Laserfiche WebLink
The Redevelopment Authority <br />December 3, 2008 Meeting Minutes <br />Upon a motion by Ms. Pfotenhauer, seconded by Mr. Alvarez, the Authority , <br />approved the claim, as presented. <br />Mr. Hill said he has never seen a situation like this one. in the more than twenty <br />years of his practice. He said if it had been another situation he might have <br />recommended stopping the process. He was hearing from the Board of Managers <br />of Century Center that if the bond was not sold there would be health and safety <br />issues as well as a loss of bookings. The work needed to be done. Some of the <br />problems that slowed the sale were bond insurers were down rated and the rating <br />agencies then took an entirely different approach. The kinds of information the <br />rating agencies were requesting was different from anything in the past. There was <br />a change in the structure of the financing because there was not enough TIF <br />money to use, and then there were questions on the scope of the financing from <br />the Hotel/Motel Tax Board. Baker & Daniels spent considerably more time than <br />anticipated on those issues. At certain times there was no bond market. There <br />were two considerations, one, that there was sufficient interest in bonds, and two, <br />the interest rate for bonds had to be reasonable. They were very happy that the <br />bond sold. and closed, it was one of the few that did. The work on the bond <br />actually took 400 hours over 7 months to complete. In May they had assumed it <br />would have been a quick transaction. <br />Mr. Rompola said if you looked at where we were in May, and if the State had not <br />held up the process because of TIF issues and property tax issues, the bond would <br />probably have sold before the summer with or without the TIF. It was the summer <br />when everything fell apart: the market, the rating agencies and the change in <br />interest rates. Baker and Daniels spent a lot of time in the. summer working on the <br />financing. Mr. Rompola said all of the time that was spent on the bond was not in <br />their accounting system when he provided the memo on the costs for the last <br />Authority meeting. There was more time spent before closing dealing with some <br />of the County issues. <br />Mr. Hill said the day of closing was the drop dead date for ordering some of the <br />equipment that was needed for the 2009 construction schedule. <br />Ms. Pfotenhauer said she reviewed the bill and saw that it was reasonable. She <br />was concerned that if we work with Baker and Daniels in the future that both <br />sides make a concerted effort to communicate more and an effort to really control <br />the costs, and that the estimates that we are given are as up-to-date as humanly <br />possible. Mr. Hill said he agreed and said in the future he would have more <br />communication with the Authority. <br />2 <br />H:\WPDATA\AUTHORTY\12032008.MIN.DOC <br />