How Great Is The Redevelopment Agency? 7-11!

Taxpayers Pick Up The Tab:

Redevelopment Agency Provides Junk Food, Mattress Stores

Gotta love it: 37 different types of chips.
Oh thank heaven! 

Opinion
Need a shot of fat and salt?  The Emeryville Redevelopment Agency's got your back!  Or maybe 'had your back' is more fitting.  As developers line up their forces to combat the Governor's recent rescinding of redevelopment agencies state-wide, we should pause to acknowledge all the good works the Emeryville Redevelopment Agency has done for us, the residents.
The opening this week of the new Seven Eleven on the corner of 40th Street and San Pablo Avenue provides just such an opportunity.  Emeryville residents who crave cigarettes and processed garbage food will have yet another outlet to satisfy their cravings.   And it's all thanks to the enlightened vision of the Emeryville Redevelopment Agency and it's chief apologist and huckster, City Manager Pat O'Keeffe.

Wanna wash that
down with a 3
liter Slurpee?

Consider all the sublime, neighborhood enhansing retail brought to us over the years: in addition to the shiny new Seven Eleven, think Mattress Discounters, Little Caesar's Pizza, Kentucky Fried Chicken, Sleep Train and the like.  It's all done to bring maximum livability to Emeryville according to Mr O'Keeffe and the city council.  In addition to the swelling sense of pride Emeryville residents must feel at the opening of the new Seven Eleven, Mr O'Keeffe and the council have given us the opportunity to pig out on junk food and then sleep it off on a new mattress; all with millions in taxpayer subsidies handed out to the developers.

It's all been done with us in mind, mind you.  Emeryille's Redevelopment Agency said all the big box malls and fast food and franchise chain retail is an essential ingredient to a livable town and they pursued it with great alacrity; we've been the lucky beneficiaries of that forward thinking vision.

Failed municipality: Not one
Seven Eleven in Piedmont.

But we're left feeling just a touch of pity for the City of Piedmont California, the hometown of Emeryville City Manger Pat O'Keeffe.  It's remarkable that Piedmont has been left high and dry; they've received none of these vital ingredients to livability.  It seems Mr O'Keeffe has selflessly worked for Emeryville's benefit, leaving his own town without so much as a single mattress store.  Even as we bask in the glow of the civic pride engendered by the new Seven Eleven, we wish our neighbors well and we hope Piedmont will be able to leverage it's clout and bring to it's impoverished citizenry a new Seven Eleven and all the social benefits that flow from the 37 different types of chips on offer.

The Redevelopment Agency: A Tribute

A Photograph Of The Former Emeryville Redevelopment Agency

Opinion

The forgone
Redevelopment Agency
RIP

The best photograph from the cadaverous erstwhile Redevelopment Agency we could find.
The developer Rich Robbins of Wareham Development, lavished with millions of subsidy taxpayer dollars from his benefactor and friend, Redevelopment Agency member Nora Davis, the sovereign of the agency.  Over the years Ms Davis helped clear away many small businesses located in historically significant buildings for Wareham by hostile Eminent Domain.  As the monarch of the city council, Ms Davis overturned the General Plan and overruled the Zoning Ordinance to facilitate Mr Robbins' development aspirations.  We're not sure what Mr Robbins did for Ms Davis but we hope it was something really nice.

Redevelopment Agency Dissolved

Breaking News:

Emeryville Redevelopment 
Agency Kaput

Reprinted from Reuters:

California court says state can kill redevelopment agencies

Reuters – 6 mins ago

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - In a major victory for California Governor Jerry Brown, the state supreme court on Thursday upheld a law that would eliminate 400 local redevelopment agencies and could divert billions of dollars to schools and other local services.

The court ruled that the state legislature was within its rights to abolish the agencies, which have long played a major role in local development projects ranging from apartment houses to train stations and sports stadiums. At the same time, the court struck down companion legislation that would have enabled the redevelopment agencies to stay in business if they agreed to pay a big chunk of their revenues to the state.

Local officials vehemently opposed the elimination of the redevelopment agencies, and a group of plaintiffs, including theCalifornia Redevelopment Association and the League of California Cities, asked the California Supreme Court to declare both laws unconstitutional.

Redevelopment agencies, widely used around the country, sell bonds to fund local development projects. They pay them off with the increased property tax revenue, or tax increment, that results from the project.

Governor Brown has argued that because of the convoluted way in which property tax revenues are divvied up in California, redevelopment agencies have the effect of diverting money away from schools and other local services. The state is then forced to fill the funding gaps for basic services while the local redevelopment agencies pursue projects that might be beneficial locally, but do little to lift the state's economy as a whole.

The most immediate effect of Thursday's court ruling will be to preserve the state budget for the current fiscal year. The budget, passed last summer, includes $1.7 billion in redevelopment funds that would flow to the state as the agencies are wound down. Successor agencies would assume responsibility for repayment of existing redevelopment bonds; projects that are already underway would in most cases go forward.

The non-partisan legislative analyst's office has estimated that the elimination of redevelopment agencies could free up $2 billion a year for schools, courts and other services.

Jean Ross, executive director of the California Budget Project, called the ruling "good news for the budget."

Local officials, on the other hand, say they will lose a crucial tool for revitalizing blighted areas and promoting local economic development. Redevelopment agencies often acquire land in run-down parts of a city and invest in infrastructure improvements. They then work with private developers to build parks, convention centers, transit stations, shopping malls and apartment buildings, among other things. The agencies also help to fund affordable housing projects around the state.

The elimination of redevelopment agencies is among Gov. Brown's boldest strokes since he took office last year, and a key part of what he calls the "realignment" of state and local taxes and services.

Because the "tax increment" generated by redevelopment projects is not subject to the state-mandated formula on how local tax revenues are divided among cities, counties, schools and special districts, local officials have an incentive to rely heavily on redevelopment districts for a wide range of projects. The city of Oakland, for example, was found earlier this year to be financing some police services, and even part of the mayor's salary, with redevelopment funds.

Redevelopment critics also say the agencies have gone far beyond their mission of combating blight and often subsidize projects that either would have been built anyway, or would have been built in a nearby city.

(Reporting by Jonathan Weber and Dan Levine; Editing by Dan Grebler)