Late word out of Sacramento: Pension Reform + Higher Taxes On Way

***UPDATE***
Sacramento insiders are telling me that GOP State Senators are working on a compromise that would place taxes on the ballot in exchange for pension reform.  No word yet on who will flip.  More updates to come.

***ORIGINAL POST***
An anonymous source out of Sacramento is reporting a backroom deal is in the works with party leaders which will give us pension reform AND higher taxes. 

I am in the process of confirming this information from someone who I consider to be a reliable source.  As soon as I have a confirmation and more details, I will share it here.

Mayor Pro Tem Bankhead to Gov. Brown: Do as I Say, Not As I Do

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.

City to Bleed $14.1 Million from Redevelopment Agency As Governor's Proposed Budget Looms

An urgent meeting is scheduled for this 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 (MISSING WORD ADDED BY ME):

CONSIDER APPROVING A COOPERATION AGREEMENT BETWEEN THE CITY OF FULLERTON AND THE FULLERTON REDEVELOPMENT AGENCY FOR (PARTIAL) FUNDING OF CAPITAL IMPROVEMENT PROJECTS, GRAFFITI REMOVAL SERVICES, AND PROFESSIONAL SERVICES

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, improve 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.

Also in the news, the California State Controller’s Office Announced that they have selected the Placentia Redevelopment Agency among 18 agencies to be reviewed by the Controller’s Office.

“The heated debate over whether RDAs are the engines of local economic and job growth or are simply scams providing windfalls to political cronies at the expense of public services has largely been based on anecdotal evidence,” Chiang said. “As lawmakers deliberate the Governor’s proposal to close RDAs and divert those funds to local schools and public safety agencies, I believe it is important to provide factual, empirical information about how these agencies perform and what they bring to the communities they serve.”

Read more about the review at http://gregsebourn.blogspot.com/2011/01/controller-launches-review-of.html

Sacramento Bee: Redevelopment rush also occurred in 1993

(from the Sacramento Bee by Kevin Yamamura)

January 20,2011

More than a dozen cities have fast-tracked redevelopment proposals ever since Gov. Jerry Brown released his plan to eliminate the local agencies that use property tax revenues to subsidize construction projects.

The redevelopment rush is not unprecedented.

A similar flurry of activity occurred in 1993 when the state enacted a stricter blight definition. As a 1994 Legislative Analyst's Office report detailed, cities moved quickly to expand their redevelopment areas in 1993, likely out of fear that such neighborhoods wouldn't qualify under the new blight definition in subsequent years.

The Analyst's Office found that local governments placed three times as much land in redevelopment zones in 1993 than they did in the previous year. In one case, the report found, "the City of San Diego approved a redevelopment plan for land near San Diego State University which does not appear to suffer from severe or intractable problems," contrary to the stricter blight definition.

With that in mind, the Analyst's Office suggested last week that lawmakers may want to think about imposing a temporary freeze on redevelopment expansion to allow debate to unfold. That hasn't happened so far, and some cities now appear to be easing off the pedal as they monitor the situation in Sacramento. Los Angeles, for instance, delayed action on $930 million in redevelopment projects on Tuesday, while San Jose also backed off Wednesday.

Brown said Wednesday he remained open to the idea of a freeze, but he has not committed one way or the other.

As we noted earlier, there appears to be little consensus in the Capitol on whether to freeze redevelopment activity, let alone eliminate the agencies. The debate is one of the few that does not split along party lines, and many lawmakers have come straight from city councils where they benefited from redevelopment dollars.

Assembly Republicans debated the issue this week and came to no unified conclusion, said Assemblyman Chris Norby, R-Fullerton, a former city councilman and mayor. Norby strongly opposes redevelopment agencies, calling them subsidies for retailers. But other members of his caucus, including Assemblyman Cameron Smyth, R-Santa Clarita and chairman of the Assembly Local Government Committee, support redevelopment agencies.

A further complication to a redevelopment freeze is that some cities might be rewarded for sending money out the door over the last week. One idea floating around the Capitol would retroactively impede redevelopment actions dating back to Jan. 10, but that could invite legal questions.

Brown told city officials Wednesday, "You may win on redevelopment, and then we take something else." Some legislative aides have speculated that the showdown may end in a compromise with the state taking $1.7 billion in one-time dollars without permanently eliminating redevelopment agencies.

That's the kind of deal that Capitol leaders have struck in recent years, but Brown has signaled he doesn't want to follow the same path his predecessors did. We'll see.


Read more: http://blogs.sacbee.com/capitolalertlatest/2011/01/redevelopment-rush-also-occurr.html#ixzz1Bbt0kAOT