RDA Funds: Detrimental To The State of California

People are praising Watsonville's  “native son”, Assemblyman Luis Alejo (D-Watsonville) for introducing a bill this week to "mend, not end" redevelopment agencies in the state.

I find it a bit funny that Alejo, who has been tied with George Ow—the man whom wants Wantsonville’s redevelopment funds, is the one co-authoring this detrimental bill. But hey, I am not here to spread rumors I am here to tell you the cold, hard facts. My forward speech covered with a bit of humor is part of my charm. I think I learned it from my father.

For you who think redevelopment agencies are not detrimental to the state of California, I have some cold hard facts for you. Redevelopment agencies divert over $6 billion annually from public services such as schools, police and fire protection (you know the important things in our town). That’s 12 percent of all property taxes statewide. Redevelopment agencies were created originally as a temporary fix to clean up urban blight, like Wasonville’s downtown.  However, now they have become a permanent drain on public funds and a playground for bureaucrats (shout out to the Watsonville City Council), planners and politically-connected developers (Mr. Ow).

In an article on the Patch about RDA funds the author explained what RDA funds were going to: “Watsonville, redevelopment money funds small projects, like downtown lighting and facade improvements to older buildings. But it also contributed millions to the new courthouse, library and city office building at 1 Second St. and has plans to commit $31 million to infrastructure at the planned Manabe-Ow business park.”

What this article didn’t tell you was that 11 Watsonville city employees and other “personnel costs” for Code Enforcement, Planning, and Accounting, are being paid over a million dollars from Redevelopment Funds. That’s right, the money that is supposed to be going into making our ghost town, I mean our downtown, look a little less, well, ghostly is paying city employees. 

Here is the real kicker; a report released by California State Controller John Chiang revealed how local redevelopment agencies have misused millions of dollars, like our city has, in state redevelopment funding and shortchanged local school districts by $33.6 million last year.

The analysis was based on data collected from 18 redevelopment agencies and like of “accomplishments” that redevelopment agencies were asked to provide State Controller John Chiang. I would say Watsonville had a big red flag next to its name when it provided/listed 3 accomplishments, while most cities had on average of 18.

List of accomplishments that Watsonville provided you may ask?

1. Completion of the Civic Plaza ( you know, the empty building on the end of main street)
2. Loans to 3 low-income households
3. Provided pre-development loans to preserve the affordability of 200 units of low and very low income homes.

If Watsonville is a template of what is going on with Redevelopment funds across the state of California we have a major problem. Gov. Jerry Brown has the right the idea; all we need is the bureaucrats, that we call elected officials, to stop playing games with the tax payers.