 |
USA Edition | Today Is Saturday, May 25, 2013 |
|---|
Welcome To Newsroom Magazine
|
|---|
|
|
Thanks To You We're Growing Faster Than Ever Before
Chances are you've noticed that Newsroom Magazine is a very different publication.
We care about journalism -- and we're well aware many other organizations do it far better than we.
Our editorial standards, rules of custody, and skeptical editing for everything we produce, disseminate or expose to public viewing reflects a seriousness of purpose.
Six years after our founding, Newsroom Magazine continues to evolve the online publishing and preservation model we pioneered.
There is good news to share: Newsroom Magazine is is thriving.
And some less good news: Our limited resources, both journalistically and financially, are limiting our expansion of content.
Online News Preservation
In the six years since its founding, Newsroom Magazine has extended the field of news publishing into previously uncharted areas.
We take a long range view of news -- one that considers both timeliness and historical merit.
What we do, and how we do it, was not possible in the print media era -- for our content is both timely and timeless in the sense that we share the power of immediacy with all online media plus the perseverance of an encyclopedia.
Newsroom Magazine's publishing model goes beyond immediacy -- for unlike the newspaper era -- what we publish is permanently preserved. And tagged, indexed, and constantly updated by automated sitemap sharing with Google, Yahoo, Bing, Yandex, Baidu, Sogou, Ewatch, Alexa, Facebook, and others at home and far away.
All of our content, is meant to be preserved. Thanks to the capture and storage of our content at Google, including all updates and changes, and full collection archiving by the U.S. Internet Archives, everything we say, write, opine -- whether wise, foolish, or inconsequential-- is preserved.
Newsroom Magazine content remains forever online, searchable and accessible 24 hours a day worldwide.
What's Hot Is Rarely What Matters
What we publish today is rarely as timely as the more traditional publications and online newspapers. What we choose to publish, sometimes days or months after a story first breaks, or on a subject neglected by most commercial media, is chosen to reflect one aspect of an ongoing reality for long term preservation.
From a handful of English-only readers when we published our first article -- the 1958 Edward R. Murrow speech before the Radio Television Directors Association in Chicago -- we have grown and wizened about our responsibilities to our readers and our own limitations and shortfalls.
Our most read article so far this year, The Adventures Of Bernie In Wonderland, was published November 23rd, 2009. The article consists of the unexpurgated SEC interview of Harry Markopolos in the Bernie Madoff Ponzi swindle case. It is not very interesting reading and it is very long -- but we published it in the belief that what it revealed was important and unlikely to remain online in its original format.
Newsroom Magazine's Storehouse Grows Every Day
The number of publications who devote themselves to publishing credible, responsible and probative content for posterity has dwindled.
Today Newsroom Magazine publishes a storehouse of credible, probative and relevant content -- well over 5000 articles including commentaries, essays, definitions, photographs, stories, reviews, discussions, tutorials, and logical explanations.
Our readership is nearly three times was it was only last year. Few might come to our content for entertainment -- for our purpose is otherwise.
If You Publish, They Will Come
We are read on Capitol Hill, along K Street, and in the halls of government inside the beltway and around the world.
We are read daily on college campuses at home and abroad. We're visited from military ships at sea. We serve law-firms, major corporations, Wall Street the UK Parliament, state governments and cities with credible useful information.
Some of the world's most prestigious news organizations use Newsroom Magazine for fact-checking.
Government Information Unfiltered, Sometimes Imperfect
The amount of official news proffered each day by government, whether at home or abroad, is accelerating. Some of it newsworthy, most of it not.
Our job is to thoughtfully choose what's worthy of the attention of our readers.
About 1% of government issued news we receive each day qualifies as newsworthy. Only the most relevant, or reflective of government at its best, or at its worst, or evidence of overreach, or ineptitude makes it newsworthy.
We leave the issue of deciding which if any of these qualifications applies to what we publish up to the reader.
Formatted For People On The Go, Or On The Hunt
All of our government news content includes above the headline call out meant to convey the principal facts, action or information for those with little time to read a long document.
Our job is to carefully and skeptically choose relevant governmental content for our readers -- and to include the unexpurgated original source material, whose chain of custody we control.
Online Editorial Standards, Ethics And Purpose
Our commitment to time-honored journalistic standards and a clear statement about the ethics to which we agree to be held today and tomorrow, Newsroom Magazine began publication when the Internet was young -- 2006.
Our prime mission then, as now, is to publish non political ideas, definitions, essays and editorials.
To speak to the state of this honorable calling.
And to inform the public about those things, events and ideas that matter most to us all.
Today, tomorrow, forever.
Editorial Standards & Policies
| Browsing Securities And Exchange Commission Section | Organized In Date Order | [ 261 items ] | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| First Item | Earlier | Middle Item | Later | Last Item | |
South Miami’s fraudulent conduct put bondholders in danger of incurring significant additional costs associated with their investments. The tax-exempt status of municipal bonds is vitally important to bond investors, and we will closely scrutinize any conduct by issuers or others that threatens that tax exemption.
