The Juniper Ridge Management Board met last Wednesday for about the seventh time, under the rather forceful guidance of Chair John James. City staff attending included John Russell and Jerry Mitchell, Mel Oberst, Sonia Andrews, Eric King, and several others. There was also an ODOT presence. The JRMB is aggressively moving forward with financial and physical planning to be ready if and when the ODOT/Cooley/97 issue is resolved. This issue, which will require $50M in identified revenues to overcome, is critical to any future land sales. This large amount of required monies is definitely on the radar of the JRMB.
One of the sources of this $50M will be the trip fees paid by users ranging from Suterra to Super Walmart. It is anticipated that their will be 2900 trips available, with a per trip cost of $9000. The City of Bend will pay $3000 of this fee. The total available from these fees is about $26M, a little over one-half of the required $50M. That means Bend taxpayers will be paying another $8.7M towards Juniper Ridge buildout in "helping out" the companies that want to build around Cooley/97. That includes Super Walmart.
This "co-pay" was first discussed in an Executive Session which was broadcast into the hallway by mistake, which I happened to overhear. That is illegal, and is definitely an issue going forward. As is calling in Suterra to an Executive Session to discuss their financing capabilities before the no public discussion, no public comment council vote on the sale of city land to Suterra.
This abuse of Executive Sessions simply must be confronted and stopped before the installation of the next City Council.
The city anticipates that the other $24M will come from land sales at JR and from bonds supported by the JR redevelopment district. However so far land sales have resulted in multi-million dollar losses due to the cost of infrastructure improvements agreed to by the city.
The next steps to developing JR including such mundane but detail specific items as overlaying streets, working with Pacific Power on a substation, and working with yet more consultants on design standards and CC&R's. The JRMB anticipates meeting at least twice a month through the end of the year to move these items along.
Also high on the agenda are two upcoming meetings with the Oregon Transportation Commission. For the first meeting on Nov. 13th the city plans to present a general overview of its plans to improve surface streets in the vicinity so less traffic will be pushed to Cooley/97. The second meeting in January will flesh this proposal out by identifying specific funding sources to actually build these streets. These meetings will be preceded by a North End stakeholders meeting on Nov. 6th, showing maps of the planned surface street and other improvements.
The next JRMB meeting is Nov. 10th. It is an open public meeting, and while not explicitly encouraged, the public is officially welcome. Meeting details are way down on the right side of this city web site: http://www.ci.bend.or.us/depts/urban_renewal_economic_development/index.html
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Many of us come from different fields here, but its clear their are no CPA's, and BP don't fucking tell me your a CPA, your not.
Homer is an mba, tt a reporter, rdc(bebb) realtor, quim&lava who fucking knows, marge realtor, ... but no fucking CPA's, ... will somebody here find a fucking CPA and explain me something?? Dunc is just another fucking biz man like me, ... Does can anyone get a CPA to answer??
Ok, here is the question, and I want a REAL FUCKING ACCOUNTANT TO ANSWER.
Why is does the City on the behalf of the BULLetin borrow short-term money to pay for SDC's for rich comapanys for their infrastructure, and then book expense as a long term deferred SDC albeit non-collectable, on budget doing this hokey pokey accounting shows a balanced budget.
Now the QUESTION: "The city takes the money for the sale of JR land, and puts the money into the General Fund as cash", fine. But the city seems to be able to borrow all it wants for 'infrastructure', on its letter-of-credit.
Why doesn't the city just borrow money on its Letter-of-Credit and dump the money into the 'general fund', is it NOT ALLOWED to do this?? I mean the racket I see as a business man of 40+ years that always has done cash-basis accounting. It makes no sense to me as what the city is doing.
They're OBVIOUSLY not allowed by city charter to simply borrow money on its line of credit, and then dump the cash in the 'general fund'.
Instead they use BURA as a front for JR, where JR sell's land for cash, and the cash is placed in the general fund. Then the city spends 2X->10X of the amount of the sale on infrastructure for same, for instance, Les Schwab paid $3M for JR, and it went to the general fund, they paid off KURATEK $2.5M that was an infrastucture service expense paid with line-of-credit(LOC) debt, and booked a deferred SDC, which is shown as an asset. On the same deal knife-river got over $10M in developing JR for Les-Schwab and that also is booked as a deferred SDC.
What the city is doing is for every $2M of cash they put in the general fund, they create $10M in short term debt, albeit they book the debt as an asset, however the 'deferred SDC' is never going to be paid, which is why the BULLETING is demanding these deferred SDC's be deferred indefinetly, aka 'written off'.
Then in the recent weeks the Suterra deal, city got $2.5M ( or close ) from suterra, and booked as cash to 'general fund', to pay cops , fire, and city-staff salary. Then on the same deal they're going to spend $4M for Suterra's infrastructure, which is finance by short-term LOC debt, but booked as a 'deferred SDC'.
This is going to go on FOR ever, the city can continue to sell JR land, as any business will buy into the deal, the city will load JR up with beautiful shit, but the DEBT, even though hidden by balanced accounting is still fucking there.
Somebody who is a CPA explain this to me why this is legal???
Somebody explain other than the fucking pussy, why the city just doesn't borrow on its LOC and dump the cash in 'general fund'.
Sure Knife-River gets Millions, the BULL gets millions for worthless land given by HOLLERN, hap-taylor got millions for worthless land near boyd-acres, ... so yea the city is handing out millions here and there of cash to its OWNERS.
All the while chump-change is deposited into the general-fund.
How is this legal??
