As momentum builds for his plan to eliminate the redevelopment agencies, the agencies themselves are going around rapidly approving projects. Well, apparently the Governor thought about that possibility:
Looks like Gov. Jerry Brown's office has a contingency plan for all those cities around California that have been rushing to approve redevelopment money before the state can kill the program. (Eliminating redevelopment is a key part of Brown's plan to solve the state's $26 billion budget deficit.)
Included in a bill proposed by Brown's office that would eliminate redevelopment is language which would let the state "review the validity of the adoption or amendment of a redevelopment plan at any time within three years after the date of the adoption of the ordinance adopting or amending the plan, if the adoption of the ordinance occurred after January 1, 2011."(SF Gate)
This is another component that would likely get lumped in with the budget trailers. If the legislature goes along with ending the redevelopment agencies, it would be hard to imagine that they wouldn't pass this as well.
As I went through today's California news clips, one thing is gradually becoming clear. Despite the resistance of cities across the state, Jerry Brown has the upper hand on the redevelopment fight at this point.
In addition to a very insightful CalBuzz column on redevelopment, George Skelton also politely hinted that it is time to usher them out the door. Oh, and there's also the fact that cities are shoveling as much of that money as they possibly can into projects hastily pushed through. In San Diego, they are desperately trying to get a new stadium for the Chargers with redevelopment money, and if Santa Clara can't get money for the 49ers, well, they just might have to stay in San Francisco.
This is far from any sort of hard fact, as a whole consortium of city and county organizations are continuing to fight the closure of the redevelopment agencies. But, Jerry might just have been too darn slick on this one. I mean, who can really argue that redevelopment agencies are more important than K-12? Football stadiums or schools? While the agencies can play important roles in building forward looking cities, it is just to easy to point to a boondoggle here and there to justify their termination.
Of course, this is the problem with our zero-sum budgeting. At some point, we need to find a way to meet the needs we have without being hemmed in by some ridiculous pledge to a guy in DC who is quite possibly insane.
But it will probably be too late for redevelopment agencies.
Let's just call a spade a spade. Our budget has walls. Lots of them. And when you try to bust through one wall, you are going find some very angry villagers behind the next one.
That's what happened with the redevelopment agencies. They had some money sitting around behind their walls, and the folks up in Sacramento took notice. So, off the money goes to the schools.
State officials dodged a $2-billion bullet Tuesday when a judge ruled that last year's shift of funds away from redevelopment agencies to pay for schools was legal.
In a 26-page ruling, Sacramento County Superior Court Judge Lloyd Connelly said the state was within its rights to move the money. The maneuver saves more than $1.7 billion in the current budget year and $350 million for the 2010-2011 budget year.
Legislators have been trying to borrow from and shift various pots of money as part of their continuing effort to balance the state's books, which are more than $18 billion out of whack. The moves have prompted lawsuits, some of which have ended in rulings that the state acted illegally.
Connelly said payments to schools "benefit redevelopment" and therefore are a valid use of redevelopment funds. (LA Times)
This is the problem that we have with a budget that is chock full of walls and lacks flexibility. We can't look at our overall priorities, we have to peek at one area or another.
In the end, the money is probably better off with the schools, but that doesn't change the greater point that we just can't continue to deal with a budget this large without taking a broader view.
I interviewed Sen. Mark DeSaulnier just a few minutes ago for a series on CA-10 candidates. But I took the opportunity to ask him about the budget deal. Un unusually blunt and what I would characterize as irate language, DeSaulnier blasted the budget and the process that created it. "It's all awful," he said. "On a majority-vote level, with votes that require a majority vote, California still leads the nation. But on a fiscal level, we're living in the Dark Ages. The system is completely dysfunctional and maybe the only good thing is that people will finally see the kind of change we need. Sadly, too many people are still in denial about that change. But we can't go on like this. It's just a mess."
DeSaulnier thinks that the economy is unlikely to change dramatically to bail out this budget, and it will take a long time for General Fund revenues to get to a point to pay off the money borrowed from education. And so we'll remain in this dark place for some time.
The Senator is carrying a bill in the legislature to put together a Constitutional convention, and he is "more convinced than ever" about the need for it. He believes that, after the budget is put the bed, there is an urgent need, recognized by the leadership, to turn completely to reform. Sen. Steinberg has said to him that the message will be nothing but change, change, change. And the caucus wants to work, whether through a revision commission or reforms that could be put together with majority support, to do a "Constitutional convention in the building." Unfortunately, DeSaulnier said, everyone on both sides of the aisle immediately goes to the worst-case scenario of a convention, thinking that their gains and protections will be lost. But that's no excuse. DeSaulnier hoped he could get with Republican leaders like Sam Blakeslee to find common ground on a few reform issues, but he's not sanguine about those choices. "They're individually good people, but put them together and they're a cult, not a party. Milton Friedman's dead, move on."
When I asked what he would vote for on Thursday, he said "I will probably vote against most of it." DeSaulnier singled out two pieces that could not get his support: the offshore drilling in Tranquillon Ridge, and the raid on local governments. On the drilling, he doesn't understand why Democrats would approve such a proposal for a paltry $100 million dollars in this budget year. "I don't know why the Governor would do that. Whatever environmental record he claims to have will go down the tubes. I never thought he was particularly green to begin with, he tried to slow-walk AB32 and all sorts of environmental initiatives. He's the worst Governor in state history, just like George W. Bush was the worst President in history.
On the local government raid, DeSaulnier said that as someone who came from local government, he could not see clear to essentially bankrupt them. Those takings don't take place until December, according to him, so he would rather get the LAO involved, score the kinds of tax credits at the local level, things like enterprise zones that don't work and other giveaways to corporate interests, and suspend them to make local government whole. I think it's an interesting strategy, though I don't know if it could succeed. Tying it to local government needs is smart.
And by the way, the crazy redevelopment money scheme, to borrow against those future funds and securitize 10% of property taxes for 10-20 years? DeSaulnier called that "insane" and "illegal," and just a shadow play by Republicans "so they can go back to San Diego and Riverside and say they tried to save their local money and failed."
DeSaulnier has an election coming up, and thus an incentive to take a bold stand. But this is pretty darn bold. And if there are enough Democrats to go along with him, Republicans may indeed be forced to own this budget.
For the first time in over 10 days the sun is out here in Monterey. But hey, after 6 years in the Emerald City, I'm used to the gray...
Is free speech being lost in privatized SF parks, asks a Fog City Journal guest op-ed? Given how little public assembly space that city actually has, and the corresponding need for free, accessible community organizing space, this is a major concern.
Also from FCJ: SF Supes defeat 6-5 a measure to protect the health of Bayview-Hunters Point residents who are certain they're falling ill from dust and possibly asbestos kicked up by Lennar's redevelopment project. This is especially ironic to me, as my dissertation is in part about the earlier fight against redevelopment in the Western Addition in the 1960s. Then, as now, the city leaders chose to defend redevelopment in spite of its harmful impacts on the residents it was ostensibly there to help.
From the Sightline Institute comes this graph of how various kinds of cars compare in their CO2 emissions. The difference between a Prius' emissions and those of an average passenger car are greater than the difference between that average car and an average SUV.
LAist is beating the drums for Ron Paul - and isn't about to apologize for it. Sigh. He's Barry Goldwater, Grover Norquist, and James Dobson all rolled into one. I dread the moment when the corporate powerbrokers see the opportunities inherent in Ron Paul's 1890s approach to political economy, and how it motivates many Republican netrooters.
