A state money grab that's popular
A recent opinion poll shows that two-thirds of Californians are on Jerry Brown's side when it comes to his controversial plan to raid cities' redevelopment funds. Should that be a surprise?
At least Brown is honest enough to say that Californians are clueless when it comes to understanding what redevelopment is all about. In other words, let's take advantage of voters' ignorance.
That's hardly a policy to brag about. Even so, Brown has a point. If voters have to choose between redevelopment and public safety or schoolteachers, guess how that comes out.
In case you've forgotten how redevelopment works, let's refresh our memory in simple terms. It's a program designed to clean up blight by allowing cities to redevelop it, often with subsidies to developers, and keep any increased property tax money from the redevelopment area.
Well, how do you define blight? The law is clear, but nobody pays much attention to it, so some high-end projects don't have much to do with blight. For example, as the L.A. Weekly has reported, the L.A. Community Redevelopment Agency plans to spend $52 million for a garage and plaza next to an Eli Broad Collection Museum. So where's the blight?
L.A. isn't the only city, big or small, that's playing loose with redevelopment money. As the L.A. Times reported, the tiny city of Grand Terrace in San Bernardino County has been using redevelopment money to pay part of the salaries of most of its 20 city employees.
That's barely legal. But if they didn't do that, Mayor Walt Stanckiewitz told the Times, Grand Terrace might not continue to exist as a city. (Is that so bad? Why should other public entities be subsidizing Grand Terrace?)
Bigger cities are doing the same thing. Long Beach and Oakland, for example, pay part of their city payroll with redevelopment money, with the excuse that those employees spend part of their time on redevelopment business.
Also, Long Beach used redevelopment money to pay for Port of Long Beach projects because the port had agreed to cover part of the bond payments for Long Beach's Aquarium of the Pacific. Again, where's the blight?
This sort of thing is going on all over California. But cities have a point as well: How is it good for Californians to shuffle money from cities to Sacramento?
The program is full of contradictions. When Brown was mayor of Sacramento, he loved doing big projects with redevelopment money that otherwise would have gone to schools, the county and the state. Now that he's governor, he is trying to get rid of it and, by the way, he even has taken up residence in a loft built by redevelopment.
That's politics. We'd rather see politicians focus on real solutions.
Gramps Adds:
The City of Grand Terrace has set aside $1,200,000.000 of RDA funds to Support Stater Brothers Market in their private development of a new store on land acquired by the threat of the use of Eminent Domain by the RDA. Obligated by contractual agreement the funds to pay off Stater Brothers for doing us the Favor of building in GT will be set aside in a designated fun in an attempt to protect that source of funds. I think on the other hand the State of California should take the City of Grand Terrace and Stater Brother's to court and have the obligation nullified, and not funded.
