The Garden City Commission on Tuesday unanimously approved a charter ordinance that would give the city significantly more freedom in addressing general improvements and issuing general obligation bonds for certain projects.
The new charter ordinance would repeal a 1975 charter ordinance that until this week dictated that the city may borrow money and issue bonds for government projects without local voter approval at the ballot box, as long as the amount of issued bonds does not exceed $350,000 a year. Under the new ordinance, city projects are instead broken into two categories — utilities and transportation repairs and projects, and general governing projects regarding public bridges, parks, land and other facilities — with different bond limits.
The city commission will now have no limit when issuing bonds related to utilities and transportation, and up to $2.5 million without voter approval when issuing bonds for general governing projects.
(Read more: News – The Garden City Telegram)