City of Palm Coast Receives ‘A’ Bond Rating
Fitch Bond Rating Agency gives Palm Coast’s Utility System Bonds an ‘A’ Rating.
Palm Coast, Florida – March 26, 2009 – Considering all of the negative press about the local economy, the City of Palm Coast is proud to share some very good news for a change. Fitch Bond Rating Agency has maintained Palm Coast’s utility system’s series 2003 and 2007 revenue bonds at an ‘A’ rating, reflecting the utility’s adequate debt service coverage levels, a competitive rate structure relative to area providers, sufficient system capacity and manageable capital needs. The Agency also gave Palm Coast a Stable Rating Outlook, reflecting management’s awareness of the current economic situation and its ability to react to any situation that may arise.
“I am pleased to see that the economic community understands the underlying fiscal stability and responsibility of Palm Coast and its utility system,” says Jon Netts, Mayor of the City of Palm Coast. “This rating is a very positive commentary about our City and how it is managed.”
City Manager Jim Landon agrees. “This rating indicates we’re very stable,” he notes. “Maintaining our excellent rating is quite an achievement in today’s economy, something very important for our citizens to consider with pride.”
Maintaining an ‘A’ bond rating indicates that the City’s utility situation continues to be in fine shape and that the system is operating effectively and efficiently. With the commercial and residential downturn over the past months, the Utility’s ‘A’ Bond Rating affirms Palm Coast’s high credit quality.
The City owns and operates a combined water and wastewater utility system serving approximately 36,300 water and 34,100 wastewater connections. Three water plants and one wastewater plant service the community.
Cities Bond rating
The "A" Rating doesn’t mean squat. Fitch gave ratings of "AAA" to AIG, BoA and Lehman Brothers. Usually the rating Agencies get compensation from those whose Bonds they rate. I lost a ton of money based on Fitch ratings and based on being only "A" Rated, I would run for the hills before spending even a single dollar on Palm Coast Bonds. Did Fitch visit the City, did hey see the the waste and the number of city vehicles siting behind City Walk on weekends?
Charging too much= good rating
Of course they got a good rating, they have so much cash on hand that they borrowed it for other work in town. It does not reflect on the city as a whole budgetwise, but just the utility funds, generated by the fees charged. Since they don’t need to float any bonds, who cares what the rating is.
anyone own these bonds?
If so I was wondering if you knew the CUSIP number for these bonds…
How Water/Waster System started
Orlando Sentinel
‘Tis a Privilege to Live in Central Florida
Preservers Applaud Palm Coast
By Peggy Poor
Sentinel Staff
Dramatically changing the damaged image of usually damned developers, ITT Levitt Corp., now buildling Palm Coast, the country’s largest housing project in Flagler County, is winning kudos instead of kicks from conservationists.
More than that, with long-range environmental planning and careful study by staff
ecologists, the mammoth venture may not only set an example for future would be despoilers but come up with some urgently sought answers to pollution problems.
For Example, ITT Levitt scientists are investigating why St. Johns and Flagler County shellfish harvests had to be prohibited because of contaminated waters. The hope s to reverse conditions that required the ban, if possible.
Preliminary findings indicate sewage dumped principal culprit, according to Dr. Stanley Dea, the firm’s chief ecologist.
NEW CONCEPT
Therefore, in order not to aggravate th situation, ITT Levitt is making a detailed engineering analysis of sewage disposal possibilities to come up with designs new for Florida, and cheaper, Dr. Dea said.
Because Florida’s flat terrain and high ground water level have made gravity systems costly, developers have tended to use septic tanks. But septic systems have become a serious factor in the pollution picture.
America’s biggest conglomerate, therefore, is exploring feasibility of pressure and vacuum systems which may be tried for the first time in the Florida venture.
Meanwhile, in the first section now under construction, 20,000 acres of the total of 100,000, sewage will get secondary treatment, prior to storage in a polising lagoon, providing tertiary treatment. Effluent thus purified but still nutrient rich will be used to irrigate an 18 Hole golf course.
Sewage Studies
This recycling, by an adaptation of nature’s own system, is a relatively new concept in sewage disposal developed at Pennsylvania State University and now in use in several California communities and in one near Tallahassee.
Much of the polution and "mrder’ of streams, and lakes, such as Apopka, is the result of eutrophication or over-enrichment by nutrients, which are not removed by treatment plants.
