Creditors of bankrupt San Bernardino, Calif., including America's biggest pension fund and Wall Street bondholders, are due to meet in court today in a case bogged down in arguments over the city's disclosure of financial records, Reuters reported yesterday. The slow progress in San Bernardino's case contrasts with that of another California city, Stockton, which last week was declared eligible for municipal bankruptcy in proceedings that have moved relatively swiftly since it filed for chapter 9 in June. For San Bernardino, a city of 210,000 that filed for bankruptcy just a month after Stockton and declared a fiscal emergency to avoid pre-bankruptcy negotiations with creditors, it is still unclear whether the judge will be able to set a trial date to determine the city's eligibility for chapter 9 protection. Last August, San Bernardino stopped paying its $1.2 million, twice-weekly employer contributions to CalPERS—America's biggest pension fund, with assets of $256 billion. The pension fund is opposing the city’s bankruptcy petition.
