Office of the Mayor

____________________________________________________________________________________ For Immediate Release February 21, 2012

C ity of M eridian issues $4.5 million bond for paving and drainage repair
MERIDIAN, Miss. Mayor Cheri Barry and the Meridian City Council announced that the City of Meridian has passed a bond resolution that will allow for up to $4.5 million to be spent on paving and drainage repair. Mayor Barry said, This is exactly the kind of project that the Mayors Office and the Meridian City Council should be working on together. Our partnership on road and drainage repair does not end with the approval of bonds. The Office of the Mayor and the Meridian City Council will ride the roads of each city ward together and finalize the highest priorities for paving and drainage. The City of Meridian does not anticipate a tax increase to borrow the money. The bond repayment schedule will be designed so that the City will not need raise taxes to pay back the debt. Mayor Barry added, Our assessed property value is down for a second year in a row. We are structuring our repayment schedule with that in mind. We will do everything we can to repair our roads and drainage without a tax increase. Once the Mississippi Development Bank sells the municipal bonds, the City of Meridian will receive the funds to begin road and drainage repairs. ###

Office of the Mayor

____________________________________________________________________________________ For Immediate Release February 12, 2012

M ayor C heri Bar ry statement regarding M eridian L aw E nforcement C enter

There has been a lot of discussion over the past few weeks regarding the Meridian Law Enforcement Center.Itstimetosettherecordstraight. We had to use innovative financing. During the past administration, six million dollars in bonds meant for a new police station was spent on the recently completed city hall renovation. To build a new police station, we had to look at alternative funding. We chose a lease-purchase option for several reasons, primarily because of zero impact on city bonding capacity and because the city does not pay anything until we move inavoidinganothercityhall project. It is our duty as public servants to be responsible with tax dollars. We face three issues. We absolutely must build a new police station. We greatly need to repair roads and drainage. We have to be very careful with our bonding capacity. Bonding capacity is a limited resource. With any limited resource, we have to make the best possible decisions on how and when to use it. Citizens make these types of decisions every day at home, from buying school supplies to groceries to clothing. We must make the same kind of decisions with government resources. Public servants, more so than anyone else, must be especially dutiful with these decisions. At home or in business, these decisions are made with private dollars. In the public sector, these decisions are made with tax dollarsyour dollars. The new police station and the infrastructure repairs are not options. They must be done. The core issue then becomes how to pay for it with what we have on the table. We made a decision to use our bonding capacity for roads and drainage, and to use a lease-purchase agreement for the police station. We use no bonding capacity for the Meridian Law Enforcement Center. The financing was delayed due to an unforeseen hold-up with new market tax credits, which are an importantaspectoftheprojectsfunding. The original closing date for the tax credits was expected to be mid-December. The date has been pushed back due to issues with the many moving parts involved with tax credits. Because of the financial structure of the project, the delay costs the citizens nothing. Until we move in, all of the costs are the responsibility of the developer. There are many moving parts in this project. Any one of them can throw off the completion date. And one did. That was the very reason it was vital for us to negotiate that the City of Meridian would not spend any money until the Meridian Police Department moves into the Meridian Law Enforcement Center. Our deepest regret is that this delay prevents our police officers from getting a fully functional work environment. That day is coming. Perhaps not as soon as we would like, but it is coming. In 2012, we will have more paved roads, improved drainage, and a new police stationall without raising taxes. ###