Linden street bond update
On July 11th, the Linden City Council unanimously approved issuing $6 million for the street certificate of obligation bond debt. “Initially,” says City Manager Lee Elliott, “when Council began looking at debt to fix our street infrastructure, we were looking at an interest rate of 4.5% since we are a small taxing entity. Our financial planner believed if we had our debt rated, we could possibly receive a lower interest rate, possibly around 4.0%.”
“Our financial planner and staff worked intensively over three weeks gathering data and meeting with Standard and Poor’s, the agency which rated our debt. After very positive meetings and interaction, we received an extremely positive rating for a small rural taxing entity of A+! The higher-than-expected rating, along with having our debt underwritten and insured, improved our rating to AA. Through our due diligence and great rating, we received a surprisingly positive interest rate of 3.65%, over 20 years for $6 million of debt. The realized debt savings for citizens on interest will be $566,435, or approximately three cents per hundred-dollar taxable valuation each year,” continued Elliott.
“After 12 months of evaluating our street conditions, and developing plans, we now have financing for the repairs of our terrible street infrastructure. With the Main Street grant Downtown fixing 2-blocks of Rush Street, School Street being advertised to be bid out for complete repair, and in the next few months Kauffman /Banger Street’s being bid out and fixed, the street repairs will be strongly in motion.
“During the cold weather months, Council will generate a plan along with staff, engineers, and with public input to begin fixing more streets in the warm weather period of 2023. Council will be requesting public input on the street plan over the next few months. We would like to say thanks to the citizens for their understanding and patience with this time-consuming and expensive process. Linden is moving in a positive direction with several projects addressing all parts of our infrastructure, improving service levels, and generating an environment for growth!” said Elliott.