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County to sue state to reclaim redevelopment cash
September 29th, 2009, 4:50 pm · 11 Comments · posted by Jennifer Muir
Orange County plans to join a group of counties and cities in suing the state of California to block the state from raiding its redevelopment reserves.
Supervisors voted 4-1 in a closed session meeting today to join the lawsuit, which challenges a grab of $20.5 billion from local redevelopment agencies to balance the state budget.
Los Angeles County will handle up-front costs for an outside attorney and provide its own in-house counsel, Supervisor John Moorlach said. It’s unclear how much the lawsuit would cost Orange County, Moorlach said. Also not immediately clear is which other agencies are joining the case.
“We don’t think what the state is doing is constitutional,” Moorlach said. “And if we don’t participate and the lawsuit prevails, we still lose our portion of redevelopment reserves.”
For Orange County, that’s means paying the state $8.79 million this fiscal year, and $1.8 million in 2001-11, according to a budget report presented to supervisors today. Under AB 26 4x, the budget bill that authorizes the take, the money would be sent to schools and school districts inside the redevelopment area instead of to the redevelopment agencies themselves.
Redevelopment agencies use a portion of property tax money to improve blighted communities by partnering with private developers to encourage development of housing and commercial projects.
Supervisor Chris Norby, an outspoken opponent of redevelopment agencies and the lone vote against the lawsuit, said diverting money to schools is a good solution.
“The state budget is in crisis and we really shouldn’t be suing the legisliature,” Norby said. “Even if we sue th state and get the money back, it’s going to come from somewhere else.”
But a previous attempt to divert money from the agencies was unsuccessful. The California Redevelopment Association challenged the state’s attempt to take $350 million from redevelopment agencies in 2008. In April, a judge ruled the grab was unconstitutional.
In an effort that’s separate from Orange County’s case, the California Redevelopment Association also plans to challenge this year’s redevelopment take.
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DENA BUNIS, Washington bureau chief, 202-628-6381 or dbunis@ocregister.com
BRIAN JOSEPH, Sacramento correspondent, 916-449-6046 or bjoseph@ocregister.com
JENNIFER MUIR, County government reporter, 714-796-7813 or jmuir@ocregister.com
JOEL WALSH, Washington bureau intern, 202-628-6381 or jwalsh@ocregister.com
MARTIN WISCKOL, Politics reporter, 714-285-2867 or mwisckol@ocregister.com twitter.com/MartinWisckol
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I wonder, is this another hair brained idea like the pension lawsuit that was cooked up by Mario Mainero? Or is this a viable case and if so, who voted no?
Any ideas Jennifer? Have you contacted the individual Supervisors? Clearly Supervisor Moorlach voted yes, but a response or lack of a response from the others might shed some light on who the naysayer was and why.
Looks like Norby was the no vote. He thinks the money should go directly to the schools instead of the redevelopment agencies. Not too bad of an idea.
Not really, schools will just funnel the cash into benefits and pennies will trickle down to the student level. Better off just giving parents vouchers for private schools. As far as the redevelopment money if any of the assembly had actually planned and earmarked for projects already they would not be scrambling to wrestle for control. The proposed tax overhaul will be a better revenue tool in the future but no matter how much money is collected it will perpetually be just below what is spent.
Digger.. you hit it… another lawsuit like the pension one that will cost OC big money. Maybe the 4 YES voters can pay for this one from their pay checks…. or are the different agencies under the board going to take another hit in layoffs/etc. to pay for it.
Where is the money coming from to pay for this suit????? Thought the county was broke????????????
Just a thought !!!!
The answer is to raise property taxes. Right now, our state is almost wholely dependent on sales and income tax and disproportionate share of that is paid by the rich. The richest 3% of the people in this state pay 60% of the state taxes. t’s not right to say they don’t pay their fair share.
This is very simple math. You have a fixed income stream from property taxes to pay for essential services (such as police and other emergency response teams) and then you have more variable sales and income tax to pay for all the other frivolaties our state wastes money on.
No, the answer is not to give the govt. more money. The answer is to spend less.
Jake, you are no doubt one of those who would be the first person to complain when you don’t get some government service you expect. The average city gets about $200 to $300 in property taxes from an average single family home. From this the City must provide 24 hour police and fire services, libraries, circulation system, storm drainage collection systems, parks, community centers and aquatic centers. And they must expand their maintenance yard and also try to set-side money to replace these facilities. An average City such as say Fullerton has the high hundreds of millions of dollars in replaceable assets with say an average of 65 years lifetime requiring say $25 million to $30 million a year in replacement but probably no ability to replace those assets. Jake, you are one of those selfish types who feels that the government should not take any tax money and you are ignorant of what it actually takes to both expand, update and maintain all of those assets that YOU benefit from daily. Just look at the L.A. water system and note that this will happen to all of the infrastructure in Orange County, it will deteriorate until it simply collapses. THEN you and every other chronic complainer will blame the elected officials and claim they should have taken care of it sooner. Watch what happens in L.A. People will still complain when the water rates ( the proper source for revenues for a user-based system) need to be raised. This country did not become great by skimping on infrastructure. We became great by building commonly used facilities, but now somehow that has become socialism. It always was and always will be. Its collective construction of collectively used facilities. Many of you just don’t deserve the government you receive. And, that does not mean that it is all done completely efficiently, yes there are abuses, there always will be and we should be vigilant in trying to end those dysfunctions. BUT we will survive as a society only if we combine some resources (most like through taxes) to build, maintain and serve all of us.
