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Dear Editor:
Now that Carmel’s $1.4 billion debt makes it a bad risk for financial markets, it’s refreshing to learn from the Current in Carmel that the Carmel City Council is considering issuing nearly $39 million in bonds held by developers.
Carmel Redevelopment Director Henry Mestetsky was quoted as saying developers would be fully responsible for repaying them. What a dandy idea, I thought. So, I pressed Mestetsky for details.
Citing a state statute, he indicated bonds bought by developers and repaid by taxes paid by the resulting projects and, while the city acts as “issuer,” it has no liability.
What a dandy idea. Think how it would feel, for example, to have a developer on the hook for the $262 million Palladium. Oh, but that’s impossible. The Palladium doesn’t pay taxes. It doesn’t pay its own utility bills, either. That $1-million-a-year tab is the taxpayer’s worry.
But, giving credit where it is due (no pun intended), Mestetsky divulged a dandy idea.
So, dandy one wonders why the $1.4 billion in Carmel debt hasn’t always been handled this way.
I should have asked Mestetsky.
Bill Shaffer
Carmel