DAPHNE, Ala. — The Daphne City Council Monday voted unanimously to allow Gardnyr Michael Capital to bring back figures on re-financing the city’s debt.

The decision was made because of lower-interest rates on issued bonds being offered. The city issued bonds and owes money at interest rates between 4 and 6 percent, Phil Hunt, Gardnyr Michael Capital representative, said. However, if the city were to issue another bond at the amount of money owed for the first bonds, the interest rate would be around 3 percent, Hunt said, making the payments and money owed lower.

Councilman Bailey Yelding claimed that being in debt was not an uncommon occurrence.

“As long as we are a city, we’re going to own some debt,” Yelding said. “We inherited some debt when we came in, and we’re going to leave some debt.”

The council allowed the company to bring back statistics on possibly issuing a bond to pay off city roads project at the 3 percent interest rate, which would allow the city to avoid taking money out of reserve funds to fund the re-development of numerous roads in the Jubilee City.

Councilman John Lake said he wasn’t sure about borrowing money to pay for roads.

“I don’t see why we should borrow money to pay for the roads when we are already paying for them,” the long-time council member said. “In 1989, we took out a bond issue to pay for the roads. Some of the very roads we want to pave now we are still making payments on from 1989. Either you do something to retire the first road projects debt so we’re not indebting the future generations for road projects in the past.

“It seems kind of crazy for me to borrow money to pave roads when we are paying off previously borrowed money.”

He did, however, vote in favor to allow the company to bring back figures, and he said he does want to fix the roads in the city.

“I’m going to be adamant about finding a way to retire the old debt, though,” Lake said.

The city owes around $29.5 million in issued bonds, which does not include interest rates, City Finance Director Kim Briley said.

The city council will hold a work session at 6:30 p.m. Monday at City Hall. The next regularly scheduled business meeting is set for 6:30 p.m. Oct. 18 at City Hall.