Political columnists seek (and find) common ground
40th Annual Poway Rodeo set Sept. 28, 29
Back to work for prep football teams
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Borrowing $105M will cost PUSD $1B
Concert at the Park
The last free summer concert at Old Poway Park will be by the Pomerado Community Band at 5:30 p.m. Sunday, Aug. 12 at Old Poway Park. Parking is free.
(Editor’s note: This story appeared this week on the online news site VoiceofSanDiego.org. Because we feel this story is of importance to our readers, we are reprinting it here with permission.)
Catfish-O-Rama
Youths, ages 11-17, can be awarded for reeling in the biggest catfish during the Lake Poway Teen Catfish-O-Rama 3 to 9:30 p.m. Friday, Aug. 17. Lake Poway fishing permit required, $3 for ages 11-15, $6 for ages 16-17. For more details, call 858-668-4770.
Street fair vendors
Commercial and food vendor applications are still available for the Poway Days Street Fair Sept. 16. Email buu@poway. com for information.
BY WILL CARLESS Voice of San Diego
FIGHTING CRIME — In collaboration with the Sheriff ’s Department, the Poway Target store held the 29th annual National Night out Against Crime on Tuesday. This event, which intended to raise crime awareness of all kinds, including drug awareness, burglary awareness, ID theft and how to protect your children, included free child fingerprinting, meeting a deputy, games and food From left, Ashley, Derek and Tina Sung received some give-aways. Photo by Beverley Brooks
Council not happy about water rate hike
or Current Resident
Presorted Standard US Postage PAID San Diego CA Permit No. 2551
BY STEVE DREYER
13475 Danielson St. #110 Poway, CA 92064
13760 POWAY ROAD • 858.486.2900
They’re not happy about it, but members of the City Council agreed Tuesday night to proceed with the idea of increasing water rates by 3.5 percent next year. During an hour-long workshop session on the staff-recommended proposal, council members said they’d like to see the San Diego County Water Authority tighten their own fiscal belts a little more. The city buys its water from the authority, which buys much of its
water from the Metropolitan Water District. “I’m not happy about passing this (rate increase) along,” Councilwoman Merrilee Boyack said. The increase is the seventh in the past seven years. If formally approved by the council following an Oct. 16 public hearing, the rate change would go into effect next spring and would cost the average residential customer an extra $2.30 per month. A staff report said that the city will pay about SEE WATER, Page 8
Last year the Poway Unified School District made a deal: It borrowed $105 million from investors to fund a final push in its decade-long effort to revamp aging schools. In many ways, the deal was unspectacular. Some of the money was used to pay off previous debts from delayed and overbudget construction projects. The rest went towards finishing upgrades that Poway taxpayers had been promised as far back as 2002. To a casual observer, it was just another school bond. But Poway Unified’s deal was far from normal. In 2008, voters had given the district permission to borrow more money to finish its modernization, and they had received a big promise from the elected school board in return: No tax increases. Without increasing taxes, the district couldn’t afford to borrow money in the conventional way. So, instead of borrowing from investors over 20 or 30 years and paying the debt down each year, like a mortgage, the district got creative. With advice from an Orange County financial consultant, the district borrowed the money over 40 years in a controversial loan called a capital appreciation bond. The key point for the district: It won’t make any payments on the debt for 20 years. And that means the district’s debt will keep getting bigger and bigger as interest on the loan piles up. The bottom line: For borrowing $105 million in 2011, taxpayers will end up paying investors more than $981 million by 2051, or almost 10 times what the district borrowed. That’s wildly more expensive than a typical school bond, in which a district pays back two or maybe three times what it borrowed. As well as being expensive, capital appreciation bonds work SEE BOND, Page 6
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