California Secretary of State Debra Bowen announced Friday that the proponent of a new ballot initiative to reopen redevelopment gencies can start collecting petition signatures for his measure.
Philip D. Kohn, the ballot measure’s proponent, must collect about 505,000 signatures – 5 percent of the total votes cast for governor in the 2010 gubernatorial election – in order to qualify it for the November ballot, according to a press release from Bowen’s office. The proponent has 150 days to circulate the petition and submit it to elections officials by July 21.
The measure would repeal the elimination of RDAs statewide, according to Bowen’s press release. The agencies were shuttered by Governor Jerry Brown in 2011 so the state could divert their resources to more basic services such as public safety, education and social services.
RDAs were established in California about 40 years ago as a publicly financed vehicle to eliminate local blight and encourage economic development. Before they were closed, the agencies were funded by property tax increment revenues.
In Morgan Hill, the RDA was closed with about $28 million in 2008 bond proceeds in the bank. The RDA also owned about $14 million worth of downtown properties, including the Granada Theater, Downtown Mall, Morgan Hill Cigar Co., Royal Clothier building, the former site of Simple Beverages and various parking lots and smaller parcels.
Before it was closed, the Morgan Hill RDA had planned to use about $19 million in bond proceeds to revitalize the downtown properties.
Now the Morgan Hill City Council – which served as the RDAs board of directors – is taking the lead on regaining control of those funds and properties is awaiting approval from the state Department of Finance to do so.
The Morgan Hill RDA made about $22 million in annual revenue before it was closed.
Morgan Hill Mayor Steve Tate said this year might not be the best time, politically, to push for a reopening of the RDA because the governor is still resistant to the idea. Besides, he said cities such as Morgan Hill, which have bustling RDAs, still have the ability to “be creative” with public and matching funds to bring back some of the services the RDA used to provide – especially affordable housing.
The Attorney General is charged with preparing the legal title and summary for Kohn’s measure, which are required to appear on initiative petitions, Bowen’s press release said.
Below is the official title and summary for the measure:
“Repeals elimination of redevelopment agencies. Allows local governments to reestablish redevelopment agencies and resume redirection of certain local property taxes to redevelopment projects, away from other local services. Removes prior redevelopment law’s requirements for redevelopment plans to have certain dollar and time limits and caps on redevelopment agency debt. Expands prior definition of blight to allow whole cities and counties as redevelopment areas if county’s unemployment rate exceeds statewide or national average. Reduces and makes optional the prior law’s minimum affordable housing component. Extends prior law’s time limit for using eminent domain. Summary of estimate by Legislative Analyst and Director of Finance of fiscal impact on state and local government: Increased resources for local redevelopment activities, growing to several billion dollars more per year, resulting in decreased resources for state and other local government activities of the same amount.”
