- The California Supreme Court decided that a law banning redevelopment agencies would be upheld. The decision was unanimous, and there was a 6-1 vote to do away with the companion measure, which would have allowed redevelopment agencies to operate so long as they gave some tax revenue to schools and special districts. Governor Brown and supporters are pleased that property tax revenue siphoned by the agencies will go to other important areas of the budget, but agency supporters say they’re losing a vital tool for combating blight. L.A. Times
- City Hall despairs at the ruling. Carol Rock quotes Lisa Webber, Planning Manager, about what this means for the Santa Clarita Redevelopment Agency’s work in Newhall: “This is the worst thing that could have happened [...] this leaves us with no option to continue.” KHTS City Manager Ken Pulskamp was also glum. SIGNAL
- But their despair was short-lived, as there are already plans to seek legislative remedies to the rulings that might restore some semblance of the abolished redevelopment agencies. SCVNews
- Will Simi Valley’s Rep. Elton Gallegly run against Rep. Buck McKeon or will he try to represent the 26th? Perhaps he’ll just retire? Gallegly won’t say just yet, but promises to make “an informed decision.” VCStar
- It’s all a matter of perspective. From The Signal: “Bakersfield mail distribution center could relocate to SCV.” From Bakersfield Now: “138 postal employees in Bakersfield may lose their jobs.”
- Traffic laws going into effect on the first will affect those of you with small children (car seat/booster until age 8), those who go through sobriety checkpoints without licenses (no more 30-day impoundment), and those who advertise on their vehicles (local governments have more power to regulate). Read up on the new laws.
- An Eastern Hoolock Gibbon born at the Gibbon Conservation Center on Christmas has been named Alan Mootnick to honor the center’s recently deceased founder. SCVNews
- If you want a feel-good recap of 2011, watch SCVTV’s 4-part Year in Review organized on Santa Clarita City Briefs. Scroll down to start at part 1. BRIEFS
- On this penultimate day of 2011, we wish you a sincere, albeit premature, Happy New Year.
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I thought I was the only person stuffy enough to use “penultimate.” Nice choice of wordsing.
Penultimate is the thinking man’s fortnight.
Stuffy? Penultimate sounds like a word out of wrestlemania.
Crafty contrast between TMS and Bako Now
The loss of Redevelopment Agencies is a bad thing. I get why Brown did it, but I don’t agree with it. Redev has brought about things like a safe and clean Old Town Pasadena and San Diego’s revitalized Gaslamp District. Not every project was great, and not everyone liked every project, but on the whole, I think they were a benefit to many communities.
Now, thousands of people who work for redevelopment agencies statewide are pretty much without a job. Hows that help out the economy?
According to comments reported from our esteemed legislators, many thought that they were not getting rid of these agencies (just extorting them). Unintended consequences – you just have to love them.
For those who want to read the actual California Supreme Court opinion “killing” redevelopment, you can see it at:
http://www.courtinfo.ca.gov/opinions/documents/S194861.PDF
The opinion describes how the redevelopment “tax increment” money is to be used to fund public schools. Boondoggles for redevelopment directors or better schools? It doesn’t seem like a big loss to me despite the boo hoo from city employees around the state.
The part of the Supreme Court opinion I found most entertaining was the description of the errors made by the people who drafted a ballot measure, approved by the voters in November 2011, which tried to stop what the Governor and the Legislature did to redevelopment. It sure would be interesting to know which lawyers wrote the unsuccessful constitutional amendment contained in that ballot measure, and how much money they got paid.
I am not heart broken by the loss of redevelopment as a tool for cities. I’ll never forget the “deal terms” for the building of the Sheraton Grand hotel in downtown LA in the early 1980′s. A partnership of Metropolitan Life, Sheraton Hotels and an obnoxious rich guy from Chicago who got the following “goodies” from the LA City Redevelopment Agency: (1) land sold to them at discount, (2) a brick sidewalk and streetscape paid for by the Redevelopment Agency, (3) giant palm trees imported from the Indio area and planted at the Redevelopment Agency’s expense and (4) kid gloves treatment on building inspections during construction. At the time, I wondered what “benefit” the average person in the City of LA was getting from that redevelopment project and the corporate welfare involved in it. I still have the same question. Those sorts of “deal terms” on redevelopment projects are normal, and often from a major retailer’s point of view (like that of Wal-Mart) the deal can be made even sweeter, economically, by politically motivated city councils of small cities who usually act as redevelopment agency directors.