As most plants discharge into some body of water, pollution results. If , however, the treated effluent is sprayed on vegetation, as was demonstrated at Penn State and is planned for Palm Coast, it irrigates and fertilizes crops and even raises the ground water table. The vegetation absorbs the nutrients that would eventually destroy streams, lakes, and estuaries.
Using Willows
Palm Coast ecologists plan to plant Florida vegetation and particularly high absorption qualities, such as willows.
Engineers have devised a mechanical apparatus which can fit in a residential size and style bulding, so the neighborhood view will not be spoiled by an unsightly treatment plant. A chemical has been developed that eradicates the odor, according to Dick Beidl, Palm Coast public affairs officer.
The University of Florida’s famed coastal engineering department, whose $1 million facilities are now considered unexcelled in the United States, is advising how best to lay out the system of canals for waterfront property so that tidal action will keep them flushed clean, Beidl said.
A brief flurry of local fears that the big dredge churning inland from the Intracoastal Waterway channel to scoop out a yacht basin would increase turbidity in the estuaries has been set at rest.
Dike Employed
Although the dredge is operating in a man made cut not subject to provisions of the Randall Act, ITT Levitt will still ‘plug’ the opening into the Intracoastal with a dike until its earth stirring digging is completed and settled.
"It’s the cleanest operation I’ve seen. No problems", said Larry Shanks, of the Florida Game and Fresh Water Fish Commission at Vero Beach, who inspected the site last week.
The Operation is pumping the material removed by a 1 1/4 mile pipe line that crosses the waterway and runs under highway A1A.
With a 1100 housepower booster pump the excavated sand is being hoisted up and down over this uneven course to fill a depression just behind the sand dunes which rim the ocean shore.
The hole will be filled to a height of about 20 feet above sea-level about even with the dunes; and this will be the site of a motel, probably to be operated by Sheraton, another ITT subsidiary.
Dunes Retained
Shands had nothng but praise also for this beachfront plan which contemplates leaving the natural dunes as a stabliizer against erosion.
Palm Coast experts are also studying the whys and wherefores of erosion and exploring preventative treatment, according to Dea.
Palm Coast has also handed its brain trust the choking problem of weed eradication, he said.
At the display site, where six model homes and four story office building with viewing tower are under construction, bulldozers wove an intricate path around trees marked for salvation instead of knocking everything down.
This more costly method has won approval of forestry officials, and Palm Coast expects it to pay off in long-run appeal of attractive landscaping to prospective purchasers.
Space Advantage
In the master land use plan, thousands of acres will be presserved in the natural state, Dea said.
Additionally, there will be parks and artificial ribbon lakes, Studies are being made to ascertain optimum factors for maintaining maximum sport fish populations in these.
Palm Coast’s planning advantage, Beidl said, lies in having control of the entire 100,000 acres. To get this vast land area in focus, it can be compared with the area of all five boroghs of Greater New York City, for example, which cover only about half that territory, or with the city of Detroit which spreads over about 88,000 acres.
Projection is for an ultimate population here of only about 750,000 as compared with New York’s 11.5 million and Detroit’s four million.
An area comparison closer to home is with the Disney’s 27,000 acres.
Strict Zoning
The assure adherence to this careful planning. Dr. Dea said is a model zoning and building code is being formulates, which will not merely meet, but ‘exceed’ in stringency all federal state, and local regulations, including those necessary to control air, water, solid waste, radiation, noise, and vibration pollution.
This will cover not just major regulations affecting industries which might be attracted to the area, but also folksy questions such as when and even whether residences may have trash incinerators in their back yards.
Even one possible future doubt raised apparently will be resolved in favor of conservation, according to Harold ‘Burrows, and engineer on the project.
Line Questioned
Question arose at a recent country commisiioners meeting about a bulkhead line
for Longs Creek, which branching off the Matanzas River, meanders through the tract a few miles north of the first ‘Five Year Plan’ development now under construction.
some 3,000 to 9,000 on the creek, are submerged public lands under control of the Trustees of the Internal Improvement Fund.
Burrows conceeded that prior to recent legislative action, this would have beenn ‘prime development property’.But under present law ‘we will sit down with the Department of Natural Resources and do what they tell us we can."
AD 2531 ( reprint from the Orlando Sentinel)
( What they are referencing to Longs Landing is Brigadeer General Jose Hernandezs’ Plantations wharf area.)
We hope this is informative on how it started for the new arrivals to Palm Coast.
George Edward Chuddy
https://palmcoasthistoricresources.tripod.com
chuddy@bestnetpc.com