The city anticipates that the other $24M will come from land sales at JR and from bonds supported by the JR redevelopment district. However so far land sales have resulted in multi-million dollar losses due to the cost of infrastructure improvements agreed to by the city.
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Yes, BP every deal the city does it loses more money, my figure on Les-Schwab is that it was an 8 to 1 loss, the Suterra was a 4 to 1 loss, so perhaps the next deal might be a better loss? Maybe even someday the city will make a paper profit.
For consider this, the ONLY benefactor to date of the JR spending spree has been Knife-River(hap-taylor).
What I'm saying above is that for every dollar that city got to deposit into their general fund on the Suterra deal it cost them $4 for dollars.
things going on here.
1.) Money is being pushed to Knife-River as a make work project. I can explain this, hap-taylor, taylor-NW, is sitting on MILLION's a month of heavy-equip costs, if they don't have recurring revenue from the city they'll have to auction their equipment all this shit is to keep one company in biz.
2.) Hap-Taylor, taylor-nw is the no-big exclusive excavator of HOLLERN, aka brooks resources, its rather certain with the cozy relationship that Brooks MUST have financial interest in Taylor(knife-river).
3.) The BULLetin paper has sold worthless land it got from HOLLERN to the city for $5M, which keeps the BULL afloat this year.
4.) The city bought worthless land from Taylor in boyd-acres for $4M, to keep them afloat.
The city is being made bankrupt, in order to keep the BULL, HOLLERN(BROOKS), TAYLOR(knife-river) afloat, that is whats going on, nothing more.
For Immediate Release: November 6, 2008
New study reveals more violations of the law by CDFA
Environmental groups, citizen advocates react to results of environmental monitoring during aerial spraying for Light Brown Apple Moth (LBAM)
Santa Cruz, CA. (November 6, 2008) Just a few days before the one-year anniversary of the aerial spraying for Light Brown Apple Moth (LBAM) in Santa Cruz, the California Department of Food and Agriculture (CDFA) released a report by the Department for Pesticide Regulations (DPR) about the results of environmental monitoring during pesticide applications in Monterey and Santa Cruz counties.
While CDFA claims that this study proves the safety of the chemicals used, environmental groups and citizen advocates say that statement is misleading and point out fundamental shortcomings of the report. Rather, they argue, the report reveals another breach of the law by CDFA as it states that considerable drift occurred during aerial spraying in 2007. The study also confirms observations made by affected residents of inconsistencies in the dosage of the pesticides, creating whole clusters of illness. Detailed reactions follow.
1. The study is inadequate in determining toxicity of the chemicals sprayed, as it takes into account only the active ingredient of the pesticides, a synthetic pheromone. The so-called inert ingredients are not being examined, although those ingredients are of great concern. Some inert ingredients have established carcinogenic, mutagenic, and reproductive toxicities, others are toxic to aquatic species.
Says Santa Cruz resident Paulina Borsook “This report persists CDFA’s disingenuous practice of looking at the most benign components of the spray only and then calling the whole product ‘safe’. The agency’s behavior is completely irresponsible. CDFA continues to put families, pets, wildlife and fragile ecosystems at risk, and insults those that already have been hurt.”
Quote: “The Check Mate products also contain several inert ingredients, but these were not monitored.” (p. 2)
2. While deficient in determining toxicity of the spray, the new study conducted by DPR, reveals evidence of further abuses of the law by CDFA. The report states that pesticide drift was measured as far as 3.3 miles outside of the spray zone. This is a clear violation of section 12972 in the California Agriculture Code: “The use of any pesticide by any person shall be in such a manner as to prevent substantial drift to nontarget areas.”
Quote: “Drift of the product was detected at considerable distance from the application boundary, 3.97 ug/ft2 (1.15 percent of the target application rate) at 17,400 feet in one instance.” ( p. 12)
Says Soquel resident Isabelle Jenniches “I live outside the spray zone, but we could feel and smell the spray. My husband and I had red eyes, dry mouths, and accelerated heart rates for days. My neighbor suffered a terrible asthma attack, the first in years. It is a well-known fact that airborne pesticides can drift for miles. This dangerous practice has to stop for good!”
During aerial spray operations last year, the pilots were to leave buffer zones around waterways and along the ocean. The now confirmed pesticide drift rendered these buffer zones meaningless. Storm run-off made things worse: after the spraying a thick yellow foam was observed in the water. Surfers reported the worst red tide in 40 years, which may have been fueled by phosphates and surfactants in the spray.
Says Frank Egger, president of the North Coast River Alliance “When I saw the photographs of thick yellow foam in the ocean after spraying, I knew that our waters had been contaminated. We now have proof of this. This is an outrageous violation of both state and federal laws and further puts endangered species such as steelhead trout and Coho salmon in jeopardy.”
3. The study also finds that pesticide capsules were not evenly distributed within the carrier substance (water), leading to inconsistent deposition rates of the spray. This may explain why some entire families became very ill when neighbors across the street did not. One property received a much larger exposure to chemicals than the other.
Quote: “The tank sample results showed a large amount of variability between samples for the same treatment and even within analysis of a single sample. […]The cause of the variability could be due to several factors. It was noticed that the microcapsules tend to separate out of the mixture quickly and require constant mixing.” (pp. 9 & 10)
The deposition study by the Department of Pesticide Regulations can be found at the CDFA website http://www.cdfa.ca.gov/phpps/PDEP/lbam/pdfs/docs/deposition_study.pdf
Some may feel squeamish about eating it, but rabbit has a fan base that grows as cooks discover how easy they are to raise — and how good the meat tastes.
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