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Redevelopment debate: California mayors duke it out with Gov. Brown
January 27, 2011 | 3:43 pm
In the other corner, we have the mayors from the state's biggest cities saying that redevelopment agencies incentivize developers to build in less-than-ideal areas; eventually that drives up property tax revenues, and, in the case of Hollywood, increases tourism, which is the example Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa gave during Wednesday's meeting. Here's a snippet from a segment on KPCC with Julie Small on Thursday morning:
"Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa recalls that not too many years ago, the average tourist visit to Hollywood lasted 23 minutes. Then redevelopment dollars flowed into the area to pay for improvements.'You can go downtown in L.A. and go to Hollywood today and you see a different place, a vibrant place,' said Villaraigosa. 'Today the average stay is two days.'Villaraigosa says L.A. would never have achieved that 'Hollywood ending' without the redevelopment agencies the governor wants to scrap."
If the editorial board was the referee in this match, it'd come down in favor of Gov. Brown. It's not that it would like to see a halt to redevelopment, but that concessions must be made. Drastic times call for drastic measures. Here, from the board's editorial "Facing the budget music":
"City governments like to think of redevelopment money as their own. But for more than three decades it has been the state's job to allocate property tax funds among the 5,000 or so local government entities. Twenty years ago, the state propped up schools by shifting to them millions of dollars in tax revenues that otherwise would have gone to cities and counties — and redevelopment agencies. A few years later, it shifted the costs of trial courts from counties to itself. But there was never enough for everyone. It's like a game of musical chairs, with the chairs being all the available pots of state revenue and the players being cities, counties, school districts and so-called special districts and redevelopment agencies. The players outnumber the chairs, and the music has stopped.[…]Naturally, city leaders would rather sell redevelopment bonds without an election; it's often difficult to persuade voters to back redevelopment projects. But Brown's proposal at least offers a solution. It shows a way forward for cities as well as the state. Now the burden should fall to Los Angeles, and hundreds of other cities and redevelopment agencies whose budgets and programs are intimately intertwined with the state's, to craft workable solutions and alternatives that keep California solvent, keep Californians working and put local residents back in charge of their civic destinies."
Where they've left for now: Gov. Brown challenged the mayors to come up with another solution if they don't like this plan.
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--Alexandra Le Tellier
Photos: Top, Gov. Jerry Brown. Bottom, from left, San Jose Mayor Chuck Reed, Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, and Sacramento Mayor Kevin Johnson. Credit: Rich Pedroncelli / Associated Press
acorn ltr 02102011 Knock on teachers was uncalled for
ReplyDelete2011-02-10 / Letters
I appreciated Michelle Knight’s article (“Battle over redevelopment agencies hits close to home,” Acorn, Feb. 3) about the history and purpose of redevelopment agencies.
It goes directly to the point of what should be cut or saved as our state finds itself in the worst fiscal condition ever.
Articles like this are necessary for us to know what is at stake in this year’s budget.
But what I found disturbing is that an elected official would use this article to make a shameless attack on teachers. The Conejo Valley Unified School District is and has been recognized as one of the best in California.
According to the article, Tom Glancy said: “The people are the losers” if redevelopment agencies are eliminated. “The teachers win and the people lose.”
If I read the article correctly, it said those redevelopment agencies’ tax dollars would go to the city, the county, fire departments, water and special districts and schools, which would receive the largest share.
Why would Tom Glancy single out teachers in such an inflammatory and irresponsible statement? Does he think this will help his cause politically?
Who are the people who will lose? Is it a billionaire developer who was given a sweetheart deal under Tom Glancy’s watch? Bob Isenberg Thousand Oaks
Use of redevelop dollars ‘a scam’
ReplyDelete2011-02-10 / Letters
Someday the people of this city will realize what a scam the redevelopment agency on Thousand Oaks Boulevard is.
The city fought the owner of the Jungleland property for five years, finally getting it away from him at $1 million an acre per the judge’s orders.
Does this sound like blighted land to you?
But you see this gave the City Council a chance to become a redevelopment agency and take all of Thousand Oaks Boulevard off the regular tax rolls.
We can prove this because at the time we asked the city for an accounting of what was going on at the Jungleland site and, although we presented 10,000 signatures of registered voters, we were told by the city fathers (not my word choice) that because this project was redevelopment agency funds, the taxpayers had no say in its use.
When I ran for City Council I tried to point this out at every opportunity.
I was not treated as someone who cared very much for this community.
Now it looks like this city is going to get its ill-gotten gain taken away from it.
What irony. Robert Hughes Thousand Oaks
SACRAMENTO — The head of the state's redevelopment association, signaling a retreat from the organization's entrenched opposition to Gov. Jerry Brown's proposal to abolish redevelopment agencies, told lawmakers Wednesday that there may be room for a compromise in which the agencies would turn over a greater share of their property tax revenues to other local government entities.