Team Hatami should be celebrating this decision since it will starve money out of Newhall redevelopment. I am guessing Petz will also celebrate since, like them or hate them, Redevelopment agencies distort the normal process of supply and demand.
I still always find it entertaining that “fiscally conservative” “free market” Repub officeholders (our current City Council) are only too thrilled to shove their hands up to the elbow (figuratively) into the revenue streams created by these agencies.
Per The Signal, we have spent $48 MILLION of our taxpayer dollars on Old Town Newhall. Do you really think this was money well spent?
I would be very interested to see a check-by-check accounting for that $48 Million, in terms of who was paid and what they did for the money. Major newspapers hinted that cities were secretly using redevelopment funds to subsidize their general operating budgets to provide “city services”. While I have no inkling that was the case in Santa Clarita, a check-by-check review would likely eliminate that concern.
Well, our city is operating in the black.
The thing about redev funds going toward general funds was that there were always questions that most people who don’t have a deep understanding fail to understand.
Such as why do $150K of redevelopment funds go toward the city’s IT budget? (this is hypothetical… I’m making this up entirely, so don’t assume it to be true.) Well the answer lies in this: Do you want to waste more money creating an entire seperate IT operation for your redevelopment agency? Or would you rather allocate funding for the city’s IT staff to perform the redevelopment agency’s IT needs? An argument could be made either way, and depending on the size of the agency, could be justified either way, or even justified for outsourcing… But a lot of people just looked at the surface and see transfers from redevelopment to IT and say “hey, wait, why is redevelopment paying for IT?” without realizing that they contribute 1/10 of 1% of IT’s total budget.
(AGAIN! 100% hypothetical. Illustrative purposes only. Professional driver on a closed course. Always obey traffic laws, please put your seat backs and tray tables up in their full upright and locked position!)
Now, not to say that the potential isn’t there for abuse, and undoubtedly in many places that has taken place… but thats why there are audits and a board that oversees the activities of the redev agency.
In speaking with conservative state legislators about AB438, more than one raised an eyebrow and/or gave a disapproving nod to an aide when hearing about our new Newhall library.
Hey, I’m just sharing what I observed. I wasn’t talking to state legislators about redevelopment. Heck, I don’t even know enough about redevelopment funds to have much of an opinion.
The State of California is facing a $13 billion budget deficit – Redevelopment Agencies and California Enterprise Zone Programs get to exist in “the good times.” We are years away from justifying this kind of spending. When families lose jobs and income they cut the cable bill so they can pay for food and utilities. Redevelopment is the State’s cable bill – It’s nice to have it but you don’t really need it when the State is trying to close a gap of $12.8 billion and there will be further cuts in the January budget.
Cheryl, I disagree. The intent of redevelopment (and I don’t particularly like enterprise zones because I think they offer too many concessions for little to no reward, but nonetheless) is to stimulate growth in an already downtrodden area, i.e. Old Town Newhall.
Next up: Canyon Country.
Areas long ignored, and often poorly conceived initially who, with some attention and re-examination, can be made into long-standing, profit centers full of jobs, sales-tax revenue and even low, moderate and high income housing.
You say that in these times we shouldn’t have them… I say we need them now more than ever. Create the jobs! Bring revenue to the city’s coffers while giving people a new lease on life.
Ken Pulskamp said that spending $48,000,000 on redevelopment made 300 jobs. That’s an obscene $160,000 per job (if you believe his numbers and don’t ask too many questions about what kinds of jobs were created). Redevelopment has created hostility between the city and a number of individuals who lost their businesses more or less forcefully in the drive to make Newhall less Newhallish. (Perhaps you were being ironic when you wrote “giving people a new lease on life”?) Why can’t people just let Newhall be Newhall?
Simply, because Newhall hasn’t been Newhall for quite some time. I can’t say that I particularly like going to Newhall, and aside from the occasional Sunday brunch and Plantation Mary (I love em spicy!) I have no real need to go to Newhall (despite the fact that the gargantuan zip code seems to indicate I live in Newhall).
