The city of Houston buys six blocks of land at an inflated price, using property tax money and water/sewer funds to pay off political insiders.
Dallas will have snow… in March.
Coincidence? Yes. Hell is only supposed to freeze over when something unusual happens.
Oh, three other minor notes — first, don’t look for the article about this fine example of public cronyism planning on the front of the Chron’s website. The link’s already disappeared.
Second, look at the raw URL for the story linked above: www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/headline/sports/5596697.html
Gee, that’s an interesting editorial choice, isn’t it?
And third, just FYI, this Bloomberg news article appeared on the Chron’s website today: Houston Borrowing Costs Skyrocket.
Banks and brokers built the market for auction-rate bonds by marketing the debt to investors as safe, cash-like securities and to municipal borrowers as a low-cost source of financing. Until mid-February, banks supported prices by bidding for bonds that went unsold, preventing auctions they ran from failing.
“There’s always a shiny new deal, and the banks make money every time they participate,” said Houston City Councilwoman Anne Clutterbuck, head of the council’s budget and fiscal affairs committee. The city’s borrowing costs rose by $3 million a month in February when rates on some of its debt soared to 7.8 percent from 4.25 percent. “It’s going to put pressure on us as we prepare our budget.”
You can also find the same article here, on Bloomberg’s site.
Hinky financing and shady deals. Don’t worry, it’s just business as usual downtown.
