The city council, also acting as the redevelopment agency and the public finance authority, approved moving forward with issuing up to $18 million of bonds to finance the city’s portion of the cost of restoring the historic City Administration Building.

Because the bonds involve all three agencies, each one had to approve the bonds. Both the RDA and the PFA recessed their meetings to restart when the public hearing on the issue when it came up during the council meeting.

The new bonds would not only fund the city hall, but would also free up existing funds that had been designated for the city hall restoration.

According to Mark Curran of Piper Jaffray, the existing funds and the additional monies created by the bonds would go toward the council’s priority projects: wayfinding signage, pedestrian bridge over Atascadero Creek, downtown parking, transit center, downtown restroom and Via Road industrial master plan.

Curran said that the bonds are the city’s way of taking out a loan. Because of state laws and regulations, it is a lease-based bond.

For the complete article see the 07-30-2010 issue.

Click here to purchase an electronic version of the 07-30-2010 paper.