Jerry Brown’s been there, done that for much of California politics. While he has been in state government in his most recent stint for just over four years, his time as Oakland Mayor isn’t really all that distant. So, you’d think he would carry some street cred with California municipal officials.
Well, considering the massive spending spree with redevelopment projects over the past ten days, that doesn’t look to be the case. They are, of course, upset about the possible end of the (slush?) funds from the redevelopment agencies, funds that they get to take just a little bit of credit for, but there’s more than that. Part of Brown’s realignment plan is to devolve some power (and money) to the city and county level, but they aren’t so sure it’s going to happen. And they have the buttons to prove it:
Ever since the Democratic governor proposed eliminating redevelopment agencies to help balance the budget and direct more money to schools and public safety, cities have responded by pushing projects out the door in emergency meetings to thwart Brown’s plan. But the few hundred city leaders gathered Wednesday at the Hyatt Regency Sacramento were respectful when Brown spoke at their League of California Cities luncheon, never mind the buttons declaring, “Stop the State’s Redevelopment Proposal.”
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“We just don’t have the money right now,” he said later in defense of his Oakland projects. “That’s the problem, and that’s the difference.” (SacBee)
Of course, this austerity thing is the way he’s planned on going for a while. I’m not sure that it will actually get any right-wing votes in the legislature, or even the ballot box, but it might just be enough to get the DTS crowd to push the vote over the line when it comes to that time in June.
As Robert mentioned earlier, we need some sort of system to encourage redevelopment. There is a lot not to like in the current system, and its tendencies towards big splashy projects over building quality housing and the like. Totally demolishing the system perhaps cuts down on the boondoggles, but doesn’t really provide a long-range plan. And so, the muni’s skepticism is really to their credit.
There are still details to be hashed out, and as the saying goes, there are your details. The realignment plan could ultimately be successful on all ends, but there is going to have to be some convincing going on.
Or, one might say, semi-rural. Up here in Butte County/Chico. The idea of re-development is supposed to be to facilitate the revitalization of “blighted” areas. And it seems like, from what I read, in the urban areas it often works that way. Up here in this part of the world, the definition of “blight” is often the same as “open space” and redevelopment monies are used to make big gifts of public funds to developers to build on open, undeveloped land. This is clearly, in my mind, a perversion of the original intent. Reading big city newspapers since Brown’s proposal surfaced, it seems clear that redevelopment funds a fair amount of worthwhile stuff in the big cities. But around here, nearly all of the progressive community would love to see it go away. If the developers had to pay for their own streets and sidewalks for their strip malls and subdivisions, we’d see a lot less of the runaway development that degrades our quality of life. Not sure the concept needs to go away, but it certainly needs to be seriously re-thought.
I do not approve of newly elected Gov. Jerry Brown’s proposals to reduce the budget deficit. We should not have drastic cuts to services nor raise regressive taxes like the sales tax. Here is my idea–a one-time (maybe) wealth tax.
There are around 1 million millionaires in CA, and that is not counting their primary residence. Over 600,000 of them are so with liquid assets alone. I propose a wealth tax on the richest in the state. We have a 25 billion dollar deficit; if we taxed 100,000 from the wealthiest 250,000 Californians, we would have enough to pay the deficit. Perhaps one would prefer 50,000 from the wealthiest 500,000. Or maybe something more staggered to the entire 1 million.
In any event, we could pay off the deficit easily without taxing over 95% of Californians. And the wealthy would not exactly suffer if we took this small % of their wealth. Then next year the government could look at cutting “waste” from various programs, etc. But we should not do something so quick and drastic as our government proposes. A year of deficit free government would give our leaders time to think of the best way to handle future (probably next year) deficits.
Brown created quite a bit of buzz at the League conference. He received two standing ovations. And the next day people were still talking about how funny and charming he was.
His message was basically this:
I know you don’t want to lose your redevelopment funds, but we all have to come together as Californians and make it work. If you guys fight me and get to keep your redevelopment money, that money will get cut from schools and health care. It has to come from somewhere. We all have to sacrifice.
Despite the buttons and everything, his message was warmly received.
As for the cities’ need for their redevelopment money, some need it badly and others have misused it.
As a city manager said to me, “Taking it away will level the playing field between cities and you won’t have the competition for development.”
I suspect that we will lose some and keep some.
It seems to me that this reaction by the cities to quickly commit their funds is an admission of the likeliness of Brown’s proposal succeeding.