With California in debt over $368 billion and the California Redevelopment Agencies creating more than $93 billion of that debt, the time has come to eliminate California Redevelopment Agencies (RDA). The California State Supreme Court agrees and killed the redevelopment scam as of January 2, 2012. Redevelopment agencies take our tax increment dollars away from public schools and essential services; fire, police, libraries and public hospitals. You may have heard your city’s Redevelopment Agency aka your City Council brag about the number of jobs the RDA has created, but check out these numbers at the State Controller’s web site.
The Temecula City Council states that Temecula’s RDA has created between 2000 and 4000 jobs. The state controller’s data tells a different story. In the Annual RDA Reports from the past 10 YEARS, every single report lists ZERO jobs created. Would you be surprised to learn that, according to the 2008-2009 RDA Annual Report (the most recent report available), the Temecula RDA has created $514,533,921.00 in total indebtedness? The 2001-2002 Annual Report listed their debt at $51,321,707.00. The Temecula RDA managed to increase their debt by over 10 TIMES in just 7 years! It takes a special talent to generate that much debt with not one permanent job to show for it.
In March, the California State Assembly had the opportunity to eliminate the RDA by voting for SB 77. Every Democrat and only one Republican, Chris Norby- Brea voted yes. The rest of the Republicans including Assemblyman Jeffries voted no. SB 77 failed to pass by one vote!
The Brown administration wants to strip some 398 redevelopment agencies of their funding- in effect, abolish them- across California and use their money, some $1.7 billion the first year and $400 million annually after that for education, social services and other programs.
In March, the redevelopment agencies offered a counter to the governor’s plan. The proposal would have allowed the agencies to remain in existence while contributing money to schools and other programs. The administration said the new plan strips the agencies of their funding but allows some to continue if they turn over future money for other purposes. The agencies and their allies opposed the governor’s proposal and are took their fight directly to the California Supreme Court, thereby forcing the Court to rule that RDA’s were in violation of their own new law.
The City of Temecula is still indebted over a half billion dollars through RDA, and will remain so until your grandchildren have paid it off..
http://www.capoliticalreview.com/top-stories/rdas-hoisted-on-own-petard/
