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Focuses on the plan of San Francisco Public Utilities Commission's finance officials to use a commercial paper program to jump-start most of $304 million of water bonds authorized by voters on November 4, 1997. Preparations made for a request for qualifications from financial advisers to structure the program; Outlook for the program; Outcome of a study on the backlog of unfunded capital projects in the city.

The article focuses on the many people around the U.S. who pursue scripophily, the hobby of collecting antique municipal bond certificates. Among those are Paul Kinney, senior vice president in personal wealth management at UBS Securities LLC, and Bob Kerstein, former CFO of a wireless telecommunications company. Some of them claimed that they are attracted to old bonds because of its aesthetic or historical value, while others like to honor the issuers that they have worked with during their careers.

The article reports on petition of municipal issuers to be included in the U.S. Federal Reserve's Commercial Paper Funding Facility program. The petition came after the Fed has hinted will not include municipalities under its current terms. Municipal issuers argue that the Fed's desire to provide liquidity to the short-term paper should extend to their tax-exempt commercial paper and even to municipal tax and revenue anticipation notes.

The article focuses on the release of paper on the general obligation bonds by the U.S. National Association of Bond Lawyers (NABL). It reveals that the priority of the paper is to educate bond lawyers and other market participants about general obligation bonds in the wake of the Detroit, Michigan, bankruptcy filings.

The article focuses on the National Federation of Municipal Analysts (NFMA) which is urging municipal issuers to disclose more information about their toll road financings in its latest draft document containing disclosure recommendations for a specific sector of the municipal market. The 28-page paper, the twelfth issued by the NFMA, is to be posted on the group's Web site, www.nfma.org. The NFMA plans to ask market participants to comment on the recommendations by March 7, 2005, in hopes that the paper can be finalized by the middle of 2005.

The article cites a report from Fitch Ratings Ltd. indicating that municipalities borrowing short term are increasingly taking on refinancing risk in the U.S. The rating agency notes that the municipalities are increasingly relying on bond anticipation notes and extendable-maturity commercial paper for short-term financing. Fitch managing director Karl Pfeil states that commercial paper and note markets have grown because issuers want access to the low rates on the short end of the yield curve.

Highlights trends in the municipal money markets in the United States as of July 21, 2000. Increased rates on daily and weekly municipal paper; General market daily variable-rate demand; Pricing for the tax and revenue anticipation notes from Oakland.

Reports on the white paper of the National Federation of Municipal Analysts for the application of the federal securities laws to disclosure in Washington. Encouragement of municipal issuers to provide bond-related information to investors; Establishment of a national gateway page on the web site of municipal issuers; Development of disclosure guidance.

Reports that a task force of the Bond Market Association has sent its members a draft white paper on electronic disclosure that recommends hypertext markup language (HTML) as the standard format to be used by municipal issuers who want to file secondary market disclosures electronically. Costs issues associated with the use of HTML; Sending of annual financing information.

Lower income households benefit more from tax-exempt debt than shown by traditional analyses, researchers at the Urban Institute found. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]