Voting Meeting: $3.25 Million in GO Bonds Sold, Trouble With Invisible Fences

What a difference three years makes.

When Western Springs issued the first of two tranches of a $6.5 million bond agreement in 2008, the $3.25 million went at an interest rate of about 3.4 percent. When bidding for the second tranche ended at 11:30 a.m. on Monday, the Village had landed a rate of 2.366 percent—a 30 percent decrease from tranche to tranche.

“It’s a wonderful rate,” Village financial consultant and Speer Financial president Kevin McCanna told the Board on Monday evening. “In three years, a lot has happened… You have the impact of Europe and stuff on the bond market.”

The eventual winner of the open auction was BOSC Inc., a holding of the BOK Financial Corporation based out of Menomonee Falls, Wisconsin. The difference in true interest rate between BOSC and the runner-up was only .001878 percent. (McCanna and Speer Financial say the reduced interest cost acquired through the open-auction process saved the Village over $5800.)

McCanna also informed the Board that Moody’s has evaluated the Village’s bond credit rating at Aa2, just two notches below the perfect Aaa (which is typically reserved for home-ruled municipalities much larger than Western Springs.) McCanna called the rating excellent, noting that the average town draws between an A1 and A3.

“Given the emphasis in the market today on high rating, as long as you’re in the middle to upper Aa range or Aaa, there’s not a whole lot of trading difference these days, especially as rates are so compressed.” McCanna said. “There is a penalty for just being in Illinois. Not as big a penalty as being Illinois—” which recently trumpeted managing to get a 3.1 percent rate—“but you do pay a little extra.”

In other Village monetary news, Trustee James Horvath reported that the Village was in a strong place financially, despite the state of Illinois’ continued withholding of three months worth of income tax payouts. Horvath reported that 2011 actual expenditures in general were well below budget, especially in the Village general fund.

“It’s nice to get news that we’re living within our means, and not on the other end of the spectrum as I’m sorry to see many other villages are,” said Village President Bill Rodeghier. “It’s good to see that we were capable of doing that and still providing the services to our residents that they have come to expect and deserve.”

The only other ordinances passed under a very small omnibus bill were one to dispose of two surplus Village property vehicles and a second to approve the newly-amended Village zoning map.

Hope that’s an invisible fence

The Board’s Citizen Comments portion of the meeting saw a visitor in resident Steve Greska, who remarked that, as a jogger, he was uneasy seeing untethered dogs in other residents’ front yards, not knowing whether or not the questionably-friendly canines were penned by an invisible fence.

Greska said the incident that had brought him to speak out was being rushed suddenly by a pair of Rottweilers. “These dogs were just going nuts,” he said. “It’s very startling when they come at you like that.

“Maybe if you’re going to have a more aggressive dog in the yard… it should be on a leash,” Greska added. “Because if this is happening, that people have this phenomenon of dogs in their front yard, then the Village should have an opinion on that.”

Rodeghier spoke for the Board in sympathizing with Greska. “You shouldn’t have to come to a board meeting and complain about something like this occurring,” the Village President said. “That’s not right.”

Chief Pam Church of the offered to contact the owners of the dogs that had startled Greska, and the Board remanded further discussion of the issue at large to the General Government committee.