By Gary Lloyd
The Trussville City Council on Tuesday authorized Mayor Gene Melton to establish an $18 million line of credit for construction of Hewitt-Trussville Stadium, the bridge over the Cahaba River and the completion of Husky Parkway.
“We were looking at different options as to how we fund that prior to us doing our refinancing,” Melton said. “Instead of taking the chance that we have to have money today, and having to pull the trigger on our refinancing that same day … there’s no telling what the interest rate would be on that. To give us time, that line of credit will allow us to proceed with our RFP and give the group that we select to do our refinancing to pick the proper time to pull the trigger to get the best interest rate for the refinancing and the new note. That gives us a year.”
A rendering of Hewitt-Trussville Stadium
photo courtesy of Trussville City Schools
Melton said this option gives the city some “breathing room.” The line of credit is in place to get the projects started, he said. Once the bond issue is done, then there are provisions to pay it back and do away with the line of credit, Melton said.
The city council also authorized Melton to establish a $600,000 bond for work on the Cahaba River.
Melton said in order to receive a permit from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to build a box culvert in a stream near the future stadium, the city has to find another stream to improve to “mitigate.” Melton said authorizing a bond is a better option than buying credits, which could have cost in excess of $1 million.
“If we’re going to spend that kind of money, I’d rather spend it on our river in our property because from then on we’ll be taking care of it in accordance to the covenants that we’ll pass,” Melton said.
Contact Gary Lloyd at news@trussvilletribune.com and follow him on Twitter @GaryALloyd.
