Dear Linn County supervisors,
Let me commend you for your plan “to help the county’s waters, trails and wildlife habitats.” Forty million dollars, plus the cost of an election and the fees and interest associated with the bonds, is a lot of money. You could avoid those costs and gain other savings by establishing a “public bank.”
This is a bank owned by the county which would extend the credit necessary to fund this effort. The same tax dollars to repay interest-bearing bonds would repay the no-interest loan the county makes to itself.
This same bank would enable supervisors to save $5 million in this year alone by liquidating present bonded debt.
Such a public bank is relatively easy to set up, is subject to all banking regulations, and to state open records/meetings laws.
