Recognizing that bureaucracies tend to be self-perpetuating, we need to look deeper to learn why they are able to stay that way. The trail leads straight to the boards, commissions and city councils that do not provide the needed oversight. The magic ingredient to reform seems to be term limits. There is increasing evidence that, at least on a local and state level, eight years is long enough to get the best ideas out. After that it's redundancy.
Long Beach has given itself away to the tune of $505,766,102 in total indebtedness, including some $116,697,258 in un-built low income housing. The failed downtown revitalization that is still mired in blight is a showpiece of neglect. The agency is literally out of money, having begged from the federal government, borrowed from the Harbor Commission, and stolen from the West Side Industrial Area all it could.
So has anything changed? Yes, term limits are starting to have an effect. New City Council members are starting to ask questions. The ex-city manager, on whose watch this disaster took root, has cut and run. The ex-director of redevelopment, the architect of this house of cards has left for new cities to slay. And the Harbor Commission Board wants to know where all their money went because the Port of Long Beach is now in trouble and about to lose their biggest tenant, MAERSK. Yes, this time the Harbor Commission loaned so much money to the Redevelopment Agency to give away to developers that the Commission did not have enough left over to upgrade the harbor facilities; one reason MAERSK is moving to the Port of Los Angeles. That was the final wake-up call.
Can Long Beach save itself? Probably not in its present financial structure. There is not enough tax increment income generated from the Redevelopment project areas ($13,522,482) to even service the annual bond interest ($14,475,550). All told, the agency had a $24,273,728 shortfall. A negative cash flow won't repay anything. It will take some massive state and federal grants to bail Long Beach out of the black hole of Redevelopment.
It must be remembered that what brought this out into the sunlight was term limits. There is an old saying that "if they haven't done it in 8 years, they are not going to do it in 12." Term limits provides the fresh ideas and questioning that comes with new blood. Entrenched political and financial relationships are at least examined, if not broken up, so it is harder for cozy little deals to corrupt the system. Perks handed out-trips, lavish meals, use of cars-are the way of the patronage system. Term limits are the anathema of entrenched bureaucracies.
Yes, Long Beach will survive, but when the debt comes due, there will be many recriminations.
Merry Christmas, Susan, and thank you, Joe.