The Jackson City Council discussed borrowing $90 million last night for infrastructure repair. Mayor Tony Yarber told the city council that it wanted to borrow $90 million against future 1% sales tax revenues. Councilwoman Margaret Barrett-Simon presided over the meeting and said a special meeting will be held before March 8 to vote on obtaining the loan.
The city will borrow the money through the Mississippi Development Bank. MDB meets every month but Mayor Yarber and Councilwoman Barrett-Simon said they wanted to vote on the measure before the next MDB meeting on March 8. Mayor Yarber said the Sales Tax Commission only has the authority to approve projects and the master plan but not actual spending of the 1% sales tax.
Section 27-65-241 of the Mississippi Code states:
(h) The commission shall, with input from the municipality, establish a master plan for road and street repair, reconstruction and resurfacing projects based on traffic patterns, need and usage, and for water, sewer and drainage projects. Expenditures of the revenue from the tax authorized to be imposed pursuant to this section shall be made at the discretion of the governing authorities of the municipality if the expenditures comply with the master plan. The commission shall monitor the compliance of the municipality with the master plan.
(8) The governing authorities of any municipality that levies the special sales tax authorized under this section are authorized to incur debt, including bonds, notes or other evidences of indebtedness, for the purpose of paying the costs of road and street repair, reconstruction and resurfacing projects based on traffic patterns, need and usage, and to pay the costs of water, sewer and drainage projects in accordance with a master plan adopted by the commission established pursuant to subsection (7) of this section. Any bonds or notes issued to pay such costs may be secured by the proceeds of the special sales tax levied pursuant to this section or may be general obligations of the municipality and shall satisfy the requirements for the issuance of debt provided by Sections 21-33-313 through 21-33-323.
Kingfish note: It is quite clear that Stokes and Priester will vote for the bill. Ms. Barrett-Simon probably will support getting the loan because she refused to place the item in a committee and instead said she wanted to get a vote before March 8. It is not clear how Hendrix or Foote will vote. This item has a real chance of passing.
49 comments:
Knew this was coming. That money will never be used for street repair as intended. Terrible idea.
Who would loan Jackson money?
Sheer lunacy.
@ 1:16pm
Then ask the question! What kind of assurances will be made to ensure the money is strictly used for infrastructure repairs?
what idiotic entity would make such a loan???
Rushing to borrow now before the bond market figures out that special tax collections are declining.
This is not for the streets. I bet once this loan is approved they will set a date to fix the 48" water main.
Isn't this exactly what Prince Chuckway Antar Boomboombalumbaba and Brother Kali Akushman are proposing?
✔✔✔ Mississippi's bond pimping industry will welcome a new opportunity to feed at the public trough. ✔✔✔
Should spend the money on infrastructure as it comes in and not issue bonds. The cost of issuing those bonds will be astronomical.
Revenue bond such as this is much better than general obligation bond.
What does Jackson have to offer as collateral?? Hahah
MDB is an agency of the State and will never be repaid this money unless is withheld from future sales tax and one day there will no sale tax to withhold.Bad move for the State to approve this.Like a pay day loan.
Quiet now, I'm trying to concentrate on writing the "community engagement" portion of my resume. If I could just get 1-2% for meetings, mentoring and posters out of this loan package, I should have a good year.
The Mississippi Development Bank will be "encouraged" to make this happen. Interesting that it is being "postured" as a loan rather than a bond issuance. Perhaps the city's bonding capacity and/or pathetic bond rating have something to do with that?
Does this mean Ridgewood Rd. won't get repaved? Jesus, that road sucks!!
The 1% money flows through the county coffers. The loan will be repaid. What you need to worry about is where the $90 million proceeds go.....half or more in the pockets of consultants.
This is going to be like one giant credit card debt with nothing to show but a bunch of fast food receipts.
Revenue bond such as this is much better than general obligation bond.
100% same was said to hoodwink Jackson voters to vote for the red-ink gulping black elephant Convention Center. How did that work out? Do you know?
