After months of financial
detective work and often-heated political debate, the Carmel City Council is poised to finally take a vote Monday night on a controversial refinancing of debt racked up by the Carmel Redevelopment Commission.A simple majority vote for the ordinance would result in a financial package designed to lower interest rates and save millions of dollars in payments on bonds used to finance
the creation of the city's flashy Arts & Design District and The Center for the Performing Arts.Here's the catch: To get the lower rates, the city must guarantee the payments with property tax revenues collected from Carmel's 80,000 residents. The debt, which is now $195 million, had been largely backed by commercial property tax dollars collected by the commission
.If the measure fails, the redevelopment commission would be in a pickle, faced with monthly debt payments so high that they would effectively
stop it from functioning....
Prominent members of the City Council -- most notably, President Rick Sharp and Luci Snyder, who chairs the Finance Committee -- have spent most of the year dissecting the history of spending by the redevelopment commission, criticizing many of the financial decisions that were made to avoid council oversight.
That can't happen again. The council has passed a tough new ordinance that effectively lets it take control of the redevelopment commission on Jan. 1, absorbing its staff and operational budget into the city budget and giving the council oversight on future projects.
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