Franklin City Manager Rosylen Oglesby advised Franklin City Council and the public on Oct. 28 about upcoming meetings related to the issuance of general obligation bonds/notes related to certain capital projects.

“And just as a reminder, those projects are the Armory, the radio updates and the (Franklin) courthouse renovation,” Oglesby said.

She noted in a staff report within the meeting packet that the proposed amount of the issuance of the general obligation bonds/notes is not to exceed $14.3 million.

“It could come in a little less than that, but the hiccup is that we’re just moving into the part for the courthouse project where they’re going to be doing the design of that renovation, and we don’t have numbers to firm that up to know exactly how much we need to borrow for that project,” she said.

Then she highlighted the scheduled meetings.

“Just to let you know, a presentation will happen first on Nov. 25, just to go over the different financing options, and then on Dec. 9, we will have a public hearing and then a consideration regarding issuance of those bonds,” she said.

During council discussion on the bonds, Ward 3 Councilman Gregory McLemore asked Oglesby what happens if the estimates exceed $14.3 million when they come in.

“We can’t exceed that amount, so are we going to borrow?” he said. “What exactly are we going to do?”

Oglesby said, “So right now, you already have borrowed half of this amount. You have borrowed about $7 million prior to this. This is to close that out.” 

She noted that the Armory project has a $2.5 million grant, and the radio project also has some money that has already been allocated for it.

“Based off of those two projects already having funds, that’s why this amount has been set to not exceed ($14.3 million),” she said. “This is why the Armory adjusted some of its requests in the items when they were developing things. Same thing is going to happen with the courthouse.”

Ward 4 Councilman Dr. Linwood Johnson said he spoke recently with one of the project consultants, Jamie Weist, and learned that an important variable in the equation is the price of materials. Johnson expressed hopes that the price of materials does not become greater than it already is.