Thanks to everyone who took the time and effort to attend last night's City Council meeting regarding the Bond Issue!  A special thank you also to those brave souls who were willing to speak out publicly on this issue!!!

Below are my comments delivered during the public input portion of the meeting:

"Citizens, Mayor, City Council, my name is Carlton Bowen and I am a resident of American Fork City.  I rise today to speak in opposition to the proposed resolution.  This resolution seeks to significantly increase city debt and increases property taxes.  According to the June 2013 budget, our city is already 54 million dollars in debt, a significant amount of debt for a city our size.  This resolution seeks to add 20 million dollars more debt, a massive 40% increase in the debt burden on American Fork City taxpayers.  American Fork City property taxes are already some of the highest in our area, according to analysis of 10 surrounding cities done by the Daily Herald newspaper.  American Fork City residents, businesses, and taxpayers don't expect the City Council to significantly increase the cities debt burden and raise taxes.  We expect the city to live within its means.  And the city does have means.  In June of 2013, less than two months ago, the city had an unexpected tax surplus of 7.5 million dollars.  If roads are truly a priority to the city, this money could have been allocated to pay for the roads.  This surplus would have paid for 75% of the first 10 million dollars the city wants to borrow next year, without raising taxes, and without more debt!  I want to keep American Fork City great through fiscal responsibility.  I urge the City Council to abandon and vote against this resolution, which adds massive new debt and raises property taxes.  Thank you."

Several others spoke also; all spoke in opposition to the bond except for one.

Unfortunately, the City Council still voted to proceed with the massive additional borrowing and property tax increase.

Mayor Hadfield confirmed near the end of the meeting that the city did owe not just 54 million dollars, but actually just over 56 million dollars!

There was also a question about the tax revenue surplus.  I thought the City Council was aware of this since the amended budget dealing with this was passed so recently, but there was some confusion among Council on this issue.  The actual tax surplus according to the June 2013 amended budget is 7.6 million, but it wasn't all "sales" tax surplus.  The tax surplus was from several different city "revenue" funds, including a $500,000 surplus from sales tax.  The combined surplus from the various revenue funds totaled 7.6 million dollars.  My source for this is a document that I had to request from the city, because they didn't have it up on their web site.  The document title is "2013-06-10R City Budget Adjustments for 2012-2013.pdf".  Refer to page 6, under the "Revenues" section, which lists line by line where the additional revenues came from.  Note specifically the total of "45,497,800" for the column "approved budget 6/30/2012", and then compare that to the total of "53,122,700" for the column "Amended Budget 6/30/2013".  Remember, this is the revenue section, i.e. the money coming into the city.  The difference between the original approved budget's revenue and the amended budgets revenue is "7,624,900".  This is the additional budget revenue, or "tax surplus", that I'm talking about!

**Tax Surplus source:  "2013-06-10R City Budget Adjustments for 2012-2013.pdf", page 6, Revenues.**


By the way, one question I had meant to ask during the meeting but didn't was "what will the fees be for underwriting the bond?"  I was able to ask the "bonding agent" that question though, after the meeting.  (He didn't like me asking... part of that fee is probably his paycheck!)  I did get an answer, sort of.  The bonding agent said the fee is typically $2 to $8 per $1000 borrowed.  So let's see, on a 20 million dollar bond... 20 million divided by 1000 equals 20,000, times $2 at the low end equals $40,000, or times $8 at the high end equals $160,000.  Wow!  The city will have to pay bonding fees of 40K to 160k to borrow this money!   (That's on top of the 1 million in yearly interest!)