Elaine C. Greenberg, Chief of the SEC Enforcement Division’s Municipal Securities and Public Pensions Unit
Washington
SEC Charges City Of South Miami With Defrauding Investors About Tax-Exempt Status Of Municipal Bonds
Washington, D.C., May 22, 2013 — The Securities and Exchange Commission today charged the City of South Miami, Fla., with defrauding bond investors about the tax-exempt financing eligibility of a mixed-use retail and parking structure being built in its downtown commercial district.
An SEC investigation found that the city of 11,000 residents located in Miami-Dade County borrowed approximately $12 million in two pooled, conduit bond offerings through the Florida Municipal Loan Council (FMLC). South Miami’s participation in those offerings enabled it to borrow funds at advantageous tax-exempt rates. The city represented that the project was eligible for tax-exempt financing in various documents for the second offering that were relied upon by bond counsel in rendering its tax opinion. However, South Miami failed to disclose that it had actually jeopardized the tax-exempt status of both bond offerings by impermissibly loaning proceeds from the first offering to a private developer and restructuring a lease agreement prior to the second offering.
South Miami agreed to settle the charges and retain an independent third-party consultant to oversee its policies, procedures, and internal controls for municipal bond disclosures.
“South Miami’s fraudulent conduct put bondholders in danger of incurring significant additional costs associated with their investments,” said Elaine C. Greenberg, Chief of the SEC Enforcement Division’s Municipal Securities and Public Pensions Unit. “The tax-exempt status of municipal bonds is vitally important to bond investors, and we will closely scrutinize any conduct by issuers or others that threatens that tax exemption.”
Eric I. Bustillo, Director of the SEC’s Miami Regional Office, added, “Municipalities in South Florida and elsewhere cannot rely on a lack of internal procedures or experience in debt offerings to excuse fraudulent disclosures made to investors.”
According to the SEC’s order instituting settled administrative proceedings, South Miami sought financing to develop a public parking garage. The project ultimately became a mixed-use retail and public parking structure to be developed by a for-profit developer. Under the initial lease agreement between the city and the developer, the city was responsible for all construction costs except the retail portion. The city retained full control over the operation and maintenance of the parking garage portion and all parking revenues. The developer’s limited role was critical to the city receiving the benefits of tax-exempt financing. Under IRS regulations, the project could be financed on a tax-exempt basis only if its use by the for-profit developer was kept to a minimum.
According to the SEC’s order, South Miami approved the financing for construction of the tax-exempt portion of the project and moved ahead with its participation in the initial FMLC 2002 bond pool offering. However, upon receiving a copy of the city’s lease agreement with the developer, bond counsel identified a potential tax issue with the mixed public-retail nature of the project. During subsequent conference calls with the city’s then-finance director, bond counsel communicated to city officials that no funds from the bond offering could be used to finance the retail portion of the structure.
However, the SEC found that subsequent city finance directors were unaware of the substance of these discussions or how the lease agreement affected the tax status of the bonds. Moreover, subsequent city finance directors had no previous experience, training, or guidance on disclosure requirement or tax issues in bond offerings. When the lease agreement was revised in 2005 to lease not only the retail space to the developer but the parking garage as well, the updated terms caused the project to be considered private business use, which jeopardized the tax-exempt status of the bonds. South Miami did not inform the FMLC, bond counsel, or any third parties about the project changes. Documents for the second 2006 FMLC bond pool offering contained material misrepresentations and omissions about the use of the offering’s proceeds and the altered terms of the parking garage lease.
According to the SEC’s order, annual certifications made by the city to the FMLC from 2003 to 2009 incorrectly stated that South Miami was in compliance with the terms of the loan agreements, which included representations that no event had occurred affecting the tax-exempt status of the bonds. South Miami eventually filed a material event notice with the Municipal Securities Rulemaking Board’s Electronic Municipal Market Access (EMMA) system in July 2010 that publicly acknowledged a potential adverse impact on the bonds’ tax exemption. Separately, the city settled with the IRS by paying $260,345 and defeasing a portion of the two prior bond offerings at a cost of $1.16 million. Because of the city’s settlement and payments, bondholders were not financially harmed and they’re not required to include any interest from the bonds in their gross incomes.
The SEC’s order directs South Miami to cease and desist from committing or causing any violations of Sections 17(a)(2) and (3) of the Securities Act of 1933. The city must retain an independent third-party consultant, who for three years will conduct annual reviews of the city’s policies, procedures, and practices related to its disclosures for municipal securities offerings. The city must abide by the independent consultant’s determinations and implement all recommendations. South Miami neither admitted nor denied the SEC’s findings. A full description of the undertakings can be found in the SEC’s order.
This SEC’s investigation was conducted in the Miami Regional Office by Senior Counsel Sean M. O’Neill under the supervision of Assistant Regional Director Jason R. Berkowitz, both members of the Municipal Securities and Public Pensions Unit.