San Bernardino city files for bankruptcy in California court
The city council of San Bernardino, California, voted on Tuesday to file for bankruptcy, marking the third time in recent weeks a city in the most populous U.S. state has opted to seek protection from its creditors.
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Bloomberg details the vote, as the council voted 4 to 2, with one abstention, last night to authorize a filing under Chapter 9 of U.S. bankruptcy law. The city of 209,000, about 65 miles (105 kilometers) east of Los Angeles, is so broke it can’t make its Aug. 15 payroll, interim City Manager Andrea Travis-Miller said.
“If the employees are not paid on Aug. 15, on Aug. 16 there will be a mass exodus of city employees,” City Attorney James Penman told the council before the vote. “People are not going to work when they don’t get paid. Most of our employees will not show up to work. That would include police, fire, refuse, everybody. The city will virtually shut down.”
Chapter 9 bankruptcy would give San Bernardino an opportunity to restructure its battered finances, city staff said during a webcast of the city council meeting.
But the council’s vote may backfire on San Bernardino in the municipal debt market, and raises concerns about local officials in California potentially looking to bankruptcy protection as an easier solution than making tough decisions about spending cuts and raising revenue, said Dick Larkin, director of credit analysis at muni bond broker-dealer HJ Sims.
“Am I troubled? You bet,” said Larkin. “I couldn’t believe how quickly this vote happened.”
Larkin noted the concerns of San Bernardino’s staff about the risk of the city not meeting its payroll in coming months may be eclipsed by concerns it could be frozen out of the muni debt market if it goes through with a bankruptcy filing.
[…] Bankruptcy does not exactly spell the end of your life they say but it definitely makes for one of the most difficult times in one’s life. So, bankruptcy itself is quite a difficult situation— a filing blunder only compounds the stress. […]
I really don’t understand how a city can file for bankruptcy… I mean I do, but I don’t. It’s crazy…
The rich don’t pay the bills, the middle class does.
Nobody ever left downtown due to taxes. In fact, when you look at downtowns, it’s the middle class that fled from overpriced real estate and crime, leaving the urban poor and the rich in their penthouses.
Race to the bottom. Cities raise funds from the broad base of taxpayers. They try and get the rich to pay their fair share, the rich leave elsewhere, leaving destitution.