Bond issue update: The money’s in the bank!

By Randy Bell

     Contractors are being told to get busy on the projects that are being financed by Clinton’s $12.5 million lighting improvements bond issue.  Word was received October 1 that the money had been deposited in the City’s bank account.

     “The order has been given to the company that’s helping us coordinate everything,” says City Clerk Jimmy Baldree.

     The bond issue comes with a 3.69 per cent interest rate, which Baldree calls “pretty good for the market that we’re in right now.”

     The biggest project is the installation of new lights on the athletic fields at Traceway Park.  The fields will be illuminated with LED lights on metal poles at a cost of at least $7 million.  It’s being touted as the largest sports lighting project in Mississippi history.

     The City will spend $2 million to purchase Clinton’s street lights, which are now being rented from Entergy at a cost of $400,000 annually.

     And $1 million in bond issue money will go toward extending the Clinton Parkway’s decorative lamp posts down Pinehaven Drive to Arrow Drive.  Seventy-seven new lights will be installed.

     Mayor Phil Fisher is eager to see the work get underway.

     “With us now having the money in the bank, there’s no reason for anybody to hesitate.”

     And, while the weather will dictate the pace of construction, Fisher says, “If we have a winter like we did [last year], we’ll be able to build the whole time.”

     The goal is to have the Traceway lights ready for next year’s sports seasons.

     The financial arrangement being used allows the City to borrow the money without having to raise taxes.  By the time the first payment on the bond issue is due in November 2025, an old bond issue will have been paid off, and those debt payments will be repurposed to cover the new bond issue, keeping the millage rate the same.