Will Jacksons attorney and bond attorney make all the money or will butler Snow make it? Also, what about the so called financial consultants? Who will they be?
PERS will buy Jackson Ms Muni bonds.
It's my understanding that a "retreat" is planned in Atlanta for this coming weekend to work out all the details.
How will this be repaid? All sales tax that is going to Jackson is currently being spend.Sales taxes will not be growing so what future money will there be to repay loan. Do not let the city borrow money that can not be paid back.
Debt service devalues the infrastructure tax. So now instead of spending $1, for instance, on road paving, bridges and pipe replacement there will only be .70-.75 cents spent with the remainder used to pay bond interest.
I'm a simple man and wondered how the city can repay this loan or who would make such a loan to Jackson, given its circumstances, reputation and instability.
I guess these are stupid concerns.
Yarber trying to get his last grasp at part of this money before he becomes a nobody. Has to pay to try to settle all those sexual lawsuits somehow. Under the current structure he can't issue enough consulting or engineering contracts to suck out his share, and once the commission put a kibash on the IMS ripoff for this next year this was his only way to the ATM machine.
Stupid is as stupid does. But the bond cartel has already sold enough of the council that they will try to steer this through before anybody looks too closely.
Wonder how much $$$ the minority set-asides will be?
Sure thing is that if the city gets the 90m the state will have to bail the city and the tax payers will be the one who has to be responsible.
They are proposing to dedicate the 1% tax in the future to bond payments. Not a bad idea except I still fear where the $90 million will end up.
Hey king your reCapcha thing is getting more of a bother than it's worth nine times an I can't get trough,fix it
What 5:12 said!
Another Kemper Power Plant nuance argument.
Harvey Johnson just had to have the convention center. They raised taxes for that. Now they got a hotel going up. All the tax money that went towards the DAM convention center and motel could fix the streets and water problems in Jackson!!!!!!!!
Y'all go ahead; raise taxes again; you will looses more of your tax base.
By the way; I'll drive 50 miles to eat at Olive Garden than spend my hard earn money at any restaurant in Jackson!!!!!
IF and only IF this money is spread around with LOCAL companies. If one or two companies are going to tie up all funding for themselves, then it is bad for the city and its future. IF it is to go to a "large national company" to design and supervise, then smell the rats.
I was thinking about all the "Jackson Haters" who post on this blog. Interesting study: Are they racist? Are they angry they moved? What do you think their problem is folks? At any rate, the Seiman's Deal was just terrible and we all are stuck paying for it. The $90,000,000.00 borrowed could be just the same or it could be the answer to Jackson's woes. All depends on leadership.
Everybody here is so worried somebody else is going to make a dime.....
Besides being petty.....and just shitty....and jealous.....what's the psychological word for constantly being concerned that someone else is going to make money?
$70 million for the minority planners, $10 million for crony payoffs and $10 million for actual infrastructure repairs.
Recall that the late Chokwe Lumumba as Councilman voted against using bonds to repave roads because the indebtedness would outlive the useful life of the repaved road.
Is anyone else familiar with the 'repairs' the city made to Woodland Way near Highway 18? The road was a complete pockmarked mess of pot holes. About 15 months ago the City 'repaired' it. That is, they spent the money to repair it.
They used men who did not know what they were doing to patch the holes. You could see what they were doing the work that they had no clue. Today the road is every bit a bad as it was 18 months ago. When you throw money away like that, it does not matter how much money you raise. All you are doing is increasing the city's debt.
Hire experienced, competent engineers and take bids only from experienced, competent contractors. Do not have any racial quotas (They have been sued about this before and lost. If they were to get sued again they would lose again.). Do not give any preference to local firms. Do not monkey around with the bids. List the qualifications in the bid documents that would insure only experienced and competent firms. Have a prequalifying process where the design team assists the city in weeding out bad actors before the bidding. Then open the bids and hire the lowest bidder. Period.
