Stone & Youngberg Leads Successful National Investor Tour of San Diego County

Business Wire, Dec 5, 2002

Business Editors

SAN FRANCISCO--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Dec. 5, 2002

Investors from across the country in some of San Diego County's most important infrastructure and municipal projects recently received a first-hand look at how their money is being spent. Stone & Youngberg, California's leading local government debt underwriter, hosted a tour that took investors to projects in Chula Vista, San Diego, Poway, and Carlsbad that will be financed by bonds underwritten by Stone & Youngberg.

"Our goal with the tour was to acquaint our investor clients with our public agency clients and the real estate developers with whom we work," explains Bill Huck, managing director. "Seeing the land that is securing the investment in a land-secured bond just makes good sense. Our investors also saw many completed neighborhoods that were just raw land when they bought the related bonds several years ago."

"Stone & Youngberg's investor tours are very important to us because they give us an opportunity to meet the community leaders and developers and visit the project," says Ron Mintz, director of Research at The Vanguard Group, a Philadelphia-based mutual fund. "At the end of the day, we have a better understanding of how our money is being spent."

Stone & Youngberg and investors visited the following cities:

-- Chula Vista - At the U.S. Olympic Training Center, senior

staff from the City presented their growth management and

planning policies. The City's finance team and developer

representatives also presented four new community facilities

districts (CFDs) in the neighborhoods of Eastlake's Woods and

Vistas, Brookfield/Shea's Otay Ranch Village Eleven and

McMillin's and Otay Ranch Company's projects in Otay Ranch

Village Six.

The City of Chula Vista will issue about $100 million in

tax-exempt bonds over the next year to finance various

infrastructure projects in these districts such as roads and

traffic signals. Most of the $70 million cost of the recently

opened Olympic Parkway was financed through similar bond sales

over the last three years.

"In recent years population growth in our City has exploded.

We have established a Growth Management Ordinance and a

Threshold Standards Policy so that we can manage our growth

and continue to provide a high level of service to our

community," says Bob Leiter, director of Planning and Building

for the City of Chula Vista. "The collaboration between the

public works department, finance department, and our outside

consultants, like Stone & Youngberg, has helped us facilitate

development efficiently while still providing for the City's

long-term infrastructure needs."

-- San Diego - Investors visited San Diego's former Naval

Training Center, now called Liberty Station, where the City

proposes issuing CFD bonds to build a 43-acre regional park

and make other improvements. Stone & Youngberg is the lead

underwriter of approximately $20 million in bonds that will

finance infrastructure needed for the redevelopment of the

former Navy facility. The McMillin Companies of National City

is the master developer of Liberty Station.

"This complex issue brings together the varied interests of

local, city, state, and federal governments and the

surrounding community," explains Mary Louise Groarke

supervising analyst of the San Diego Financing Services

Department. "Working together we will be able to build new

housing, a high-technology high school, office space, and a

cultural center at Liberty Station while still preserving the

historical nature of the site. Municipal bond financing will

help us complete this important project."

Investors also visited the construction site of the "R-7"

parking facility adjacent to San Diego's new downtown

ballpark. Stone & Youngberg is working with the Centre City

Development Corporation, which will issue approximately $20

million in parking bonds to expand parking facilities near the

Gaslamp Quarter and adjacent to the ballpark. Stone &

Youngberg will be the lead underwriter for the parking bonds

and another $30 million of tax increment bonds to finance

other redevelopment activities in the downtown area. The sale

of these two deals is expected in January 2003.

-- Poway - Investors visited CFDs in the Poway Unified School

District, which will issue approximately $45 million in bonds

in the next four months. Proceeds from the bonds will finance

both k - 12 school facilities and general infrastructure to

support growing residential areas.

"Our District has formed eleven community facilities districts

since 1987 through a positive partnership with local

developers and merchant builders," said Sandra Burgoyne,

assistant director of Planning of the Poway Unified School

District. "Over the next ten years the CFDs have the potential

to provide up to $600 million in bonds for the construction of

new school facilities and community infrastructure in the

growing areas of the District."

-- Carlsbad - The group's final stop was the City of Carlsbad,

where three districts are still in the early stages of

development. Bonds will help finance infrastructure to serve