Pillage and Burn. Emergency Redevelopment Meeting Today!
An urgent meeting is scheduled for this Tuesday afternoon at City Hall. While most meetings are scheduled for 6PM or later, this one is set for 4PM, forcing many to leave work early in order to speak at the meeting.
The urgency of the council/Redevelopment Agency meeting comes after Governor Brown announced his intentions of squashing Redevelopment Agencies as component of saving money and redistributing funds to their normally allocated destinations.
This afternoon’s Agenda has only one item:
In a nut shell, City Hall sees their glass house shattering and is looking to pull out as much money as possible from the Redevelopment Agency in order to install street lights in the Lemon/Truslow area, stabilize the slopes along Harbor Boulevard just below the YMCA, work on Hillcrest Park, and build a parking garage at the Fullerton Transportation Center.
In all, the City/Redevelopment Agency is looking to move $14,100,000 from the Redevelopment agency coffers to the City of Fullerton coffers to help cover some of the upfront costs associated with these projects.
If any of those mentioned sound familiar it’s because just last Tuesday the City Council decided to ask Congress for some money to address them.
This sounds like the scheme of someone who desperately pulls out every bit of equity from their house ($14.1M from RDA’s tax increment), maxes out all of their credit cards ($29M in tax bonds) for that new sports car (town homes and condos and garages) knowing they are about to get slapped by a court-ordered judgment (governor’s proposed budget) that will surely leave them penniless.
Once again, the lack of leadership has manifested itself by the procrastination of City Hall to tackle our crumbling infrastructure. Water-mains continue to erupt forth from our streets like Old Faithful while the ever-expanding potholes begin to resemble the Grand Canyon. At this rate, residents will be able to sell tickets to the spectacle as our city sinks into the abyss of municipal doom.
Actually this is not a bad thing. Redevelopment funds are being spent on infrastructure instead of subsidizing Costco or moving a McDonald’s 200 feet.
It will be pretty funny if Brown’s gambit fails and then all these agencies can backtrack on their panic-stricken deals.
That Harbor hillside is not in a project area. How can they spend increment there?
Look at page 3 of the link. The hillside is projected to affect the RDA area, therefore they think it qualifies for Redevelopment funding. On a side note, if this hillside has failed, one wonders about the the viability of the hillsides in another high profile development project proposed for the area…
Wait, did they remove the McDonalds from the Hillcrest Park plan?
Sebourn should have been out Councilman instead of the three Grandpas who are on the dais right now. Embarassed to live in Fullerton!
“our” Councilman…please note the correction!
No he shouldn’t by a councilman. The Fullerton voters didn’t want his ass. Just because you say he should doesn’t make it.
fullerton’s RDA’s projects outlined above continues Goofy ‘s(Pam Keller) legacy to fullerton. along with its Fringie awards, the FFFF should have the goofy Keller awards that honors RDA’s accomplishments not only in fullerton but statewide.
Controller John Chiang wants to investigate some Redevelopment agencies across the state:
http://www.sco.ca.gov/eo_pressrel_controller_launches_rda_review.html
‘The 18 RDAs selected for the reviews represent urban, suburban and rural communities. They are geographically diverse and represent a mix of varying populations. The reviews will look at, among other things, how the RDAs define a “blighted” area, whether they are appropriately paying for low- and moderate-income housing as required by law…’
The only one if OC so far is Placentia. Fullerton is way behind on some of the low income housing requirements, and has already been sued over its obviously false claim of blight to form the newest area of its agency. Can’t wait for the report fro the state.
Just months after approving a $29 million Redevelopment Agency tax bond, Mayor Pro Tem Don Bankhead sends a clear message of “do as I say, not as I do” to Sacramento:
“I would also like to send word to the Governor that the way to balance the State budget is to quit spending more than they have coming to them.”
Now if only the City Council and Fullerton Redevelopment Agency would take that advice and stop borrowing against our City’s future.
I like Rudy’s take!
What will they do if the money is free to waste again?
Chiang is going to BITCH slap some of these agencies down. The real concern at the city level is a mayor/council has ALMOST no political leverage with the Governor.
Despite claiming that Jerry Brown sleeps over his house, mayors of cities like Santa Ana are going to be )rightfully) hard hit here, democrat or republican.
A five year moritorioum would be a good start.