I’m cheap? I pay more than my fair share of taxes. In another post I talk about how much I made last year(80K) and the fact that I have no kids and my house is paid off. Last year on my w2, I paid in total (state and federal) in the neighborhood of 18K towards taxes. That’s not cheap in my book. Also, that does not include the roughly 8K in property tax I paid last year. I am not sure where you are getting the $200-300 average/house but to me that makes no sense. Where did the rest go ($7,700-$7,800)? I am well aware of the cost of maintaining a city. I am involved with the maintenance of a very large resort, this year my budget was about 19.5 million. Most of that went to wages and utilities but I know all about cap-x projects, reserve funds, 5/10 and 20 year plans and what it takes to run a very large place (sewers, roads, power, etc.). Don’t assume things, you know what they say about that.
I’m not cheap, I am just tired of being taxed to death. When I used to live on a Caribbean island, I paid 2.5% in taxes. Now, that country had no military, about 80K in total population and is nothing compared to America, but the island did have roads, sewers, police, hospitals, fire fighters and other infrastructure you mentioned.
http://www.hjta.org/pdf/piglet/CalPigletBook2008.pdf
That is a link to the piglet book that lists some of the pork spending in this state, some of them make me laugh and cry at the same time.
It upsets me off that money gets wasted on things like this and some(you apparently) feel that we should give them more to waste.
Free cars for employees to drive home every night and use on the weekends? I will run that by my GM. He would laugh me out of his office.
Jake says:
September 30, 2009 at 8:26 amNo, the answer is not to give the govt. more money. The answer is to spend less.
______________________________________________________
If depriving the state of essential resources is your plan, then don’t complain spiking crime rates, gang violence, and increased deaths because you weren’t willing to shell out a few more dollars to pay for police, schools, and hospitals.
Depriving the state of essential resources? So, if I was allowed to audit the state, I would find that all of the money that is spent by the state goes towards paying for ESSENTIAL things? Give me a break. It is time that the state and country are ran like a (good) business. Wasteful spending needs to end. The state of California needs to look at options other that raising our taxes to help with the current economic issues.
Also, I pay way more than my fair share of taxes. I’m 30, make over 80K a year, have no kids and no mortgage (I own it already). So, don’t ask me to “shell out a few more dollars” I already do! Just because the govt. likes to wastes so much money, I shouldn’t have to give them more.
“California is having trouble keeping track of fuel purchases for its 50,000 state-owned vehicles. This is a precarious fiscal concern with gas at four dollars per gallon and a state deficit of $17 billion. Nor does California, which has one of the largest fleets in the nation, buy all of its fuel at bulk rate to take advantage of the state’s buying power. Each vehicle comes with a credit card assigned to it, and these cards totaled $98 million in expenditures in 2007 but only 60 percent of total fuel costs. The other 40 percent, bought at bulk rate wholesale prices, remains unaccounted or. States should develop a centralized system to measure and contain fuel consumption. Texas, for instance, has required its agencies to insert data into a central database detailing vehicle use and the amount of fuel used per vehicle.” Sacramento Bee, July 5, 2008
Yeah, lets send them more money, do you trust that it will be spend wisely?
Jake, Jake, Jake. I just knew that you would find some little nugget of waste you could bring up to make your case for strangling common government expenses. I admitted there may be some, but the tourniquet you and other right-wingers (and I suspect you are on the right but you will be offended by this) makes each one of these problems come to light. Some one responsible for this gas problem will straighten it out or get fired. I bet if I could check out what you do for a living I could point out a few mistakes you have made over your career. But to answer your basic question, I work in a private sector field where I have a lot of contact with local government officials and yes, 99.9% of them do their daily best to stretch every tax dollar they can to maximize services to a largely unappreciative population. I know this because I compete for contractual work and many times I lose out to a better proposal. I know government workers get a good retirement (O.K. the higher paid get a great retirement, but the other 95% get a fair one as its based upon their perhaps lower wages), but frankly I wouldn’t want to put in 30 years providing service to the likes of you and other selfish citizens who benefit daily from their hard work but continue to complain. Jake, please remember to make the distinction between elected officials who can’t determine a solid policy if their lives depended upon it because they are constantly concerned about getting re-elected from the many fine government workers who do a great job every day. Again, I make my prediction, the infrastructure of this county will slowly deteriorate over the next 30 years to a point of massive dysfunction and you nay-sayers will blame someone else for it all. Also Jake you do not really pay that much in income tax vis-a-vis what you pay for federal taxes, compared to other states. Having moved in the past three years I pay plenty of property taxes while others who have simply “not moved” pay 1/4 to 1/3 what I do. What kind of taxing policy is this? One that is based upon longevity in one place, not related in any way to services provided. Unfair and not representative and another way to keep having the next generation picking up the tab, as they will for the deteriorating infrastructure, all for you, Jake.