Southeast

BRADENTON, Fla. — The bond financing for Nashville’s proposed new convention center has been delayed pending action on a bill by the Legislature that, if passed, would grant an exception to Tennessee’s usury law regulating interest rates on municipal debt.

BRADENTON, Fla. — The Georgia Department of Transportation on Friday released its solicitation for qualified firms to do the state’s first public-private partnership, a plan called the West by Northwest Project that is designed to bring needed traffic-congestion relief to metropolitan Atlanta.

BRADENTON, Fla. — A Jefferson County, Ala., circuit court judge Thursday ordered U.S. Bank to release $27.4 million so the county could make an arbitrage rebate payment on the 2004 fixed-rate school warrants that the county defaulted on earlier this month.

BRADENTON, Fla. — A myriad of options, including the use of pension bonds, are being considered in Atlanta, where spending on retirement benefits has soared to 20% of the city’s $523 million annual operating budget and the unfunded liability is now $1.5 billion.

Two of Virginia’s triple-A counties, Arlington and Fairfax, have released manager-proposed fiscal 2011 budgets that address revenue shortfalls and seek to maintain top-tier credit ratings.

Gov. Bobby Jindal said in an address to the Monroe Chamber of Commerce last week that Louisiana’s economy would continue to outpace the region and the nation thanks to strong fiscal discipline.

New Orleans Mayor-elect Mitch Landrieu said he would seek an extension of the Gulf Opportunity Zone bond program when he meets with Obama administration officials and congressional leaders this week in Washington.

In a special report Monday, Fitch Ratings said negative rating actions against Florida credits last year outpaced positive actions by three-to-one, but the agency expects ratings to stabilize in 2010.

Palm Beach County commissioners Tuesday selected Ruden McClosky Smith Schuster & Russell PA to be bond counsel and to perform related legal services related to the development of a planned convention center hotel.

A long-planned project to expand the Birmingham-Jefferson Convention Complex with a domed stadium may be slowed once again because of the recession.