“I predict future happiness for Americans, if they can prevent the government from wasting the labors of the people under the pretense of taking care of them.”
Thomas Jefferson
Jefferson on government
February 6, 2018
7 Comments | 
Federal Government | 
Permalink
Posted by Brutus
Will Rogers on congress
January 30, 2018Ancient Rome declined because it had a Senate; now what’s going to happen to us with both a Senate and a House?
Will Rogers
5 Comments | Federal Government | Permalink
Posted by Brutus
City loses refinancing options
January 10, 2018According to this slide from the recent special presentation to city council the new feral tax law will limit the city’s ability to issue tax refunding bonds:
In prior years the city had the ability to issue tax refunding bonds to purchase old bonds that had unfavorable interest rates. In short, when the cost of bonds went down the city could buy new bonds and use the money to refund old bonds thus lowering the annual interest costs.
Unfortunately the city often used the opportunity to make the new bonds expire later than the existing bonds. They were kicking the can down the road so that they did not have to pay off the principal on the original bonds.
Before the new law the city could evidently use this trick whenever they felt that interest rates justified the action.
Evidently under the new law they will only be able to do this within a window 90 days before the published call date for the original bonds. According to the chart above the call date on bonds is typically 10 years after the bonds were issued.
Bond interest costs fluctuate. The city will now only be able to use refunding bonds 9 3/4 years after the bonds are issued. Interest rates might be higher or lower at that time.
This will have a significant impact on the city budget.
The spendthrifts on this and prior councils have put us in a box.
We deserve better
Brutus
4 Comments | City government, Federal Government | Permalink
Posted by Brutus
City briefing on increasing bond costs
January 8, 2018City council is going to have another one of its “special” meetings Monday, January 8, 2018.
The city says they are special because they are not part of the regularly scheduled Tuesday meetings.
We think that they are special because they are not held in the regular city council meeting room and the video tapes of the meetings are seldom posted on the city’s website. It looks to us that they hold these meetings to do things that the public is not made aware of.
This meeting will consider two special items. One of them is a briefing for city council members on the impact of the recent tax legislation passed in Washington.
The effect of the legislation will be to make bonds more expensive to El Pasoans.
Remember that the city has yet to issue over $450 million of bonds that were authorized in the 2012 bond election. This shows the breakdown.
We don’t expect the city will tell us how much this is going to cost us anytime soon.
We deserve better
Brutus
7 Comments | City government, Federal Government | Permalink
Posted by Brutus
Back in the district attorney’s court
November 28, 2017Two of our community bloggers have been trading pot shots about various things including the apparent open meetings violations committed by a current and former members of city council. See Texas Rangers.
Now according to the Lionstar blog:
Well that allegedly fake investigation by the Texas Rangers was concluded and turned over to the District Attorneys Office.
Now it is up to our district attorney.
One can argue that the DA was right to stay out of the school prosecutions since they were being handled at the federal level.
This issue however is clearly a local one. The public deserves prompt action from the district attorney. He should either prosecute the case or let us know why he will not.
We deserve better
Brutus
3 Comments | City government, County Government, Federal Government, State Government | Permalink
Posted by Brutus
elpasospeak 
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