Karnes City set up a line of credit for construction of the city’s park during their regular monthly meeting October 17.

The date of the regular meeting, normally the fourth Tuesday of every month, had been moved to the third Tuesday for October last month.

The line of credit grants Karnes City up to $150,000 per month to cover construction and equipment costs for the park. City Administrator Larry Pippen said the city will be paying back the line of credit on a monthly basis and the 5.2 percent interest rate will cost the city around $600 a month.

"We’ll lose more than that if we’ll have to take it out of our fund balances as far as our investment portfolio," Pippen said. "We cannot draw in excess of $500,000 between now and July 15. The maximum draw per month is $150,000. As soon as we submit all our invoices to the state, they approve it, they wire us the money back, then at that time we will pay off the (credit). It will be paid off every 30 days."

Construction on the first phase of the park already has begun and is expected to be complete by January 15 next year. The second phase will begin in January.

Barring any unforeseen weather complications, city officials plan on having the park finished and ready for public use by June or July of 2007.

Council members also made an alteration to their contract with Veolia Water during the meeting, shortening its duration to an annual basis. It had previously been a five-year agreement.