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Fall River council updates borrowing rules after months-long debate on voter oversight
Summary
Councilors debated whether to update decades-old dollar thresholds that trigger voter approval for bond authorizations and instead adopted a 70% statutory-debt-limit safeguard; council advanced the loan-order ordinance through second reading and ordained the amended language after heated floor debate.
Fall River city councilors on Jan. 13 moved to modernize how large borrowing authorizations trigger voter oversight, passing second reading and moving an amended loan-order ordinance toward final ordination after hours of floor debate.
The debate centered on two approaches: raising the existing fixed-dollar thresholds (which were last adjusted in prior decades) or adopting a percentage-based trigger tied to the city's statutory debt limit. Councilor Canuel proposed updating the dollar thresholds (for example, increasing the single-authority trigger), arguing that inflation has made prior numbers out of date and that modest…
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