The DeKalb City Council met Thursday night for a special meeting to address the restructuring of city debt and refinancing of city bonds.

The purpose of the restructuring is to provide some relief in fiscal year 2011, to level off debt service from $1.4 million to $1.2 million annually and to generate new money proceeds through Build America Bonds.

The Council has yet to determine what area in the community the new money will finance.

“In talking to [bond counsel], what he said was you can change the intent of the ordinance at any time as long as they’re for public use and they’re eligible for tax exempt bond,” said Rudy Espiritu, assistant DeKalb City Manager. “You can constitute what to use these bonds for at any time.”

Bond counsel urged the City Council to take advantage of record low interest rates and the Build America Bonds.

“You want to take advantage of the Build America Bonds, which may not exist if you waited to do this restructuring after the first of the year,” said DeKalb City Manager Mark Biernacki.

Sixth Ward Alderman Dave Baker said that it might be best to wait until the council actually agrees on what to spend the extra money on before asking for new bonds. The council already came to a consensus previously, however, to proceed with creating the new money proceeds.

Second Ward Alderman Tom Teresinski agreed with the bond counsel and stated his reasons for supporting the restructuring and refinancing of these bonds.

“We’re doing this, as I understand it, with no tax increase which I support, with near-record low interest rates, which I support,” he said. “We’re doing this using Build America Bonds, which is yielding that lower rate, which are going to expire as of 12/31. We’re building it with the intent to have some flexible use.”.

There were some who disagreed with the bond counsel and thought that the DeKalb City Council should exercise some more caution.

“Even though I have been opposed to extending our debt out from the beginning, I don’t want anybody to think that I didn’t look at this closely and ask questions and consider the alternatives,” said Third Ward Alderwoman Pam Verbic.

The council concluded the meeting by passing the ordinance to move ahead in restructuring city debt and refinancing city bonds.