CA Supreme Court says state can kill Redevelopment Agencies

[SalParadise]

Originally Posted by majoun

The CRA Is Dead: Bonanza for Schools, Police, Fire, Cities and Counties - Ron Kaye L.A.

"Nowhere were the abuses of CRA law more extensive than in Los Angeles where blight came to be defined as any parcel of land that developers could profit from handsomely if given millions of dollars in taxpayer subsidies.

1) "The $52 million parking structure on Bunker Hill for billionaire Eli Broad's personal art museum, Staples Center/LA Live, the Hollywood-Highland project and others that benefit the politically-connected firm CIM Group, the 1601 N. Vine St. office project for runaway film production mogul Hal Katersky are just a few of the hundreds of questionable projects heavility subsidized by LA's CRA.



Brown also pointed out that the jobs created by the subsidies were largely a myth since cities and counties competed on the size of subsidies they would provide for shopping centers and other projects that were coming to the region or state anyway, meaning all those giveaways of taxpayer money amounted to close to a net zero in terms of job creation.


"The CRA has given away most of its money over the years to projects downtown and in Hollywood and then taken the increased property tax revenue that those projects generated and rolled it over into more projects downtown and in Hollywood.


"The result is that schools, the city and county and the services they provide to the public were denied massive amounts of revenue -- more than $250 million a year."

Thanks for the link. I didn't know Ron Kaye had a blog. He is a good writer but I don't agree with him this time (at least not 100%).

Taking just ONE example: the $52 million for the parking structure on Bunker Hill for the new Broad museum.

-Broad is spending $200 MILLION of his OWN money to build the museum AND will DONATE his VERY EXPENSIVE art collection to the museum. The public (including future generations) will be able to see the art for generations to come.

-It's not like he is getting a subsidy to build a shopping mall. Those type of projects should get a lot of scrutiny (if they get funding at all). Broad won't make ANY money on this project. Yes, he will get a boost to his already very big ego. But the public gets a museum.