Posted on 07/18/2012 3:01:10 AM PDT by Zakeet
The City of Compton, a city of 93,000 people located on the outskirts of Los Angeles, must decide by September 1 whether to seek bankruptcy, according to its two most senior financial officials.
Such a move would see it join a growing number of deficit-hobbled California cities that have used the filing to restructure onerous debt loads.
Compton, which has an accumulated $43 million deficit and has depleted what had been a $22 million reserve, will run out of cash to make its payroll on September 1 at its current cash consumption rate, city comptroller Steven Ajobiewe told the city council during a July 17 meeting.
"I have $3 million in the bank and $5 million in warrants due in the next 10 to 12 days," said city treasurer Doug Sanders. "By then, the council will have a decision to make: don't pay the bonds, default on them, or have a serious talk about bankruptcy."
The city council adjourned at 11 pm without discussing a potential bankruptcy filing.
Compton Mayor Eric J. Perrodin also said he brought unspecified charges of "waste, fraud and abuse of public monies" to California officials, and had met with auditors from both the state and Los Angeles County.
He told the city council that at one point in its past the city had overspent legally set limits on certain programs by $17 million but would not elaborate.
Neither the state nor county has started an audit or investigation, city officials said.
[Snip]
Unlike San Bernardino, which has a large unfunded liability to pay its employees' pensions, Compton years ago increased its property tax to fund its workers' pension obligations, said Perrodin, and the retirement program is fully funded.
(Excerpt) Read more at reuters.com ...
As if Dre or Cube would go anywhere near Compton today.
I’ll disagree with your Compton statement. The reason cities grew where they did were usually geographic convenience and resources. Those reason are no longer really as relevant as they had been. The Detroit case with the bridge won’t transfer to most of the cities filing bankruptcy.
My issue with be with how to pay for it.
We recently had our governor here in NJ nix a third tunnel project under the Hudson River to NYC; people b!tched & moaned, stooping so low as to complain that people may need it to “see a Broadway show” (since our area lost so many jobs - especially financial jobs - there are a lot less people using ALL crossings into NYC, and since those jobs moved to Manila & Bangalore, they won’t be back anytime soon).
He said it simply didn’t make financial sense, and he was absolutely right; we can’t pretend it is 1990 anymore.
Canada is giving us the money to pay for most of it and even putting up the money to buy the land for the approaches on the American side. They’ll do the toll collecting for 40 years and expect to make a profit in that time.
http://ca.news.yahoo.com/canada-michigan-announce-detroit-windsor-bridge-184845394.html
This isn’t high speed rail. There is an existing need here and Canada is giving us a deal that we simply shouldn’t ignore.
They should run with it then; just be sure they dot the “i”s and cross the “t”s.
Here in NJ we still collect tolls on the Garden State Parkway, more than fifty years after it was built; the tolls were originally supposed to be until it was paid off, but they’ve become a taxing entity unto themselves (with a whole population of parasites now making “careers” of it).
LOL! I used to work in Compton. I see that you are familiar with it. [smiles]
Oh, yeah. Like a giant, open air, 24-hour L’il Kim video. ;)
Indeed. If you work there, you drive straight in, work, and drive straight out again. No gawking, no slowing down, no stopping for gas or any other reason.
It probably has not improved what with the newly-empowered “Amish.”
Sounds like a worthwhile project; hope it moves quickly.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.