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Dear Editor:
The Carmel Redevelopment Commission (CRC) director has a problem.
He told the city council recently the public is confused about the city’s debt.
He claimed the debt involved something he called developer-based bonds (DBB) which entail no risk to taxpayers.
He said the city merely was the issuer of the bonds. Google “issuer” to learn it’s a legal term meaning “a legal entity that develops, registers, and sells securities for the purpose of financing its operations.”
Moreover, he said, “The only duty of the city is to take whatever taxes that are paid by these (developed) properties … and hand that money over to the developer.”
He basically said the city borrows tens of millions of dollars, turns it over to developers and then pays them tax revenues, too.
How’s that for de-confusing things?
Note: He presented no data, examples, or empirical evidence to support his idle opinions.
Neither the Carmel Redevelopment Authority nor the city list anything called DBBs in formal data supplied to the Indiana Department of Local Government.
Oh, and they also reported $37 million in DBB revenues last year and $48 million due on principal and interest.
The CRC director’s problem isn’t that the public is confused.
It’s that the public is too well informed.
Bill Shaffer
Carmel