January 27, 2011 ● Grand Terrace City News
A group of mayors, led by Grand Terrace mayor Walt Stanckiewitz, Fontana mayor Acquanetta Warren and Ontario mayor Paul Leon, will join the League of Cities in fighting to keep Redevelopment Agencies established in city government.
Talk in Sacramento is that newly-elected Gov. Jerry Brown is trying to dis-establish Redevelopment Agencies, which bring much-needed money to cash-strapped cities.
The group held a news conference Wednesday at the San Sevaine Villas in Rancho Cucamonga to declare their opposition to the administration’s proposal to eliminate redevelopment agencies in California. They will support the services that redevelopment agencies provide communities in the Inland Empire, said League of Cities spokesperson Nancy Cisneros in a news release. Talk in Sacramento is that newly-elected Gov. Jerry Brown is trying to dis-establish Redevelopment Agencies, which bring much-needed money to cash-strapped cities.
“The financial survival of Grand Terrace depends on it,” Stanckiewitz said. “If redevelopment agencies are dis-established, we’re looking at close to a million dollar shortfall. “We have expenses charged to the agency for people that work on those projects. If we don’t have that, we don’t have the money to pay them.”
Stanckiewitz will be in Sacramento on Feb. 7 to testify before a Senate budget subcommittee
on the subject. The group warns that this proposal would kill hundreds of thousands of local jobs, including an estimated 33,596 jobs in San Bernardino County, and harm local economies
while doing nothing to solve the budget defecit.
According to Cisneros’ news release, redevelopment activities support an average of 304,000 full- and part-time private sector jobs in a typical year, including 107,600 construction
jobs. It also said that redevelopment contributes over $40 billion annually to California’s economy in the generation of goods and services.
Gramps Thinks:
The League of California Cities is a PAC supported by Developers that promotes such things as use of Eminent Domain for Private Development, and the promotion of PUBLIC DEBT FINANCING for Developers Benefit. The net result includes excessively inflated property costs/debt, public debt and interest costs, loss of waived fees and taxes used to induce developers. LACC wine dine and educate local leaders to get on their band wagon. NO PAC is looking out for the CITIZEN or the Small Business Owner.
To say the Development would stop if the RDA's then it is development that should stop as it can't be self supported. You should not go to Disneyland using a Credit Card, and say it is necessary.
Grand Terrace Mayor Walt Stanckiewitz and other IE Mayors are trying to salvage the RDA system of funding the city's. It is their hope that the RDA's are not disbanded as an entity. This for them may be a negotiation point with Governor Brown. I see two things wrong with this approach and the information he has armed himself with. First of all the fact is that the RDA scheme has not done much to put The City of Grand Terrace into a financial situation where we have a sustainable financial situation for the city. No it has made a small town, hands off my property, leave the citizens alone city into a Over Regulated, Government Controlled, Developer Inflated Prices Debt Ridden city. All the while sucking funds away from Schools, Fire Departments, and Public Safety.
Mayor Stanckiewits has not been armed with a budget that he'd call the Dooms Day Budget. What would the budget look like without the RDA. Quite frankly no one knows, the details on how the money would be distributed, have not been made. No lean cut to the bone worse case budget has been prepared and made public. Not being armed with these facts the City Manager and Staff have sent Mayor Stanckiewitz on a Fool's Errand. It is unfortunate that he is being set off to plead the case of GT without a full arsenal of information and options in his hands.
What if the RDA is ended, will it cause the end of the City of Grand Terrace. Let's think well so what if it did. Schools will still operate. Sewage will still flow down hill. The county would provide the sheriff department services. Your house and business will still be here. As a matter of fact your house will be more secure if it is not in a "Redevelopment Zone", and part of the County rather than in the City of Grand Terrace.
Free us from the future of more and more debt as taxpayers, of a State, County or City. PLEASE.
The City of Grand Terrace can exist, as a bare bones city. It may be time to get back to those bare bones and let the County and State regulate building permits, business licenses, and codes and code enforcement. We are Mayberry but have been inflated into a Mini Bell of a Government. It is time to stop and return to our roots of being rural with a laze fair government of minimal intervention in the daily affairs of its citizens and businesses.
We may have that forced upon us by the State Government. We'd all be better off if we prepared for that possibility, rather than to bank on the idea that "It will never happen". We should plan on the RDA being ended and IF there is some way of making that less painful, look for those transitional points. However, the LA plan of spend spend spend, more debt more debt more debt to force the issue is reckless, and a disservice to all the citizens of the state. Some time Grand Terrace and the other cities need to grow up and figure out they do not deserve more taxes than their share. Unincorporated towns, and areas have needs equal to if not greater than those of city, large or small.
For those who may cheer the blog's criticism of Mayor Stanckiewitz after supporting him in the past election get a grip. Stanckiewits was the Best of Pick of those running. There is no supreme that there is a difference of perspective on this situation. I find it unfortunate that the public is not informed of what the City would be like with zero RDA. That would be informative and allow US to prepare for the future of the community, rather than surrender to the position of the Developer Backed LACC. Protecting the City is not equal to Protecting the Jobs of RDA Employees in City Hall.
Below is yet another look at the issue.
Gramps
January, 2011 | Issue 02
Assemblymember.Norby@assembly.ca.gov
Center Stage on RDA Debate
Governor Brown's proposal to abolish redevelopment agencies has propelled me into the middle of an intense discussion on what the agencies do, whether they are successful and where the money could be better spent. Brown proposes to shift the $6 billion to public services and education.
For years I've long opposed abuses by California's redevelopment agencies. I authored Redevelopment: The Unknown Government, founded Municipal Officials for Redevelopment Reform (MORR), and organized semi-annual statewide conferences.
I became part of a network of citizen activists, small property owners, attorneys and independent elected officials concerned about waste and abuse by redevelopment agencies. While serving on the Fullerton Redevelopment Agency, I did support funding public infrastructure, but opposed tax giveaways to private developers and the abuse of eminent domain. Among the most successful, Downtown Fullerton businesses received no redevelopment subsidies, and the city did not use massive demolition similar to the City of Anaheim.
I've had numerous newspaper, radio and television interviews and will be in a debate next week at the Sacramento Press Club. Recent publications can be accessed here. I've also found common cause with the teachers unions who long opposed my support of parental choice and school accountability. The CTA sees redevelopment funds now spent on private development as a source to fully fund public education. Tax dollars for classrooms, not Costco's.
These issues extend far beyond the fate of the redevelopment agencies and into the irrationalities and inequities of city and school finance. I'm excited to be in the middle of the discussion.
In fact, even the State Controller's Office announced earlier this week that they will be auditing several redevelopment agencies of California cities. Access the announcement here.
