OAK RIDGE - Opponents of city funding to help with site work for a planned shopping center have raised last-minute concerns about the proposed financing arrangements.
Members of Citizens Oak Ridge say the city is planning to borrow debt service funds, including money set aside for the high school renovation project, and funnel them into the Crestpointe shopping center project.
Money flowing from a half-cent sales tax increase approved by voters in 2004 for Oak Ridge High School renovations is earmarked strictly for the school, Citizens Oak Ridge members Bill Schramm and attorney Pat Fain contend.
City officials say those eleventh-hour issues raised on the eve of Tuesday's referendum vote on a city bond issue are a stretch.
"These guys are really grasping at straws,'' Deputy City Manager Steve Jenkins said.
"I am positive you can loan this (debt reserve) money to yourself and pay it back, and that's what we're talking about here,'' he said.
"Even assuming they're right, it just changes the mode of financing,'' City Attorney Ken Krushenski said. "It's not a deal-killer.''
City bond counsel Mark Mamantov said the city's sales tax increase for schools "has been supplanted'' by a county sales tax increase approved in a later referendum.
"You are allowed to do interfund borrowing from the debt service fund,'' Mamantov added. "It's a fairly common practice.''
If the referendum is approved, the city plans to transfer $10.5 million to the Oak Ridge Industrial Development Board for use in preparing the 60-acre Pine Ridge site off Illinois Avenue for an upscale shopping center dubbed Crestpointe of Oak Ridge.
The city financial package includes a bond issue of up to $6 million, about $1 million from its economic development fund, and borrowing from its debt reserve fund.
City officials have considered relying more on the debt service fund and limiting the bond issue to $2.5 million.
Final financing arrangements remain a work in progress and await voters' decisions Tuesday, city officials said.
"I'm confident that if the citizens decide (in favor of the bond issue), the city will be able to structure this to provide the funds to meet the commitments,'' Mamantov said last week.
Bob Fowler, News Sentinel Anderson County editor, may be reached at 865-481-3625.
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