Far West

SAN FRANCISCO - Standard & Poor's downgraded the San Jose Redevelopment Agency's non-housing tax-allocation bonds to BBB from BBB-plus due to financial and legal stress.

LOS ANGELES - A judge rejected the Las Vegas Monorail Co.'s third amended plan to exit bankruptcy on Friday even though 97% of the bondholders voted in favor of it.

WASHINGTON - State and local governments have temporarily dodged a bullet, with the bipartisan supercommittee's failure to come up with $1.2 billion in spending cuts over the next 10 years, tax experts and lobbyists said Monday.

Some market participants are concerned that the current version of the Volcker Rule would hurt the municipal bond market.

SAN FRANCISCO - Washington Treasurer James McIntire is pitching a rescue plan to prevent a $42 million default, a move he says would protect other state credits from contagion effects.

SAN FRANCISCO - Robert W. Baird & Co. said it has added 23-year municipal banking veteran David Ulbricht as a managing director in its public finance division in Portland, Ore., as the investment bank continues to expand its business in the West.

LOS ANGELES - Anaheim joined the ranks of several Southern California cities with turnover in top management positions following the forced resignation last week of city manager Tom Wood.

LOS ANGELES - Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa has floated a plan to issue $750 million of bonds backed by the city's share of money from a countywide transportation sales tax to repair a quarter of the city's streets in two years.

SAN FRANCISCO - Holders of more than $22 billion of bonds tied to California redevelopment agencies may be impaired if the RDAs are stamped out, according to a second lawsuit filed in a legal battle over this year's legislation targeting the agencies.

NSB Public Finance, a Nevada public financial advisory firm, officially changed its name to Zions Bank Public Finance on Tuesday.