The truth of the fact is they misled on taxes... Columbia City Council is threatening to push for a water/sewer tax increase and a property tax increase to help carry a proposed $218,055,423 budget for fiscal year 2008- 2009. The budget must be approved by July 1, and citizens are invited for a budget public hearing during the council meeting on Wednesday, June 4.

Recession possibly came with new year According to the Moore School of Business, January construction was 34 percent below January 2007, which includes single housing permits that were down 67 percent for the same period.

$22 billion short For the next 10 years, South Carolina is expected to fall short $22 billion in maintaining its bridges and roads

according to the countrywide nonprofit The Road

Information Program.

NAI Avant scores Columbia- based real estate firm NAI Avant announced Monday, May 19, its office was selected to market the sale of the 181- acre site of the S. C. Department of Mental Health, better known as the Bull Street property. The selection was based on a low bid of a 1.5 percent commission. The firm reportedly plans to handle the sale to a single development firm that may or may not adopt the city's "New Urbanism" plan. The City of Columbia paid half of the $390,000 fee charged by urban designer Andres Duany, first widely known for his design of Seaside, a Florida new town on the Panhandle's Gulf coast. The State of South Carolina paid the other half. The site, as is, could be worth the high estimate of $32 million.

One that got away Volkswagen plans on a new automobile factory in the United States, possibly in Tennessee, Alabama, or Michigan, but not South Carolina. Porsche is VW's largest shareholder, and Audi is part of VW, so both might be assembled in the new plant.

Providence found Providence Hospital finished 2007 with a profit of $5.7 million, the hospital's first profit since 2004.

Hedge hogs Citigroup and its Charleston- bred head of global wealth management Sallie Krawcheck have announced $250 million in refunds to hedge fund investors who lost big- time in the past year. The investors must agree to forfeit legal

claims against the funds, according to The Wall Street

Journal. Two of Citigroup's hedge funds, called Falcon and ASTA/MAT, launched last year, have fallen by 75% or more in value.

Speaking of lawsuits Avondale Mills brought a lawsuit against Norfolk Southern in connection with a deadly train wreck on January 6, 2005. The railroad recently agreed to settle with Avondale who sued for $420 million in damages. The train wreck killed nine people and injured another 250. The wreck also resulted in the evacuation of 5,400 people. Avondale Mills closed its doors almost immediately after the accident.

USC and the Columbia Museum of Art could use a Rockefeller David M. Rockefeller, grandson of John D. Sr., is giving $100 million to Harvard University, the school's largest single gift ever from an alumnus. Rockefeller, 92, graduated from Harvard in 1936. Rockefeller dedicated $70 million of the gift to undergraduate study abroad. He gave another $100 million each to New York's Museum of Modern Art and Rockefeller University.

Arrived with the wind Texas billionaire T. Boone Pickens and his company will purchase 667 General Electric 1.5 megawatt wind turbines as part of the $2 billion first phase of the largest wind farm in the United States, planned for Pampa, Texas. The turbines will likely be manufactured in GE's Greenville plant. Meanwhile in South Carolina, two wind- monitoring stations, one along the Grand Strand and one in North Charleston, will determine the feasibility of using wind power to generate commercially viable electricity.

Last chance The city's Planning Department invites all citizens to attend the last public meeting on The Columbia Plan, Thursday, May 29, 6- 8 pm, at the Capital Senior Center, 1650 Park Circle. The plan includes demographics, transportation, natural resources, economic development, cultural resources, housing, and priority investment.