Law and legal issues

Columbus-based law firm Peck, Shaffer & Williams LLP has hired a new attorney for its Columbus office.

LOS ANGELES - Downey Regional Medical Center, a not-for-profit hospital located in greater Los Angeles, will emerge from bankruptcy in mid-November, allowing it to close on a planned bond refunding if a bankruptcy judge approves its exit plan.

LOS ANGELES - Arne Croce, the recently appointed interim chief administrative officer of the beleaguered city of Bell, a Los Angeles-area working class community of 50,000 residents, has his work cut out for him.

HARRISBURG, Pa. - The City Council's latest rejection of a state-sanctioned financial workout has left Harrisburg scrambling to meet $3.3 million in general obligation bond payments due in two weeks and two more payrolls this month.

BRADENTON, Fla. - A federal bankruptcy judge in Tampa on Monday issued a final ruling in a developer's Chapter 11 filing that could have a chilling effect on owners of Florida community development district bonds, observers said.

CHICAGO - Chicago-based law firm Chapman and Cutler LLP has hired public finance attorney Robert Drillings to staff the New York office and expand the firm's municipal practice there as well as in New England and the mid-Atlantic region.

LOS ANGELES - Vernon, a corruption-plagued city in greater Los Angeles, received a second chance to clean up its act when the California Legislature rejected measures that would have disincorporated the city.

BRADENTON, Fla. - Jefferson County, Ala., late Friday released its 2009 audit, with authors reiterating as they did earlier this year that the County Commission's ability to continue as a going concern is in substantial doubt without restructuring the local government's troubled debt.

WASHINGTON - With a nod to recent guidance from the tax-exempt community's accounting rulemaker, a bond attorneys' group has pulled contentious public pension-disclosure language from its most recent proposal, according to a draft of the group's pension-disclosure guidance circulated earlier this month.

Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Corbett has held out both a carrot and a stick to Harrisburg.

A law that allows Arizona school districts to spend bond proceeds on projects not on the original program approved by voters was challenged as unconstitutional last week in oral arguments in a Maricopa County Superior Court.

Central Falls' state-appointed receiver has stepped into the bankrupt Rhode Island city's school district contract talks with teachers.

Despite predictions of increased municipal bond defaults, it is unlikely that filings under Chapter 9 of the United States Bankruptcy Code, which provides for the adjustment of a municipality's debts, will increase significantly.

BRADENTON, Fla. — A federal bankruptcy judge has allowed Lambuth University to lease its grounds to Tennessee's Board of Regents so that utilities remain on and the University of Memphis can begin offering classes there this fall.

SAN FRANCISCO — California Controller John Chiang has ordered an investigation of the troubled city of Hercules after uncovering what he calls major discrepancies in its financial reports.

Chester, which has been in Pennsylvania's Act 47 program for distressed communities, has received an A rating from Standard & Poor's.

When Rhode Island sold $169 million of general obligation bonds on Wednesday after a two-day retail period, two words echoed amid huge jumps in yield: Central Falls.

Nearly a year after a municipal corruption scandal blew up in the Los Angeles County city of Bell, resulting in the forced resignation of top officials, new leaders say the city is beginning to take the initial steps toward fiscal health.

BRADENTON, Fla. — Emmet & Co. and First Manhattan Co. have filed suit against Catholic Health East and Merrill Lynch claiming that $132.26 million of escrowed bonds issued by conduit entities in three states were improperly called.

DALLAS — While other Arizona cities compete for a $100 million private prison on behalf of the Arizona Department of Corrections, Goodyear has threatened to sue the state if it decides to build another lockup in its backyard.