ReplyDelete"Revenue-sharing might make some sense," said John Shirey, executive director of the California Redevelopment Association, testifying before a Senate hearing on the proposal. "I don't know that it wouldn't be possible to provide more money to schools."
Under redevelopment law, the local agencies capture all of the growth in property taxes from the moment a redevelopment area is created until it is dissolved 50 years later. Over the last 35 years, the share of local property taxes statewide that has gone to redevelopment agencies has soared from 2 percent to 12 percent.
As a result, the nonpartisan Legislative Analyst's Office said in a report released Wednesday that the state now spends an extra $1.7 billion each year on schools to backfill property taxes lost to redevelopment agencies, and other local government entities receive $210 million less than they otherwise would.
Brown proposes to eliminate the state's 435 redevelopment agencies, allow successor agencies to keep enough of their property taxes to pay off existing debt, and divide the remainder of their tax revenue among local school districts, counties, cities and special districts.
The proposal has met with sharp opposition from cities, which control most redevelopment agencies. City officials say redevelopment has revitalized deteriorating downtowns, financed public works projects, spurred economic activity and created hundreds of thousands of jobs.
All that may be true, acknowledged Lois Wolk, D-Davis, chairwoman of the Senate Governance and Finance Committee.
contd from post above "There is no doubt that there have been good things done by redevelopment, but for us, that's not the end of the discussion," she said. "The question is can we continue to subsidize redevelopment agencies at the expense of schools and core local services?"
ReplyDeleteIn remarks to reporters before the hearing began, Brown said the redevelopment proposal is integral to his overall strategy to permanently put the state back on sound financial footing.
"This package only works with taxes, spending cuts and realignment," he said. "Recapturing the property tax for its primarily intended purpose will save the state money because the things you do at the local level you can do more efficiently."
Treasurer Bill Lockyer, a supporter of Brown's proposal, described redevelopment agencies as "vampire agencies" because they are "sucking the blood of everybody around them for their own particular purposes."
Lockyer told the committee that while the state may want to later restore some of the functions of redevelopment agencies, the best first step is to wipe the slate clean.
"My conclusion is that we should blow this up and start again," he said. "It would be the prudent and smart way to do it. It's better to just reinvent in this circumstance."
Assemblyman Chris Norby, R-Brea, a former Orange County supervisor, said redevelopment money is often used to subsidize private development. He cited as an example a new dive bar a block away from the Capitol where women dressed as mermaids swim in a large tank behind the bar. It was built with a $5.7 million subsidy from the Sacramento Redevelopment Agency, he said.
"As Republicans, we always say, 'Let's cut waste, fraud and abuse,' " he said. "This is a waste. If you're going to cut welfare for the poor, you ought to cut welfare for rich developers also."
Following the four-hour hearing, Wolk said she is not optimistic about the possibility for a compromise, in part because the League of California Cities-sponsored Proposition 22, passed by voters last fall, prohibits the state from redirecting property taxes that go to redevelopment agencies.
She said she would entertain alternative proposals from city officials, but has yet to hear specific ideas. "I'm waiting for them to come forward."
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rescuediver writes:
ReplyDeleteSome of these RDA folks should be in JAIL for the Eminent Domain claims they have pulled-off for projects like: shopping centers for developers, new apartment complexes, etc (non-necessary government projects such as land for freeways, which is what Eminent Domain was origianlly intended for and only in last-resort caes). It is a shame what some RDAs have done to individual home, land, and business owners. They simply got too big for their 'britches' and all wanted to be the best communities....in a state this big all communities simply can't be the best if you are going to house and employ 1/3 of the entire USA's population in one state!
Anyway, I fully support 100% elimination of RDAs and giving the power and money back to local governments to decide how the money needs to be spent in their communities.
I am not saying I automatically support everything coming from Gov. Brown because time will be the ultimate judge, and I am sure I'll disagree with some idea he has in the future - afterall we are a democracy and we can do that, right? But on this issue this is a Grand Slam on his part!
Read more: http://www.vcstar.com/news/2011/feb/09/redevelopment-leader-says-compromise-is-possible/#ixzz1DXmKZZD6
- vcstar.com
nickeq writes:
ReplyDeleteWhat we need to slay this monster is PUBLIC support which means educating them which puts pressure on the law makers We also need the k-12 community to come along
The few good projects in depressed area could be excluded with properly written legislation.
http://www.redevelopment.com
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Read more: http://www.vcstar.com/news/2011/feb/09/redevelopment-leader-says-compromise-is-possible/#ixzz1DXmROvdw
- vcstar.com