About 270 workers at the Los Angeles Community Redevelopment Agency have received notices of possible termination as City Hall negotiates with their union for concessions that would keep its budget in the black. An official with the Coalition of L.A. City Unions tells La Opinion (translated) that the loss of employees, including managers, could shut the controversial agency down.

The notices state that layoffs would be effective Dec. 28, according to the paper. A CRA official indicates the pink slips are simply a ploy to force workers to accept early retirement. “It's just a warning that if the ERIP [Early Retirement Plan] package does not work people would be fired,” the official told La Opinion.

The CRA is charged with increasing low-income housing units and helping to redevelop and recharge blighted or low-performing business zones. That always isn't the case, however.

We recently noted that the CRA has been criticized for helping to take over productive businesses via eminent domain and then sitting on the property for years as court battles ensue.

And earlier this summer we reported how Cecilia V. Estolano, a woman who was on her way to changing the CRA for the better, was essentially chased out of the agency as its executive director.

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