California

SAN FRANCISCO — The Asian Art Museum is struggling to recover its financial footing while renegotiating its debt with creditors.

California, New York, and Illinois are making a play for more than $1.2 billion of high-speed rail funding that was awarded to two Midwestern states whose Republican governors-elect plan to reject the grants.

ALAMEDA, Calif. — Facing soaring yields in the tax-exempt bond market, California chopped more than $1 billion from its tax-exempt debt plans for next week, while upsizing today’s Build America Bond pricing by $750 million.

SAN FRANCISCO — Vallejo City Council members are weighing a contentious budget plan as the California city struggles to emerge from Chapter 9 bankruptcy.

ALAMEDA, Calif. — A lawsuit filed Tuesday by opponents of California’s plans to sell 11 state office buildings for one-time revenue resulted in a one-day delay to the state’s plans to sell $12 billion of notes and bonds this week.

SAN FRANCISCO — Moody’s Investors Service Wednesday downgraded San Francisco’s general obligation rating to Aa2 from Aa1, mainly due to the city’s weak short-term finances.

SAN FRANCISCO — A public employee union is suing to block a California public-private partnership that would design, build, operate, and maintain a six-lane link between San Francisco and the Golden Gate Bridge.

ALAMEDA, Calif. — California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger announced plans to call a special session of the Legislature to deal with the state’s budget deficit when its new members are sworn in Dec. 6.

SAN FRANCISCO — San Jose, Calif., has been forced to piece together bank backing for short-term notes that have helped pay for a more than $1 billion airport terminal.

ALAMEDA, Calif. — The war between California’s state and local governments over money is probably not over — and may be exacerbated by the grim budget picture painted this week by the Legislative Analyst’s Office.

ALAMEDA, Calif. — California’s Legislative Analyst’s Office just raised the price tag for solving the state’s persistent budget deficits.

SAN FRANCISCO — The San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency is inching closer to becoming a bond issuer and could offer its first deal as early as next year.

ALAMEDA, Calif. — California has firmed up its schedule for issuing almost $14 billion of debt before the Thanksgiving holiday.

ALAMEDA, Calif. — Rice Financial Products Co. has added two municipal bond market veterans to its California ranks and plans to open a Los Angeles office by the end of 2010, the firm announced Friday.

ALAMEDA, Calif. — Two rating agencies delivered a split verdict Monday on California’s upcoming sale of $10 billion of revenue anticipation notes.

SAN FRANCISCO — California issuers are unleashing a torrent of bonds this week — about $3.6 billion of debt.

Vallejo, Calif., City Council members will weigh a plan to emerge from bankruptcy later this month, but the city is still likely more than half a year away from exiting the largest municipal bankruptcy in more than a decade.

Late budgets will be a thing of the past, a key California lawmaker promised Wednesday, a day after the state's voters approved a measure that allows spending plans to pass the Legislature with a majority vote instead of two-thirds.

California local finance expert Michael Coleman reported that local school bond and tax measures had their worst showing Tuesday since he began tracking them in 2001.

City Council members of the scandal-plagued city of Bell voted unanimously Tuesday to hold a special election for their own recall.