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Regular Council Meeting January 28, 2013 Page 4 18. Discuss and act on calling a special bond election. Mr. Godwin said KSA was working on developing a ten-year capital improvement plan and there had been discussion about the possibility of a bond election to approve up to $50 million in general obligation bonds. He said general obligation bonds had to be voted on by the voters and that Council had indicated they did not want to sell certificates of obligations, because that required only a vote of the Council and not the citizens. Mr. Godwin said the bond election could not officially be called until February lOt", and if Council wanted to move forward, an action item would be placed on the February 11 `h agenda for an official vote to call the bond election. Mr. Godwin said the water and sewer lines were extremely old and in horrible shape. He said the other problem was that almost all of the water and sewer lines were underneath the streets, which meant streets had to be dug up when repairing or replacing water and sewer lines. Mr. Godwin said water and sewer lines could be a single proposition on a ballot, that roads had to be a separate proposition on the ballot, and drainage had to be a separate proposition on the ballot. He said the Attorney General required three different propositions. Council Member Drake said she was glad this was going to the voters and as a tax payer she was tired of putting band aids on the infrastructure. In addition, she said she was getting positive feedback from citizens. Council Member Wright said if the City was going to stay in business, they should continue with a bond election. He said it provided an opportuniTy to repair water and sewer, as well as slowing down on street repairs. He also said that he fully backed it. Council Member Lancaster said she was getting positive feedback and was definitely for moving forward. Council Member Grossnickle said he believed if the City was going to be revitalized, that they needed to move forward with a bond election. He said they could use the KSA study to prioritize the projects. Council Member Grossnickle inquired about language contained in the wording and the tax rate. Mr. Godwin said by approving it, you approve a tax rate up to an amount required to pay that back. Mr. Godwin said the majority of this was going to be water and sewer projects and those projects were not paid with ta�c money. He said that those projects were paid for through water and sewer bills. Mr. Godwin said at this time bonds were affordable, because interest rates were incredibly low. He told the Council that a very large bond had been paid off last summer and another bond was refinanced to save a significant amount of money. Mr. Godwin said over the next eight or nine years the City had two more bonds that would be retiring and the City had the ability to issue additional debt to replace the old debt. Mr. Godwin stated that the water and sewer projects were not going to be paid for by ta�ces, so the City would not need to raise any taxes to pay for them. He referenced the retirement of bonds and said the City would not have to raise the water and sewer rates either. Mr. Godwin reminded Council that the bond advisor's spreadsheet reflected that you could do $50 million without having to raise any rates on anything. He said since the Attorney General requires that you separate the streets out on the propositions, so some of the street projects would have to be paid for by taxes. Council Member Wright confirmed with Mr. Godwin if the projects were less than $50 million they would not have to sell all of the bonds. Mayor Hashmi said it made sense financially to move forward with a bond election at this time citing the replacement cost would be less now than in future years. Mayor Hashmi emphasized the importance of having community support and stated this was a big project for Paris. It was a consensus of City