10:11 -- that's logic. Doesn't work with this mayor, and it appears its the same with a majority of the council. Listen to Kennuf when he says it really doesn't cost anything because we will pay it with 1%. Same kind of logic that JPS said Stringfellow woudln't cost anything because his 24,000 came from money they had saved somewhere else.
Logic. Jackson Mayor. No connection. Only connection is Yarber has a lot of legal bills to pay and he needs somewhere to such some last few dollars from. $90 mil gives him a good source.
7:47 '..was thinking about all the Jackson haters..' and wonders if they're racists for commenting. Then, lo and behold he posts as one and reaches the same damned conclusion.
Oh, and by the way, it's never a bad idea to look around and see who is making the money off these deals. It's healthy and productive to recognize and point out graft, theft, slick-dealing and brother-in-law money-shifting. Don'tcha think?
Okay, so which minority owned business friend of the mayor gets part of this deal this time?
Some of you are so busy looking at Jackson that you aren't looking under your own nose.
I've been shocked at how quickly roads in some high end neighborhoods in Madison County and Rankin County deteriorated while my older neighborhood in Jackson has a road that is still good and decades older. Part of the answer is the amount and weight of traffic as my road was built to higher specifications.
And, given the sewers that went in 30 years ago in Madison with a " get your culvert from the supervisor on house by house basis" requirement, don't expect the sewer systems to last. Indeed , in two neighborhoods in Madison that were fairly new and still in development needed your federal taxes dollars to fix the sewers.
There are homes in Madison built 30 years ago that are not grounded and whose sewer lines are either inadequate or not connected to the main sewer at all. Inspection was a joke. That is why I moved to Jackson as soon as I could after watching how the homes in my very nice neighborhood ( and those of my friends) in Madison were being built.
If the counties and state don't require developers , in particular, and builders , in general, to meet high enough standards, this is what happens. They will build to the minimum requirements enforced.
You can build it right the first time or like Hwy 25 have to be adding and rebuilding again in just a few years. Which do you think is less expensive over time?
Why aren't you asking why the traffic projections on 25 were so off or why traffic doesn't move as quickly as it should for access to the businesses?
If the requests for proposals are bad and the specifications inadequate, inadequate and a short " shelf life" is what you get. And, it's wise to put your money into the " bones" of a building that are expensive and difficult to replace rather than in the facades which aren't!
I've been shocked at how quickly roads in some high end neighborhoods in Madison County and Rankin County deteriorated while my older neighborhood in Jackson has a road that is still good and decades older.
Name the neighborhoods.
Part of the answer is the amount and weight of traffic as my road was built to higher specifications.
Prove it.
That is why I moved to Jackson as soon as I could after watching how the homes in my very nice neighborhood ( and those of my friends) in Madison were being built.
Name the neighborhood.
Or do you have dementia?
Madison County has severe clay problems in most areas. So do many areas of Jackson. Roads will always be a problem in these areas. However, the city/county has to fill pot holes and repair the bad areas quickly and do it right. Ridgeland does this.
Moving from anywhere into Jackson is foolish. And I'm not talking about roads. Lets talk about the courts, the schools, the crime, the courts (oh sorry alrrady said that one), the racists running the city. Shall I continue? Now back to roads...
This is like loaning a crack head some money and the chances of them paying you back is slim and none, and I heard slim is out of town indefinitely...
@ 9:03am
If your sorry a** does not live in Beverly Hills, be quiet!
Talking like you living it up in Rankin County driving a Bugatti!? Chi'please!
This is still po'dunk Mississippi, wherever you may live! LMAO
As a Jackson remnant, I would definitely back this proposal to address $90M in infrastructure improvements. However, the terms of any financial arrangement with the MDB must stipulate that the State acts as Construction Manager, awards all contracts and supervises all projects. The City has repeatedly demonstrated it is incapable of managing the most basic services.
at least jackson is trying. ;-)
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