Redevelopment Agency Extend or Reform?

Grand Pa here is my issue with the proposal to extend the life and debt level of the Grand Terrace Redevelopment Agency:


"The Agency has no power to levy a property tax." This is wholly deceptive. The Agency does have the power to issue Tax Allocation Bonds without voter approval, as we have seen over the years and has been the cause of our indebtedness. They do have the power to redirect our property taxes to repay these bonds and not for what the original intentions of property taxes were meant. "Property taxes will not increase as a result of this proposed section". Perhaps not, but they most assuredly will be taken from the citizen to pay for the development and to the developers. Grand Terrace was incorporated by a hand full of land speculators with the sole purpose of making a profit with no regard of the people that had lived here much longer than them. One was a former Mayor of Colton. One was is a former Mayor of Grand Terrace and sold his property to the City/RDA for over three million for the Town Center. On it's best day his property was not worth three million. This is what the "good old boy" network has brought upon Grand Terrace . Martetta Ferre is a representative of this network. I recall the Sun article where she claimed she wanted to out do her father in development in Grand Terrace. For anyone to think Ferre is there to protect the citizens from unscrupulous developers is ludicrous. Her record says just the opposite. That is an historical fact.

To "eliminate the agency's authority to acquire property by eminent domain".

Just how stupid do they think we are. So if the agency does not acquire property by eminent domain the City will, as we witnessed by Tom Schwab and the residents that were threatened off their property on Barton Road. How else will they acquire property from citizens unwilling to give up their homes unless through eminent domain. It may not be the agency (City Council is the CRA/RDA) but it will still be used. Just by the City Council. Whats in a name.

The Arco, if memory serves, is scheduled to either be taken out as well as Auto Zone and the business adjoining. The problem here is that they may have to be compensated for lost business. There is case law. This, if ruled in favor of the injured which may well be the case can run into millions. Will the RDA and Council just raise our indebted limit if the State allows.

We cannot get a pothole fixed and these people are trying to put us millions of dollars farther into debt. Remember, it is our property taxes that should go for Police protection, fire protection, schools, road repair, park maintainence and the things a city is responsible for to it citizens for that will suffer.

Any tax revenue generated by an RDA cannot go into the city general fund. It must go to the RDA for the use of more development, yet our property taxes will be used to repay these bonds for RDA development and not the revenue generated by the RDA.

If you will look at only the RDA project completed, The Senior Housing, how well has that worked out with the present crew of armatures. Walt excluded. He was not a member of the council when this was voted for over the objections of the citizens.

http://www.publiclawnews.com/public_law_news/domain_inverse/

"Or here after amended" Here is their out. You can rest assured it will be amended after they pass it after the pretense of listening to the citizens. This is a done deal. If it were not they wouldn't have the required by law public meeting. Again history should tell you this City Hall does not do the required public meetings unless they have already agreed among themselves to past whatever they choose to place on the agenda.



The Agency has no power to levy a property tax or any other tax and property taxes will not increase as a result of this proposed action.The proposed Amendment would increase the total amount of tax increment revenue that can be collected and bonded indebtedness that can be issued, extend the duration of the Plan and date to receive tax increment revenue, eliminate the Agency’s authority to acquire property by eminent domain, and replace the description of land uses in the Plan with language that directly refers to the City’s General Plan, zoning ordinances, and other applicable land use policies and standards, as they exist today or are hereafter amended.The general goals and objectives for redevelopment of the Project Area will remain the same and are set forth in Section 400 of the Plan. Overall, the primary goal of the Plan is to eliminate and prevent the spread of blight and deterioration within the Grand Terrace Community Redevelopment Project (“Project Area”).The Project Area includes all properties within the City boundary

It is simply impossible to understand the U.S. Constitution without first possessing a thorough understanding of property rights. If you traveled back in time to enter James Madison’s mind as he wrote and debated such weighty issues as free speech, the right of self-defense, freedom of the press, and freedom of conscience, but came away lacking knowledge of his and the other Framers’ views on property, you still would be woefully ignorant of the Constitution, and even of U.S. history; for it was a whole series of property disputes that gave rise to both the American Revolution and the Constitutional Convention itself. To understand the rights of property in a constitutional context you must know two things: just how important these rights were to the Framers and just what they meant by the term.

In a political context, virtually nothing was as important to the Framers as property rights. As Christopher Collier and James Lincoln Collier point out in their book Decision in Philadelphia, those men had “an almost religious respect” for property, that “the rights of property were inviolable,” and that the Constitution itself is the embodiment of the rights of property as developed primarily by John Locke in the 17th century.

As Walter B. Mead points out in his book The United States Constitution, the Framers were favorably disposed to history’s great philosophers who held that “concerns for freedom could not be separated from concerns for property” and that the Framers knew “inadequately secured property rights could render vulnerable even the fundamental liberties of speech, press, and meaningful political participation.” Or, as the Framers themselves said,

The moment the idea is admitted into society that property is not as sacred as the laws of God and that there is not a force of law and public justice to protect it anarchy and tyranny commence. If “Thou shalt not covet,” and “Thou shalt not steal,” were not commandments of heaven, they must be made inviolable precepts in every society before it can be civilized or made free. (John Adams) Property is surely a right of mankind, as really as liberty. (John Adams) Government is instituted to protect property of every sort; as well that which lies in the various rights of individuals, as that which the term particularly expresses. This being the end of government, that alone is a just government, which impartially secures to every man, whatever is his own. (James Madison)

Most startling of all, perhaps, was Forrest McDonald’s observation in his book Novus Ordo Seclorum that property rights were so important to the Framers that all but 4 of the 55 men at the Constitutional Convention placed their protection behind only liberty itself as the sacred charge of government. And of the four who disagreed on this point, three of them differed not because they valued property rights less than their fellows but because they actually “put [their] protection ahead of liberty as the main object of society.”

Readers will note that the above formulation does indeed place property ahead of freedom of religion, press, speech, and assembly, the right to petition the government, the right of self-defense, the right to be secure in one’s home, and the rights of the accused, including the right against self-incrimination and the right to a fair and speedy trial in which one may face one’s accusers. In short, the Framers placed property rights higher than all the rights that are most commonly associated with them.