Aside from Canyon Country (with few exceptions anything along Soledad, east of Whites, getting worse as you go further east) I can’t think of a more blighted area of Santa Clarita. Driving up San Fernando, err Newhall Ave past the trailer parks, gas stations, dumpy apartments and a park that has been under constant renovation since the time I painted some of the buildings as a cub scout, I really see why the place needs redevelopment.
(I’ll certainly concede, the area along Lyons isn’t nearly as bad as along Newhall Ave, and probably doesn’t need to be included in there…. Or if so, should be a separate project altogether with a much smaller budget.)
Trailer parks? Gas stations? Dumpy apartments? Heaven forfend! I feel bad that you have to see these horrific sights on your way to Sunday brunch. But the people serving your Bloody Marys, for example, or the elderly people in Newhall on a fixed income, or any number of Clarita’s less affluent individuals may find a trailer park next to gas stations or a dumpy apartment is what they can afford. Poor and blighted aren’t synonymous.
How absolutely right you are! Poor != blighted. Thanks, in large part, to redevelopment, lower income families have a chance at a having a home that isn’t in a blighted area.
Not all gas stations are blighted, however the Mobil on Newhall Ave is one of the most run-down I’ve seen in some time. Its an eyesore, that lowers property values (ok, if the surrounding property wasn’t a disused and poorly maintained vacant lot… that doesn’t help things either).
What if we could create affordable housing options for those seniors, who aren’t left to take those fixed incomes and pay high energy bills for their outdated, inefficient homes.
Trailer parks, well they’re just dangerous. Period. They should be straight up outlawed. Too dense, too dangerous, and the incidences of death by fire in a trailer park, I’ll speculate to say, is higher than any other form of housing. Fire code? What Fire Code??? (Case in point, the trailer park @ Newhall and Sierra has had at least 3, if not 4 multi-alarm fires in the past few years that I’m aware of.. but you don’t have to take my word for it…
http://www.hometownstation.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=27223:fire-prevention-niccum-clarita-2011-12-06-15-58&catid=26:local-news&Itemid=97
Nothing I said has anything to do with forcing out the poor. In fact, much of Redevelopment’s aim is to give a second chance to lower income, disabled or otherwise economically disadvantaged individuals. In Burbank, they partnered with Habitat For Humanity to bulldoze some run-down apartments and build brand new homes for eight families. Wouldn’t THAT be nice in Newhall?
And who is going to pay for this? Our state is broke. The county of LA hands out millions in subsidies to landlords to provide low income housing. Have you ever been inside low income units? I have.
You cannot generalize them. Sure, there are people that are down on their luck, seniors on a fixed income or people that are disabled.
However, there are a fair percentage (about 50% in my experience) that are major trouble. The places are pigstys. They are packed with able bodied people sitting around. You don’t knock before noon because you stand a good chance of waking someone up. There is almost always a big screen TV. It is not uncommon to see them driving cars they cannot afford, Cadillacs or Mercedes.
As a state, we subsidize peoples housing, childcare, food and medical bills. Why bother working?
My wife and I used to live in a very nice apartment community in Van Nuys that converted 25% of all units to section 8 as part of a government loan. Almost overnight the property went downhill. When the assaults, burglaries and vandalism started, we moved out.
So, when someone talks about subsidized housing, it makes my skin crawl because I have seen the ‘benefits’ of this first hand.
Please explain the ROI model on our $48 MILLION dollar invested to date.
I haven’t been around long Santa Clarita long enough to even pretend to make a judgement to the value of the improvement that Newhall may or may not have seen, so I won’t even try.
$48 MM is a lot of dinero, no doubt. But what percentage of that was property tax revenues vs CDBG money from the Feds?
Who cares???
This is the problem. It does not matter if the money comes from the feds or the state or the city. They all get their money from us. It was our $48 million that was spent to ‘revitalize’ Old Town. And, it is not even done yet.
The city should have formed a public/private partnership to get the work done. The city could have offered loans or loan guarantees. They could have drafted special building code standards for the area and streamlined the permitting process. Instead, they spent $48 million for what?
The risk with this investment falls almost entirely on us, the taxpayer. The risk and the capital investment should have been taken on by a private developer. If no private developer can be found, perhaps the project does not have merit.
