Bonds

The Los Angeles Unified School District, amid a $20-billion school construction program, is gearing up to put on the November ballot its fifth bond measure since 1997, officials said Friday. The district commissioned a telephone poll in which 604 likely voters were asked whether they would support a $3.2-billion measure "that may appear on the November ballot" to build schools and early education centers, remove hazards and otherwise renovate aging campuses.

California's capital city may be best known for politics, but it has another claim to fame: It's America's most flood-threatened city not named New Orleans. A recent state report predicts that the right combination of unlucky weather conditions could put some parts of the city under more than 20 feet of water, causing a $25-billion disaster that would cripple state government and ripple through the California economy.

For the second time in a decade, the cash-strapped Santa Ana Unified School District is asking voters to approve a construction bond to fund improvements to its school buildings. The $200-million bond, Measure G on Tuesday's ballot, would make the district eligible for up to $120 million in state matching funds to ease overcrowding.

There are times when almost nothing works for investors. This is one of those times, and it may soon severely test your patience. Stocks worldwide are suffering a relapse of their winter sell-off, with the Dow Jones industrial average Friday tumbling 220 points to its lowest level since mid-March. Home prices continue to slide, money market funds and bank savings certificates pay pathetically little, and lately the market value of high-quality bonds such as U.S.

A state panel has approved $30 million in housing bonds to improve the Figueroa Street area near Staples Center in downtown L.A. even though the initial application failed to show how the project would help provide affordable housing. The funding was approved Thursday night by the state's Local Assistance Loan and Grant Committee after the state allowed backers of the project to submit additional information.

Transportation planners today approved an agreement with Lehman Bros. and others to evaluate whether the bond debt for the 91 Freeway toll lanes in Orange County needs to be refinanced. The action was prompted after the bond insurer for the 91 Express Lanes debt was downgraded by several credit agencies. As a result, the interest rates on the bonds have increased and are now costing the Orange County Transportation Authority, which operates the toll lanes, $30,000 a week, an OCTA official said.

The Los Angeles Board of Education voted unanimously Thursday to place a $7-billion bond on the November ballot. It would be the largest local school bond ever -- by far -- and would allow officials to tax property owners for building and repairing schools for the next 10 years. The funding package enshrined ambitious new goals, but critics questioned the need for the bond -- as well as a price tag that more than doubled in the last two weeks.

The Orange County Performing ArtsCenter suffered an unprecedented $13-million deficit during the recently ended 2007-08 fiscal year, officials reported Thursday -- not because ticket sales or donations went sour, but because of a blowback effect from the subprime mortgage crisis that vastly increased interest and other costs of the bonds the Costa Mesa center had issued to build the Renee and Henry Segerstrom Concert Hall. The bulk of the deficit came from $8.

Bond rating service Standard & Poor's on Friday placed a "credit watch with negative implications" on California's credit rating ahead of the planned upcoming sale of $4 billion of short-term securities. In all, the state says it needs to borrow $7 billion -- $4 billion next week and $3 billion later -- to give it the cash to pay for routine expenses before tax revenues pick up early next year. S&P says it's not worried about California's raising enough money to pay back a loan.

Normally, losing 5% in a bond mutual fund in a quarter would be considered a terrible performance. But with double-digit stock market losses so widespread in the three months ended Sept. 30, the bond market's red ink seemed much easier to bear. That story line has continued in spades in the fourth quarter, just 12 days old. Many bond funds again are in the red, but far less so than stocks, which have been brutalized by relentless selling.