Lease Revenue Bonds and Certificates of Participation
Sidley is a recognized leader in the field of general fund lease revenue bonds and certificates of participation financings in California, and we have significant experience with these kinds of financings in other jurisdictions as well. Our experience includes all permutations of these financing techniques, including fixed rate long-term and fixed rate short-term financings, variable rate financings, capital appreciation certificates, financings secured by an entity’s general fund and financings secured by other sources of revenue such as commercial rental properties owned by a school district, lease-tax overrides or redevelopment tax increments.
We were involved in the City of Los Angeles’ first commercial paper lease financing. With respect to certificates of participation secured by tax increment revenues, our lawyers drafted the pioneer documents to issue capital appreciation term certificates to parallel the expected receipt of tax increment from a local redevelopment agency. Moreover, we have represented issuers in connection with litigation arising in connection with validation proceedings necessitated by a certificates of participation structure.
Public Enterprise Revenue Bonds
We have been involved in all types of public enterprise revenue bonds, including bonds backed by enterprise funds, special taxes and assessments.
Water and Wastewater: Sidley has significant experience in water and wastewater utility. The variety of our clients and the types of projects they undertake ensure that we are familiar with various water and wastewater issues and how they affect water and wastewater agencies – financially and otherwise. These issues include state loan programs, recycled water initiatives, storm water management, federal reclamation law reform, endangered species litigation, safe drinking water standards and a variety of other water quality issues.
Electric Utilities: Sidley has been involved as bond counsel or underwriters’ counsel on numerous bond issues throughout the United States and on a substantial portion of the public power bonds sold in California. In connection with our services as bond counsel for public power financings, we have advised public agencies with respect to industry deregulation, community choice aggregation, gas and energy prepayment arrangements and clean renewable energy bonds. As part of the State of California’s deregulation of the electric utility industry, we served as bond counsel in connection with the issuance of over $6 billion in aggregate principal amount of "rate reduction bonds" for California's three largest investor-owned electric utilities to finance the cost of their "stranded" investment in certain utility assets, such as nuclear power plants. We also were involved with the historic $11.26 billion offering of power supply revenue bonds by the California Department of Water Resources, which financing was named "The Deal of the Year" for 2003 by The Bond Buyer, Inc.
Airports: Through acting as bond counsel, underwriters’ counsel and credit support counsel, we have been involved with over 40 different airports. These airports include the Los Angeles International Airport, the San Diego International Airport, Orange County John Wayne Airport, San Jose International Airport, Burbank-Glendale-Pasadena Airport, Fresno Yosemite International Airport and Sacramento International Airport, Reno Cannon International Airport, Stapleton International Airport (Denver), McCarran International Airport (Las Vegas), Luis Muñoz María International Airport (Puerto Rico) and Albuquerque (New Mexico) International Airport. We drafted and shepherded through the California legislature authorizing legislation enabling the County of Orange and Sacramento County to issue revenue bonds for airport purposes.
Our airport financing practice is complemented by lawyers in our Washington D.C. office with significant experience with the FAA and FAA regulations. Sidley also has rendered advice on airport privatization.
Transportation: Our lawyers have substantial experience with respect to transportation financings, including turnpikes, toll roads and bridge and tunnel financings. We have served as bond counsel, underwriters' counsel or credit support counsel for turnpike or toll road financings in over 20 states and have played major roles in structuring the highway finance programs in over 15 states, including Oklahoma, Kansas, Michigan, Ohio, Massachusetts, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware, New York, Puerto Rico, Rhode Island, Georgia, Maryland, Virginia, West Virginia and Kentucky. Our lawyers have worked with the Commonwealth of Virginia and the states of North Carolina and Oklahoma to develop financing strategies to meet those states' accelerated highway construction programs.
We have acted as bond counsel for the Delaware, Kansas, Kentucky, Maine, Maryland (John F. Kennedy Memorial Highway), Massachusetts, New Jersey, Ohio, Oklahoma (the Oklahoma Turnpike system), Pennsylvania, Puerto Rico, Rhode Island and West Virginia turnpikes, plus three toll roads in Virginia (the Richmond-Petersburg Turnpike, the Norfolk-Virginia Beach Toll Road and the Powhite Parkway Extension). Well-known bridge and tunnel financings for which we have served as bond counsel include the San Francisco Golden Gate Bridge, the Chesapeake Bay Bridge Tunnel, the Delaware Memorial Bridge, the Mackinac Bridge and the international bridges between the United States and Canada at Sault Ste. Marie, Michigan, and the Thousand Islands in New York, as well as other bridges and tunnels in Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, New Jersey, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Puerto Rico and Virginia.
The firm has served as disclosure counsel in connection with $1.3 billion of issuances of toll revenue bonds by the Bay Area Toll Authority to finance capital improvements to toll bridges in the San Francisco Bay Area, as well as an issuance by the Bay Area Toll Authority of over $1 billion in toll revenue bonds to defease prior bonds issued to finance seismic retrofit program projects for toll bridges in the San Francisco Bay Area. We also have served as underwriters' counsel on over $6 billion of financings for the San Joaquin Hills Transportation Corridor Agency, its sister agency, the Foothill/Eastern Transportation Corridor Agency and the California Department of Transportation.
Solid Waste Bonds: We have experience in the financing of solid waste and resource recovery facilities within the states of California, Virginia (Alexandria, Arlington and the Hampton Roads area), North Carolina (Gaston County) and Puerto Rico, as well as throughout the rest of the country. Our experience includes work as bond counsel for the first mass burn-solid waste facility in the State of California. We helped structure this precedent-setting transaction, including the vendor agreement for construction as well as operation, the waste control ordinances and related security documents as well as the bond documents.
Sidley has served as bond counsel, special tax counsel and/or disclosure counsel to numerous issuers to fund solid waste capital improvements or closure costs, including a variety of materials recovery and recycling facilities. Sidley has served as bond counsel to the City of Los Angeles in connection with their solid waste resources (formerly sanitation equipment charge) financings for more than a decade.