Maine Quashes Wall Street Negotiated Deals Citing No Free Lunch
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“I don’t eat at Wendy’s,” Robert Lenna, the Maine Municipal Bond Bank’s executive director, said when asked why he and three other officials had dinners costing almost $4,000 with Wall Street bankers selling the state’s debt.
Lenna’s declaration, made at an April 8 public meeting, has laid bare a fight over whether Maine, where 12.6 percent of residents live below the poverty line, should try to save taxpayers’ money by holding open bond auctions in place of the privately negotiated debt sales it has relied on for decades.