News Talk 94.1/AM 1600 Where The Upper Cumberland Talks
Cookeville City Council will consider moving forward Thursday night with another general obligation bond issuance of some $10 million.
City Manager James Mills said the bonds would help with three projects: Phase II of the East 10th Street widening, Phase I of West Stevens Street improvements, and reimbursing the city’s general fund for the land purchase on Old Sparta Road to be potentially used for the aquatics facility.
“We could have waited a little while longer on this, we already have responded quite a bit,” Mills said. “But we felt like we really probably needed to move now knowing that the potential for rates to continue to go up is probably going to happen, so we wanted to go ahead and lock this in now because we know that we’re going to have some expenses coming up.”
Mills said the $10 million likely will not be enough to cover the full cost of both road projects. He said if the council would like, they can explore increasing the bond capacity or looking at issuing another bond in the next calendar year.
“But ten (million dollars) is the most we want to do at one time,” Mills said. “(…) Because it can be tax exempt and that makes it much more attractive for bidders and you get a better rate (…) And you can get more bidders for that, can’t you Brenda? And that’s the key thing.”
Finance Director Brenda Imel said approximately $6 million will be used for the road projects. She said the city still has about $3.2 million from last year’s bond issuance that can also be used for street projects.
Imel said the city was ready to roll on issuing this bond in July, but wanted to wait to make sure the new council would be on board with issuing it and the uses for it. She said the city is still about 30 to 45 days from putting the bond on the market.
