In Milwaukee, the stadium board "has taken the first
step toward legally exceeding" the $250M construction cap on
Miller Park by "creating a separate non-profit corporation"
to lease $45M in equipment for the stadium, according to
Kenneth Lamke of the MILWAUKEE JOURNAL SENTINEL. The WI
Dept. of Financial Institutions "confirmed" Thursday that
the stadium board on June 30 incorporated the non-profit
Baseball Park Leasing Corp. Stadium board Exec Director
Mike Duckett said that a "detailed plan" for leasing the
equipment will be presented to the board's Finance Committee
July 23, while the board's approval is "expected" in August.
Duckett said that the leasing corporation will sell
certificates of participation (COPs) to investors. COPs,
"are similar to bonds," but are sometimes issued "as a way
to get around bonding limits" (JOURNAL SENTINEL, 7/18).
CONTRACTOR CONUNDRUM: The stadium board on Thursday
also "kept up the pressure on their consultants and
contractors to distribute" 25% of their work on Miller Park
to minority-owned firms and 5% to women-owned firms. The
board "informally reviewed" the record of ten advisers,
consultants and contractors, and found "most of them
lacking, so far, in minority and female subcontracting"
(Kenneth Lamke, MILWAUKEE JOURNAL SENTINEL, 7/18).
