Dan Walters: California Legislature does the right thing on subsidy bill

Sacramento Bee ^ | 4/22/8 | Dan Walters

[SmithL]

Once in a while, almost by accident, the California Legislature sets aside pettiness and venality and does the right thing.

It happened last week, although you won't find any official record, when legislation that would have changed a city's redevelopment powers in ways that could lead to widespread abuse was quietly killed without a committee hearing.

Sen. Gloria Romero, D-Los Angeles, dropped the bill that the City of Industry was promoting after getting an earful of complaints from other local governments, especially Los Angeles County, and redevelopment reformers.

Redevelopment, for those who aren't familiar with it, is the process by which local governments, cities for the most part, can declare neighborhoods to be "blighted" and then exercise extraordinary powers, including seizure of property, to foster investment.

Redevelopment use expanded dramatically after voters in 1978 passed Proposition 13, which reduced property taxes and forced local governments to seek new sources of revenue. It has become a powerful development tool for local governments, albeit one that's often abused to underwrite auto malls, big box retailers and shopping centers in hopes of generating more taxes for city coffers.

The Legislature has been slowly tightening up redevelopment law to curb the abuses, especially to underscore that lands involved in redevelopment plans must be blighted. But the City of Industry, an enclave of industrial and commercial development in Los Angeles County with few residents, wanted to extend its redevelopment projects without having to declare them to be blighted.

It was widely believed in the Capitol that the city's measure was aimed at creating a vehicle to subsidize a National Football League stadium that would draw a new team to Southern California, although city officials and the prime promoter of the stadium, billionaire developer Ed Roski Jr., denied it.

The city dispatched some well-connected lobbyists...

[eclecticEel]

I guess a stopped clock is right twice a day.

[RC2]

Yep....build a Roman Colisieum for the games at the peoples expense so the people will be busy and won’t see what their government is doing.

[Lancey Howard]

I guess a stopped clock is right twice a day.

You're giving them way too much credit. Obviously, the politicians' palms were not greased quite enough.
"Right" has nothing to do with it. It never does.