Tuesday, June 09, 2009

Jefferson County: How many languages do you speak?

Apparently SMACKDOWN week was popular, as we haven't got a single vote against doing it again. We got a few Ooteedee votes, but those are either readers who are voting to continue with the constant obscure Star Wars references, or else those readers who speak exclusively Jawa. I wonder if anyone got the GONK reference on the previous poll... Anyway, e-mail me topic ideas, and I'll eventually post a list of the best ones for the readers to vote.

Meanwhile, I'm working on a piece on Jefferson County and I'd like to solicit some help from the readers. If you are a muni guy, especially a bond attorney, who knows the legal rationale as to why the County itself has taken responsibility for the sewer debt, please e-mail me. accruedint AT gmail.com.

Thanks, and thanks for reading.

1 comment:

Hawkeye0915 said...

I'm pretty sure the county taking responsibility for the sewer debt is because the sewer system was not self-supporting (sewer revenues were not enough for the system to pay for itself), and the county general fund was pledged to make up any shortfall in sewer revenues that were pledged to the sewer bonds. Once the bond insurer got downgraded and the insured auction rate piece of the sewer debt became bank bonds, with all their penalty payments, max rates, accelerated amortization, all that assorted fun stuff, the sewer revenues really REALLY weren't enough to cover sewer bond debt service, because that debt service includes the bank bond related payments.