The City Council has scheduled a special Finance Committee meeting for next Wednesday to discuss the proposed refinancing of the city's MAC debt.

The MAC makes up the largest portion of the city's debt at a cool $52.295 million. At last night's Public Safety and Law committees budget meeting, the refinancing of the MAC came up, with Acting City Comptroller Joseph Mazzariello saying more details could be available as early as next week.

A small correction from the article, which states the estimated $600,000 to $1 million in savings will go towards the the 2010 budget. The savings will actually take place over the life of the loan, with a large portion of the savings happening in the first three years or so, according to city spokesman Jeff Pirro.

The Special Finance Committee meeting has been scheduled for Wednesday, Nov. 3 at 6 p.m. in the Second Floor Conference Room at City Hall. The regular City Council meeting will take place the next night at 7 p.m. at Christ Church United Methodist.

UPDATED

On Monday, the city of Rensselaer filed a lawsuit against the city of Troy seeking a temporary restraining order related to their water bill from the city.

While we haven't yet seen the court documents, sources say that Rensselaer has not paid their water bill since settling their outstanding debt last fall.

Other sources have also claimed that the lawsuit centers somewhat around discrepancies between rates that were charged to Rensselaer and the Town of East Greenbush, since the two municipalities share a water line.

Last August, Troy agreed to settle Rensselaer's outstanding water debt for a period between 1998 and 2006 for a total payment of $1.7 million by October, which was paid on time.

Check back soon as further information on the matter becomes available.

UPDATE:
After reading over the court documents, it seems that Rensselaer filed for the TRO to prevent Troy from shutting off the municipality's water as officials have threatened to do in the past.

Rensselear Mayor Dan Dwyer also filed an Article 78 motion in state Supreme Court seeking a judgment that the city had paid it's most recent water bill to Troy in full based on a rate of $1.569 per thousand gallons, which Troy gave to them and the Town of East Greenbush in March of 2008.

Separate letters to municipalities were later sent from Troy in May stating that their water rates would now be $3.432 per thousand gallons because a previously renegotiated contract was never signed off on or approved by Dwyer.

Rensselaer's attorney, Paul Goldman, says that Troy cannot charge the municipalities different rates because they are "similarly situated water users" and because they share both a water district and water line.

Troy city spokesman Jeff Buell said that there were different rates because Troy has a contract with East Greenbush but not with Rensselaer.

The matter is scheduled to be further discussed in Supreme Court on Friday.

Look for an article in The Record and on the Web site Thursday for further details.