Southeast

BRADENTON, Fla. - Jefferson County, Ala., commissioners may decide Friday whether to file for bankruptcy if creditors holding $3.14 billion of troubled sewer debt do not agree to accept the county's final offer to restructure the debt.

Mississippi Lieut. Gov. Phil Bryant last week bested four candidates vying for the Republican nomination for governor this fall.

Officials of the Parishwide School District of Orleans Parish and the state-operated New Orleans Recovery School District said Monday they would revise current plans to ensure that New Orleans’ hurricane-damaged schools will be rebuilt or replaced with the $2 billion in federal aid already received for the effort.

Florida plans to advance $3 billion of transportation projects, according to Transportation Secretary Ananth Prasad.

Miami-Dade Mayor Carlos Gimenez, who was elected recently following the ouster of the previous mayor in a recall vote, has named a number of senior managers, including a former First Southwest Co. executive.

BRADENTON, Fla. - Credit pressures are on the rise for some of Florida's 67 school districts as effects of the recession linger, according to a report by Fitch Ratings.

BRADENTON, Fla. - The federal judge presiding over a Securities and Exchange Commission civil suit permanently enjoined former Jefferson County, Ala., commission president Larry Langford from violating securities laws in the future.

BRADENTON, Fla. - The 11th Circuit Court of Appeals in Atlanta Friday affirmed the conviction of Larry Langford, one-time president of the Jefferson County Commission and former mayor of Birmingham.

BRADENTON, Fla. - Jefferson County, Ala., commissioners last week sent a new settlement offer to creditors holding $3.14 billion of defaulted variable- and auction-rate sewer warrants.

Ron Davis only recently found out about Central Falls' predicament."Somebody sent me an e-mail two days ago," Davis, the mayor of Prichard, Ala., said Thursday in a telephone interview.But his city of 23,000 residents along Alabama's Gulf Coast and the Rhode Island city in bankruptcy court, both with similar population sizes, have experienced major struggles with pension-debt gridlock.