Hang Your Heads In Shame, California GOP
California Governor Jerry Brown’s bid to dissolve about 400 redevelopment agencies and use their revenue for schools and local government may be resurrected in a compromise on tax increases to close the budget deficit, according to a fiscal adviser to the Senate’s top Democrat.
“It will follow the larger budget deal,” Steve Shea, an aide to Senate President Pro-Tem Darrell Steinberg, said of Brown’s proposal at a redevelopment conference in Sacramento yesterday. “It will fall into place as the larger budget deal comes together.”
Brown proposed abolishing the agencies, which have revitalized downtown San Diego and spruced up a Palm Desert golf course, to help bridge what was a $26.6 billion gap. The $5 billion plan, opposed by several big-city mayors, fell short of passing the Assembly by one vote on March 16.
Brown, a 72-year-old Democrat, took office in January on a pledge to repair financial strains that have brought the lowest credit rating to the most populous state. He signed budget bills yesterday with cuts, loans and transfers that lowered the deficit to $15.4 billion through June 2012.
The governor’s proposal to wipe out local redevelopment agencies and enterprise zones won support from Assembly Democrats and one Republican. Passage requires a two-thirds majority, which would take one more Republican.
Many Republicans voted against shuttering redevelopment agencies because their party was united against Brown’s overall budget, not redevelopment in particular, said Assemblyman Chris Norby, a Republican from Orange County. He was the only one to break with his party.
Norby, who also spoke at the conference, said redevelopment has become a form of corporate welfare and that some agencies had abused their powers of eminent domain to seize private property.
“For a number of them, it was a difficult vote to vote with the agencies,” Norby said of fellow Republicans, in an interview after the conference. “Many of them have been fighting the abuses for years.”
Norby declined to forecast the bill’s chances of passing, saying its fate is tied to Brown’s attempt to persuade at least four Republican lawmakers to put $9.3 billion in tax extensions on the June ballot.
Sabrina Lockhart, a spokeswoman for Assembly Republican Leader Connie Conway, agreed with that view.
“Assembly Republicans oppose the budget overall because of the gimmicks and the borrowing that got us into this mess,” Lockhart said by phone yesterday.
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