The city's move locked up $100 million, which Santa Monica later used to rehab the six city parking structures; assist in building a new main library and new Civic Center parking structure; and shore up the Palisades Park bluffs.
Despite what Gov. Brown wants, Santa Monica has one more chance to keep its RDA riches. Just like Los Angeles and other cities, by March 1 the city had to submit to the state a list of its former RDA's "enforceable obligations payment schedules" — redevelopment projects that, if not honored, would create legal ramifications.
The City Council slashed about half of the $267.7 million it had earlier tried to protect from Brown. City leaders pulled from the list the plush Colorado Esplanade project idea, among others.
"We're only putting things on the schedule that we're confident we can defend," said Nia Tang, of the Santa Monica Housing and Economic Development Department.
But it's not at all clear what constitutes a defensible financial "obligation."
When asked, Kathy Fairbanks, a partner with Sacramento-based public affairs firm Bicker, Castillo & Fairbanks, responded, "That is a very big problem."
Jim Kennedy, president of the California Redevelopment Association, agreed, saying it involves "a lot of gray area." Agreeing on the definition of a financial commitment "depends on who you talk to" and which projects municipalities will "go to the mat for," he says.
In Santa Monica, deciding which developments meet the definition is up to an oversight committee made up of seven political appointees chosen by Mayor Bloom, the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors, special districts in the former RDA, the L.A. County school superintendent and the Santa Monica Community College chancellor. Final say rests with the California Department of Finance.
If Jerry Brown is banking on Santa Monica to pump tens or hundreds of millions of dollars generated by its redevelopment zone into the general fund for schools and social programs, he's likely to be disappointed. If the list of projects Santa Monica wants to complete is OK'd, "not only will there not be enough, there will be no residual," says Arlene Barrera, chief of L.A. County's Auditor-Controller's property tax division.
It could be years before Santa Monica's former earthquake redevelopment agency starts putting money back into county coffers, finally freeing up its public funds for the cash-strapped state, public schools and social services.
Jason Islas contributed to this report.
That's ok you'll have the next quake soon enough and then it will all repeat, this time complete with federal bailout. Your money will be worthless but as long as you take the national id and go to the work camp and thumbscan for food, you'll get enough to pay your government-subsidized landlord.
And as ALWAYS the Tax Payers witness their Corrupt Career Inept Politicians doing the two things they do best, Flushing Tax Dollars Down the Drain to Improve things for the Haves. And Second they Remove all doubt about where their loyalty lies. The List of Self Serving Corrupt A Holes in California Politics is ENDLESS.
Santa Monica went from being a laid back beach community with a stable middle and lower income population that was culturally diverse --- to an exclusive enclave for the wannabe rich and famous ---- that is probably even more socio-economically homogenous than Beverly Hills.
I lived in Santa Monica for over twenty years. First as a renter in one of the most architectually well designed apartments imaginable. Those were what I remember as the good old days prior to the 1994 earthquake. The earthquake levelled much of the city, especially the apartment buildings, which had not been properly maintained due to greedy landlords, many of whom were real estate speculators. Termites (the insect kind) which had also done there work on the wood and stucco buildings turned out to be the developers best friends when the buildings collapsed due to underlying structural damage.
Then as an owner in a TORCA conversion project gone badly wrong. I moved in a year or two before the 1994 earthquake and actually found myself underwater on the mortgage for a while. In the meantime while I was waiting for the market to turn around, I watched the City of Santa Monica become totally corrupt. The rich quickly took over City Hall and gobbled up the shrinking middle class with things like (flat parcel taxes to subsidize the schools) so if your annual property taxes were $2 million per year on your beachfront estate or $1,200 in your torca conversion in the barrio you paid the same amount. Fortunately I sold at the top of the market (or bubble) and was one of the few to make a decent profit. I moved to West LA and these same corrupt corporate and real estate interests want to run an illegal light rail system in front of my house. No shame what ever is right.
Santa Monica is still Raymond Chandler's Bay City. The city is just as corrupt as it was when the Rex was anchored offshore.
Money diverted into the redevelopment agencies would have otherwise gone to the county and to local school districts. Los Angeles County could have fixed problems at Martin Luther King Hospital, expanded gang prevention programs, and improved services to battered women with this money.
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