Glass Tower now a Ballpark

[shadows]

The article in today's paper on the DT fee assessments for the ball park shows that the payoff of the 25M revenue bonds in 30 years will be in the neighborhood of $62,564,073 dollars.  The total DT assessment is $93,940,050 dollars of which $2,085,469 dollars are dedicated to the 25M ballpark bonds per year.  Assuming the first payment will be due at about the opening date then this would possibility have to be paid out of the general fund or city loose points on their credit rating.  The next councilors will have to consider this in next years budget.

Inflation is the easy to create but at what point will deflation begin?

The DT of the city is off to the NW of the center at 41&Yale with the growth is South by East of this point.  How can the city continue to build up the DT by adding fees while the commercial business are moving miles from DT?

Does  everyone believe that the strong mayor government is a working model for Tulsa? 
   

[waterboy]

There are at least two distinct issues you raise and one suspect assumption. I'll address the latter.

Doesn't matter much where the geographic center of the city is. It will always meander like the Arkansas. The center of the city retains three of the five hospitals in town. The center of local government is housed there including the county seat. The only colleges in town are within a couple miles of downtown with another soon to expand just north of downtown. Midtown and downtown/uptown could survive handily if each of the burbs surrounding it decided to separate. In fact we might prosper with better roads paid for by toll fees! The population within this area is dense, affluent and well educated.

Sure, Jenks and Owasso will survive, not sure about BA but probably, but not as well as they do with a healthy core. You could move these essentials to Promenade mall if you wish but the only improvement will be in transit times for buses and cabs. And of course it would make Jamesrage a happy camper.

Whether or not the timing of cash flow from the dowtown assessment fees has been addressed is a good question as well as a strong mayor form. We just had a strong mayor. General assessment is that might not have been a good thing. But I don't relish a strong council or a return to commission form either.

[TulsaSooner]

The first payment on the ballpark was made on November 1st.

The city will not be paying anything towards these bonds out of the General or any other fund.

Where did you get your figures?  I did not see any of that in the article that I read.   

[shadows]

The first payment on the ballpark was made on November 1st.

The city will not be paying anything towards these bonds out of the General or any other fund.

Where did you get your figures?  I did not see any of that in the article that I read.   

Don't tell me that the TW is printing two papers.  Under "fees" extended from page A1 first column, last line.  66.6% is reserved to pay off the bonds over 30 years (simple 4 grade level math)  Ax%x30=sum.

Why was a payment made on the bond so premature?

Was the payment made out of same account as the 7.1M Tulsa was not obligated to pay?

Incase of a default what account will the city feel obligated to pay out of?

Seem hindsight records more facts than foresight.    

[Wrinkle]

Prediction

WHEN this gets to [the right] Court, it will be thrown out. But, that won't happen until the ballpark construction/funding is nearly complete. Notice all the unnecessary delays already, and the incomparable opinions already rendered (fully expecting to be overturned later).

Once thrown out, the default (probably already worded in the agreements we don't ever see) would be to seek remedy from the City to pay off the Bonds (even though the City was supposedly specifically removed from liabilities with the ballpark, ah la Great Plains). Don't know if this would require an actual suit or not, but the methodology would classify it as a judgement of some type, to then be paid out of the city's Sinking Fund, which by law is required to maintain a minimum level of funding even if it requires an increase in Ad Valorem to do so.

Bingo, up yours with the Ad Valorem.
End result, exactly what was intended, all citizens (property owners) of the city pay a ballpark tax.


Thanks Kitty, we won't soon forget you.

[shadows]

Waterboy: In all due respect look a Kansas City and all the little burbs around it.  Dallas the same way.  The two major hospitals of those you cite were well established when cattle were grazing on the east side of Lewis at 3rd St..  The street car reversed to go back down town at a block west of Lewis where the wide street is between 5th and 6th.  Many cities have moved the governing office to the center of the population very successfully.  It is time for Tulsa to circle the wagons and  centralize its government functions where they will be available to all its citizens one might surmise.

[TulsaSooner]

Don't tell me that the TW is printing two papers.  Under "fees" extended from page A1 first column, last line.  66.6% is reserved to pay off the bonds over 30 years (simple 4 grade level math)  Ax%x30=sum.

Why was a payment made on the bond so premature?

Was the payment made out of same account as the 7.1M Tulsa was not obligated to pay?

