Redevelopment Districts have left their mark

One of the major themes of Governor Brown's campaign was to return power to local government, however, it appears one of the first items on his agenda is to shut down Redevelopment Districts which local cities have used to finance much needed local projects.

In Merced, these projects include the G Street Underpass, Merced's Transpo Center, the Merced Theatre Renovation, Merced's Auto Mall, and in Atwater, the Applegate Shopping Center and downtown improvements.

The money for these projects came from taxes generated by the improvements to a specific sector, so in a way they paid for themselves.

However, there were detractors in the community who said the taxes should have been shared with other local agencies such as school districts.

It is not surprising that the governor and the state government has seen this as an untapped revenue base, and even before this year, the state has raided the Redevelopment District funds.

Cities have responded with legislation trying to prevent the state from stealing local funds.

The problem is that the state is still $25 billion short of balancing its budget, and we see major changes will be necessary on both the state and local level before that will be possible.

The state needs to immediately start selling off millions of dollars in state property which it does not need to run the government.

Congressman Jeff Denham tried to push for such a program with little success.  Merced has the same problem.

The city owns several million dollars in investment grade real estate. It needs to sell this property and put it back on the tax roles. Clearly the city and the Redevelopment Agency need to get out of the real estate business.

The state and cities need to cut pension and benefit programs which have skyrocketed and are now out of control. It will need to take on the unions and special interest groups who own our legislature.

With the new redistricting we hope to see more candidates who are attune to the grass roots interests of their constituents. We now have politicians who vote in direct relationship to their election coffers.

That has to stop.

Cities like Merced which are asking for an increase in taxes will find that even with the increase there will not be enough money to cover the cost of providing the level of services which it now provides.

Nationwide, we need to rethink our government.  Clearly, "The cost of government is too high."

Having said that, in all fairness to the cities which have participated in the Redevelopment Districts like Merced and Atwater, the money was well spent. It generated jobs and housing as well as lifted the quality of life in our downtown cores.

We are still stunned by the phrase "one of the most miserable cities in the nation," however, it was not long ago when we met a couple out-of-towners walking down our Main Street who praised the beauty of our downtown.

They were from upstate New York and their downtown had been blighted by the loss of business and jobs.

We have one bit of caution to the state of California.

"You can not put the cost of your problems on the backs of our cities!"