Far West

Voters on March 5 will select three new trustees for a seven-person Los Angeles Community College District board in a district that has been riddled with controversy.

Fitch Ratings downgraded the underlying ratings on $49 million of Placerville, Calif.'s Marshall Medical Center revenue bonds to junk because of weak finances.

The National Governors Association sent two similar letters to President Obama and congressional leaders urging them to put their partisan bickering aside and come together to avoid the automatic, across-the-board budget cuts set to begin Friday.

San Diego-based Common Bond Capital Partners has acquired its first distressed land-secured municipal bond project in Florida.

The Municipal Securities Rulemaking Board will offer a live webcast of its market outreach event with the Municipal Advisory Council of Texas on March 7 in Dallas. This is the first time the board has webcasted an outreach event.

Stockton, Calif.'s unhappy bond market creditors will get a trial starting March 25 to challenge the city's eligibility for Chapter 9 bankruptcy protection.

Stockton, Calif., in the midst of Chapter 9 bankruptcy proceedings, announced Tuesday that it had reached an agreement with Ambac.

The Securities and Exchange Commission will hold a public roundtable on Tuesday, May 14, to discuss the SEC's December staff Report to Congress on Assigned Credit Ratings, which reviews possible conflicts of interest that arise under the so-called "issuer pay model" and recommends regulatory and statutory changes.

California lawmaker Bob Wiekowski introduced legislation for Treasurer Bill Lockyer to curb private contractors running conduit issuers in the state, including California Statewide Communities Development Authority.

Peabody Energy Corp., which led efforts to develop the mostly bond-financed, joint power agency-owned Prairie State Energy Campus, has received a subpoena from the Securities and Exchange Commission on the coal-fired plant's development.