Incase of a default what account will the city feel obligated to pay out of?

Seem hindsight records more facts than foresight.    

I see it now....I wasn't sure what you were talking about before.

Because Nov 1 was the due date.

No, it was made by the Trust from collections of the assessment.

[TulsaSooner]

http://www.tulsaworld.com/news/article.aspx?subjectid=333&articleid=20090624_16_A1_Fiftee225296&archive=yes

A $25 million revenue bond was issued in December to be repaid by the assessment fee. The first payment on the bond is due in November, officials have said.

[shadows]

http://www.tulsaworld.com/news/article.aspx?subjectid=333&articleid=20090624_16_A1_Fiftee225296&archive=yes

Thanks for the information.  It seems that the Tulsa World is printing two issues.  One for the DT elitist and one for the peasants.

Do you by any chance know how much the payment was and who is the holder of the revenue bond?   

[TulsaSooner]

I want to say it is around $1.9 million.

You could probably find the exact answer in some of the newspaper articles about it, but I think the bond initially had no bidders because it was not rated and on a speculative revenue source and was floated during the bond market collapse...eventually, it ended up being loaned to the trust or purchased by the donors to the stadium or something.  It was kind of convoluted and I don't remember exactly how it ended up being worked out but I believe the donors are esentially the bondholders.

[shadows]

TulsaSooner: Thanks again for the information.  One could correlate the dealing with transferring the money from one pocket to another pocket in the typical way that business as usual is conducted by the city.  In the end the donor's part will be deeply entrenched in the black column.

[DowntownNow]

Shadows...this post in the TW comments section might answer that question for you...but may spawn others like it has for me.

In the TW Article: Stadium trust approves policy on fee liens 

BetterorWorse (11/5/2009 7:51:09 AM)

How exactly can this mayor approve anything associated with the Tulsa Stadium Trust or the ballpark and its operations when she is a sitting Trustee of the Tulsa Community Foundation? There is a distinct conflict of interest in every action she has undertaken with regards to this ballpark under the City's ethics ordinance.

Ordinance:

"No City official shall participate in any City business in which they have a related
personal, financial, or organizational interest"

"The possibility, not the actuality, of a conflict shall govern"

Kathy Taylor had both an 'organizational interest' as a Trustee on the Tulsa Community Foundation that was awarded the single bid construction contract as well as the single bid financing structured through the TCF.

She had a 'personal interest' given that her family's foundation was providing a contribution to the effort and enjoyed a "direct or indirect interest, matter, or relationship not
shared by the general public which could be reasonably expected to impair the City
official's objectivity or independence of judgment."

The Trust will argue that the actions were taken before the establishment of the Public Trust but then the question becomes, were those action legal under the Oklahoma Open Records Act? Those decisions should have been made only after the establishment of the Trust.

BetterorWorse (11/5/2009 8:10:03 AM)

And let's not forget that BOK (majority owned by George Kaiser) provided the $25 million loan to the Tulsa Community Foundation (established by George Kaiser)for the purchase of the construction bonds which accrue 6.5% interest...2.0% of which goes to the Tulsa Community Foundation ($15 million in interest) and the remaining 4.5% to BOK ($33.75 million in interest)

[DowntownNow]

And here is the TW story confirming TCF as bond purchaser:

http://www.tulsaworld.com/news/article.aspx?subjectid=334&articleid=20081205_11_A1_TheTul228695&archive=yes

[Conan71]

"Lakin said the foundation, a tax-exempt public charity, agreed to provide the financing after the Tulsa Stadium Trust did not receive any bids from 27 prospective lenders."

Wow, 27 prospective lenders and not one bid???

I'm largely ignorant on how the mechanism works for this, but in my mind, I'm thinking the bonds must be a real sh!t burger if there was no interest out of 27 lenders.

[TulsaSooner]

"Lakin said the foundation, a tax-exempt public charity, agreed to provide the financing after the Tulsa Stadium Trust did not receive any bids from 27 prospective lenders."

Wow, 27 prospective lenders and not one bid???

I'm largely ignorant on how the mechanism works for this, but in my mind, I'm thinking the bonds must be a real sh!t burger if there was no interest out of 27 lenders.

Maybe, but at that point in time I think the volatility of the bond market, particularly the lack of interest in so-called "story" bonds, is what killed the demand.