Tuesday evening, July 24th, the City Council will meet for their regularly scheduled meeting at 7pm. The meeting will be held at City Hall, located at 156 S. Broadway in Turlock.
The Council will be voting to confirm the diagrams, assessments and reports and levying assessments for Fiscal Year 2012/13 for all Lighting, Landscaping and Street Maintenance Benefit areas within the City of Turlock.
The City Council and City of Turlock directed Mike Pitcock as Engineer of Work for all assessment districts within the City to prepare and file annual reports for fiscal year 2012/13, and will impose these annual assessments within each assessment district. The City of Turlock will receive funds from the county tax assessor for the maintenance of city streetlights, landscaping, and streets.
The Council will also vote on authorizing the Form of and Authorizing the Execution and Delivery of an Indenture, a Master Installment Purchase Agreement, a 2012 Supplement thereto, a Bond Purchase Contract, a Continuing Disclosure Agreement and an Official Statement relating to an Installment Purchase Financing and approving certain actions in connection therewith.
In 1999 and 2003, the Turlock Public Financing Authority issued Sewer Revenue Bonds, the proceeds of which were loaned to the City to be used to construct improvements related to the City’s Regional Water Quality Control Facility. Sewer system revenues were pledged as the repayment source for both these bond issuances. As of June 30, 2012, the outstanding principal related to these bonds is $16,470,000 for the 1999 Bonds and $43,355,000 for the 2003 Bonds.
The interest costs for both these bonds is significantly higher than current market interest rates and Staff is proposing the refunding (refinancing) of the outstanding bonds to take advantage of the near historic low interest rate environment.
In order to proceed with this refunding, the documents listed above are before Council for approval. The same documents are also before the Turlock Public Financing Authority Board of Directors for approval. City staff – along with its financing team of First Southwest Company (financial advisor), Orrick, Herrington and Sutcliff, LPP (bond counsel), E.J. De La Rosa & Co. (underwriter), and Stradling Yocca Carlson & Fauth (disclosure counsel) – have been meeting to discuss the refunding as well as the current economic climate for tax-exempt bond issuance and other issues that would need to be resolved prior to actually issuing the bonds.
The results of these meetings are the bond documents currently before the Council along with related items on the agenda of the Turlock Public Financing Authority for review and approval. Based on the proposed interest rates, which are at a near historical low, the refunding will provide current annual savings of approximately $750,000 in debt service payments. The overall net present value savings over the life of the outstanding bonds is projected to be just under $4 million. No General Fund dollars will be used for the annual debt service or cost of issuance.
For more information regarding the City Council, or to view the entire agenda for the July 24 meeting as well as previous meetings, please visit: http://www.ci.turlock.ca.us/government/turlockcitycouncil/citycouncilmeetings/
