I recently attended a meeting about starting a public bank in Santa Fe. What I learned is that it is hard to understand how a public bank works because the structure is so simple. A public bank would be owned by the city and managed by professional bankers under the authority of a public board. In the beginning, the city will be the only depositor and will pay its bills from the deposits (taxes, fees and fines).
The city will provide the capital to start the bank, which is used as leverage for loans the bank will make to the city for capital improvement projects. The capital generated by our taxes, fees and fines will be an investment in our city and ourselves. That’s it in a nutshell: simple, safe and successful. I encourage the city to give serious consideration to this bold initiative whose time has come.
Fabio Macchioni – Santa Fe
