Here are a couple of tidbits to brighten your day.
Earlier today the city sold $205,080,000 in municipal bonds to finance water system capital projects and to convert some 1995 and 2002 bonds from variable to fixed rate. This is the largest municipal bond sale in the country since the financial crisis began to unfold in September. Five financial service companies participated in the competitive bidding process. Merrill Lynch & Company won with an interest rate of 4.987%. This bond sale is significant because it is the largest in the past several months and because the interest rate is very competitive and very close to what the city would have achieved had the bonds been sold earlier in the year before the current economic downturn. Kudos to the city's finance director, Dwight Dively, and his staff.
Working with local residents and business owners, the city will soon close several downtown alleys to anyone other than residents, property owners, or employees or customers of businesses adjacent to the alleyways. Most of the alleys are in the Belltown and Pike-Pine corridor areas. Once posted, these closures will allow police officers to question individuals in the alleyways, and in some circumstances make arrests for trespassing. The alley closures are part of anti-crime efforts in the downtown section of the city aimed at suppressing open-air drug trafficking, public drinking and intoxication, prostitution, and other quality-of-life criminal behavior. Kudos to police and traffic planners for an innovative solution.