My WebLink
|
Help
|
About
|
Sign Out
Home
Browse
Search
06-23-08 Common Council Minutes
sbend
>
Public
>
Common Council
>
Minutes
>
Common Council Meeting Minutes
>
2008
>
06-23-08 Common Council Minutes
Metadata
Thumbnails
Annotations
Entry Properties
Last modified
9/2/2008 4:51:18 PM
Creation date
9/2/2008 4:51:14 PM
Metadata
Fields
Template:
City Council - City Clerk
There are no annotations on this page.
Document management portal powered by Laserfiche WebLink 9 © 1998-2015
Laserfiche.
All rights reserved.
/
37
PDF
Print
Pages to print
Enter page numbers and/or page ranges separated by commas. For example, 1,3,5-12.
After downloading, print the document using a PDF reader (e.g. Adobe Reader).
Show annotations
View images
View plain text
REGULAR MEETING JUNE 23, 2008 <br /> <br /> <br /> <br /> <br />Bonds of 1992, which were previously refunded with issuance of the St. Joseph County, <br />Indiana Special tax Bonds of 1998. <br /> <br />Mr. Inks stated that he does not know exactly what those Special Tax Bonds were for, but <br />those bonds have two to three years of payments left on them, with roughly about <br />$300,000 a year and have some restrictive covenants in those bonds that would require <br />paying off those bonds in order to issue the new bonds. So that is part of the bond <br />financing to pay off those bonds. <br /> <br />Councilmember Varner questioned what is the outstanding balance. <br /> <br />Mr. Inks stated that he believes that the outstanding balance is close to 1 million or 1.2 <br />million dollars. <br /> <br />This being the time heretofore set for the Public Hearing on the above bill, proponents <br />and opponents were given an opportunity to be heard. <br /> <br />There was no one present wishing to speak to the Council in favor of this bill. <br /> <br />The following individuals spoke in opposition to the bill: <br /> <br />Kelly Havens, 1293 Timberline Trace N. Granger, Indiana, stated that she is a Granger <br />resident and if questioned why someone from Granger would speak at a City of South <br />Bend Council Meeting is because the decisions that are being made at the City level are <br />getting into her pocketbook. She is not so concerned with developments or repairs that <br />need to be made at Century Center, as far as she is concerned it is probably a good idea. <br />What concerns her is the method that is being gone about to get the money. These lease <br />bond deals are a distortion of what those laws were intended to do. Think about it, are <br />you leasing the boilers, the skylights, new bathrooms. The City is using a lease deal to <br />by-pass the debt service limitations that we are constitutionally bound by in the State of <br />Indiana. The City does this because the debt is so excessive already that it cannot be <br />done through the normal budget or bond process. She stated that everyone here know the <br />consequences of continuing to do things this way. St. Joseph County was one of only <br />two counties in the entire State of Indiana that had to be set aside and exempted from the <br />property tax controls because the debt is so excessive that they figure there was no way <br />that the City could every pay their way out of it, if they gave any of the property tax <br />payers any kind of break. What a miserable distinction to have among all the 92 counties <br />in Indiana, that St. Joseph County has itself so excessively budgeted that we can’t give <br />the tax break that the whole rest of the State is going to be mandated to give. The reason <br />is because of the debt service. As a taxpayer she stated that she finds it very hard to <br />sympathize with the City’s claims that it can’t possible make ends meet without <br />additional tax dollars. This is all a shell game to hide the fact that the City is going <br />farther and farther into debt, when will it all stop, or at least go public, admit that the City <br />is in debt up to their eyeballs and that is why they tax their residents so high. Ms. Havens <br />stated that there needs to be some serious prioritizing what the needed improvements are <br />and asked the Council to stop doing lease purchases, they are phony ways around what <br />the State wanted to be a protection for taxpayers which is the debt service limit. <br /> <br />Leonard Grummell 1919 S. Carlisle, South Bend, Indiana, stated that when South Bend <br />banned gun shows at the Century Center they lost several thousands of dollars worth of <br />revenue. He stated that they could have funded Century Center a long time ago, if they <br />had not banned gun shows in South Bend. <br /> <br />Aubrey Wood, 1922 Randolph, South Bend, Indiana, stated that she belongs to a ham <br />radio club. Ms. Wood stated that they used to hold their meetings and conventions at the <br />Century Center. However, the cost to rent and purchase food and refreshments pushed <br />them right out of renting Century Center to hold their events. She advised that if they <br />were to be more realistic with their rent and food, they would have more people holding <br />their events at Century Center. <br /> <br /> 19 <br /> <br />
The URL can be used to link to this page
Your browser does not support the video tag.