I like the ‘concept’ of Old Town. But it is wholly unrealistic. The entertainment center of this valley is the mall, not that I like it. People line up for hours to eat some crappy burgers at Islands, while excellent mom and pops struggle to stay open. It is hard to change consumer behavior.
Old Town today largely serves the needs of the nearby Hispanic community, which is highly pedestrian. Take a drive down Main Street and count the number of businesses catering to this community.
There is nothing wrong with this, and there are some gems in there (El Trocadero is excellent as is the asada at Tressierras). But it is not going to become this eclectic arts district the city envisions. Not unless they bulldoze all the housing east of the tracks and build luxury town homes. Then it would stand a chance.
Generally, redevelopment is about the public/private partnership. Its about the no/low-interest loans for business to improve, and even for homeowners.
I’ll read up more on it tomorrow and see what I can see with the Newhall Redev Zone. I’d be shocked if those features weren’t built in to it.
Don’t get me wrong. I am completely for redevelopment, but people keep ignoring the $13 billion deficit as if it will just disappear one day. Education cuts go deeper and deeper every 6 months – talk of cutting the school year by 7 days – kids unable to get classes at COC because so many have been cut. I know kids that were ready to start their Freshman year in August at COC who were unable to get even one class at the COC campus – transportation in rural areas of California to get kids to school – completely cut – and it goes on and on and on. Again, I am a major supporter of redevelopment but it is not a priority in these economic times. I’m still waiting for my Laemmle theater that actually has movies that aren’t cartoons and explosions. Palmdale got one before SCV – Wow!
And those education cuts are shameful, only necessary because the people of the state of California (AKA voters like you and me) have failed to guarantee funding for education, and we allow anyone to go to community college, regardless of their aptitude or their ability or willingness to succeed.
I don’t wanna get on a rant about the utility of community colleges, but on the whole I think they’re mostly a failed experiment in giving everyone a chance, even those who don’t want the chance. When I was finishing up my BA some years back, I took some classes @ COC, and there were three types of students. 1.) Super motiviated, would excel at USC, UCLA or even Harvard or MIT, but can’t afford those so they’re doing what they can to save money 2.) Kids lacking a true direction in life, but still determined to move forward so they’re there while they figure it out, not sure why they’re taking a Spanish 201 class, and 3.) kids who are there because its a condition of living under their parents’ roof still and they don’t want to face the real world.
Obviously #1 is not a problem to me, #2 is generally OK, and #3 makes me want to chew glass. My solution: Community College (or I guess more specifically, the classes that are the UC/CSU transfer classes) is subsidized to the extent that you continue on. Declare your intent and follow through. If your intent is to complete a degree, great. You get the $20/unit rate. Fail to complete that degree and you’re on the hook for an additional $100/unit. If your intent is a vocational certification, fantastic! We need tradesmen and tradeswomen. Get that certificate or owe us $1500 more!
Lets make it a subsidized loan program with qualification for forgiveness. Nobody has to fork it out upfront, and you can even get forbearance or deferment in the same way that Stafford loans do. But if you fail to complete the terms of your forgiveness program, and you’re on the hook, for a loan that bankruptcy can’t wipe away.
you are absolutely clueless Todd. That Ivory Tower must be so nice.
What ivory tower? Because I believe the system is broken and in need of repair?
Clueless? I’m sorry, I must have missed your solution. Where was it? Oh, thats right, you’re just pointing fingers at everyone else, but not having the courage to stand up and say “I have an idea!”
Do you?
Todd, don’t listen to them. Your thoughts are clear and unlike some you admit to when you need more information. You are certainly on the right track.
I’d like to hear Petz’s take on the Redevelopment agency now that he may become a politician…
Did you get the free water nozzle from CLWA for completing the survey? Petz never passes up a ratepayer subsidy.
Did not hear about the nozzles. Recently though they were giving away $400 sprinkler timers for taking a short class on how to use it properly. I think they may have even installed them for free. The article I read said they were really high end.
Petz has his, the free nozzle was for answering the questions on the survey. Love my sprinkler control.
Hey Petz how about the thug Lions leading the league in Personal Fouls and getting beat by a second string packer team?
One has to evaluate the courts decision from one perspective only, did it comply with the law and the state constitution. From that perspective the decision was clearly the correct one. The legislature and Governor Brown clearly worked within the law. Shame on Hatami for his silence.
