three people could have sold the bonds. The did not. We will pay for their failure.
We deserve better
Brutus
11 Comments | Ball park, City government | Permalink
Posted by Brutus
The gift that keeps on stealing from us
December 15, 2015The truth about the ballpark financing is finally coming out and the picture is not a pretty one.
Even though city council authorized incurring the debt, a decision was made to not do so until after the May 2013 city elections.
The delay ended up costing the taxpayers about $22 million.
Our former chief financial officer and city manager must have been right in the middle of the mess.
The former city representative that was running for mayor in that election indicates that he did not try to delay the issuance of the bonds.
It is possible that some of the city council members wanted the issuance delayed but none of them had the authority to delay them.
As it worked out city council created the Downtown Development Corporation and gave them the authority to manage the bonds. Our former city manager, the city clerk and our infamous former chief financial officer were designated as pricing officers and were the ones that had the authority to sell the bonds.
We should make an extra effort to tell each of these individuals how we feel about their failure.
We deserve better
Brutus
16 Comments | Ball park, City government | Permalink
Posted by Brutus
elpasospeak 
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