The CRA has been very effective at lobbying for laws and changes to the existing Health and Safety code to facilitate the ability of cities to acquire land with public money to give to private developers. The present redevelopment laws were extensively modified this year. The counties and the school got their pound of flesh for some of the excesses that have gone on in the past. There are no more pass throughs allowed. The schools and county government will now get their money on future projects. But most parts of the past agreements stay in place with their diversion of funds away from the schools.
Under the old law, Downey's Revelopment Agency could, in fact, have voted to give Downey High School money because it is in Amendment 4 (Firestone Project). Although both the City Manager and the Community Development Director have denied the ability to have done so, the authority was written into the project agreement as one of the five justifications for approval. That option is now gone by statute. Redevelopment Agencies can no longer give money to schools directly. However, there is a loophole, and at a recent California Redevelopment Agency seminar I attended it was carefully spelled out in response to a question from the floor. Downey’s Redevelopment Agency could sell bonds and the bond proceeds could be used to rehabilitate, for example, a building at Downey High, with the Redevelopment Agency paying back the debt and without penalizing the school. The mechanisms are still there to accomplish this if the Redevelopment Agency wants to and the school asks for it. It may finally be time for public discussion on this topic.
In another vein, the law requires, that a Redevelopment Area have debt to remain in existance. The theory is that when the agency successfully has a profit, it’s work is done and it should disappear. A few months ago our city council loaned the Woodruff Project $300,000 so they would have debt, since that project currently operates at a profit and would otherwise have to shut down. At the same time they also loaned the Firestone Project $300,000 without any stated reason or purpose-not even the duboius reason of creating debt. With the City pleading such poverty of the General Fund, it is time to stop this shell game with our public money and look at what can be done to help the schools or give some raises for civilian police employees.