Petz opposes Redevelopment Agencies in practice and principle-the state needs a complete overhaul of it’s tax system to flatten it and make it more competitive with outher states and countries. This will be Scott Wilk’s mandate from councilman Petzold MBA. That’s right, Petz is the only candidate with this advanced degree.
Petz promises to vote against giving city dollars to Valencia car dealers too, which is the B side of the redevelopment game-just more open and direct. He is the only candidate to make this pledge to the people.
Petz:
Is you MBA better than mine? I got a Cracker Jack box MBA from Drake University that they threw in with the law degree!
Will Petz’s candidacy mailers/flyers be written in the 3rd person, ’cause it may turn a few prospective ‘supporters’ off.
Petz is a declared candidate?
“That’s right, Petz is the only candidate with this advanced degree.”
He seems to think so.
Cheryl, about that Laemmle…. It’s in Lancaster, and it’s in a Redevelopment Area! Lancaster Blvd and downtown Lancaster is a prime example of how Redevelopment should work, it’s still early, and I think it’s got a long way to go still. But I’ve been there 6 times in the last year now, most recently Thursday for the grand opening of their latest establishment, a microbrewery called Kinetic Brewing. Imagine if Newhall had exciting things going on like that!
Now, as for $13 Billion in the whole…. Redevelopment won’t save that. Comprehensive revenue reform… Aka repeal prop 13 and start over. Santa Clarita is proof that cities cannot and will not survive on sales tax revenue alone.
That’s why I mentioned it. There was talk of a Laemmle early on in the redevelopment process – got my hopes up. Again in these economic times it’s difficult to get investors and developers to jump on our bandwagon. I’ve been to Brea, Montrose, Ventura’s Main St., Old Town Pasadena, Claremont, Monrovia, Gaslamp Quarter in San Diego, Old Town Temecula – I look forward to the day that we can have the kind of success these places have enjoyed. Imagine………..
So we need more taxes? I think the state does a fine job wasting the money the collect from us already.
We need a tax system that can at least keep pace with inflation for one thing, secondly we need to stop allowing the voters of California to pass initiatives that create indebtedness or costly programs without including the funding source for said initiatives attached.
Artificially keeping the property tax at a maximum 2% increase year to year, when the cost of living has far exceeded that since Prop 13, will never work. We’re broke because of it.
And not one word about cutting spending.
Cutting spending may be one part of the puzzle, but the fact is, it won’t scratch the surface. Same with the fed as with the state. If we cut 100% of discretionary spending, we’re still in the hole.
We (Californians) need to stop spending on ballot initiatives that cost the tax payers billions in unfunded mandates. If you’re gonna put forth a ballot initiative, you better spell out in detail how its going to be paid for, and you had better be able to fund it 100%. Unfunded mandates are what is killing the state.
“Cutting spending may be one part of the puzzle”
How generous of you.
Better idea?
Cutting spending is the best idea, I didn’t think I’d have to spell that out. Then I realized I was talking to a one trick pony, a “the-only-solution-is-to-start-taxing-more” pony. You guys are so tone deaf you don’t even recognize the fundemental issue with our state budget when it stares you in the face; we spend more than we take in.
“Cutting spending may be one part of the puzzle”
Incredible.
Oh man, make that “fundamental” and “it’s staring”.
Must remember to proof read, don’t want to sound like I went to school in Nebraska!
Todd, here I have to disagree with you. Proposition is not our problem. Our problem is the folks in Sacramento who only know how to spend and who have yet to find a tax they don’t like. If Prob 13 was not in place, those idiots would have raised taxes even further.
Throw all the bums out in Sacramento and get an entirely new set of Assembly members and Senators. Some spending has come from intiatives but these people keep adding and adding and adding entitlements like there’s no end to the flow of money.
Cheryl:
Can I ride your unicorn?
Yes, you may…………………
Okay, so what does this all mean for the City’s fiscal health:
1 Redevelopment agency dissolution–funds to complete Newhall library available?
2. The loss of the $3 million that was supposed to be netted from the library takeover, and,
3. The expenditures from the general fund and/or redevelopment funds for the library takeover (that now can’t be reimbursed–and how much is that).
Are we in trouble?