patwest In the wake of the Governor Jerry Brown’s signing of budget bills that discontinued California redevelopment agencies, Long Beach City Manager Pat West sent this letter to elected officials, city management and staff, providing an early sense of what the change will mean.

Despite its litany of challenges, the straightforwardness of West’s assessment is refreshing—as is his no-names-omitted account of how the votes of Long Beach’s representatives in the state legislature affected the final outcome. It is a welcome break from the politicalspeak that has characterized the local response to the threat to redevelopment, in which elected officials have criticized “Sacramento” or “the state” rather than pointing out that all but one member of the local delegation has been on the side of eliminating redevelopment.

West’s letter:

It is with a heavy heart that I report that last night the State Legislature enacted a budget that eliminates Redevelopment, ending decades of incredible progress to revitalize our neighborhoods. The budget bill relies on $1.7 billion either from ending Redevelopment, or requiring cities to pay enormous sums of money in direct violation of the State Constitution.

In Long Beach’s case, the payment to continue Redevelopment would be $34 million in the first year, and in excess of $8 million each and every year thereafter. This payment would come on the heels of a $6 million payment last year and $29 million the year before to the State that we are still trying to pay off. Even if the agency could somehow afford this payment (which remains to be seen if it is even affordable and that analysis is ongoing), redevelopment as we know it would be eviscerated.

Sadly, our entire Long Beach delegation, with the one notable exception of Senator Rod Wright, voted to end Redevelopment. Our Assembly delegation (Bonnie Lowenthal, Isadore Hall and Warren Furutani) supported the budget bill last night without any debate. In the Senate, Senators Ted Lieu and Alan Lowenthal were the two members that held off voting on the budget bill because of concern over Redevelopment, creating a standoff for several hours.

Unfortunately, both Senators ultimately voted yes and the budget bill passed and the Governor signed the Redevelopment bills just a few minutes ago.

The City’s thanks go to Senator Rod Wright for being such a passionate and consistent voice of reason in the Redevelopment debate.

As for other areas of concern in the budget, the vote did not include any changes to Enterprise Zones, and we believe the proposal to eliminate about $500,000 to Long Beach for police COPS grants and funding for booking fee reimbursement were removed from the budget.

However, the COPS grant restoration may come at the expense of a loss of City Vehicle License Fee revenue, so further analysis will be needed. The City also received a provision allowing a short-term extension on an expiring $8 million Department of Boating and Waterways loan for the Marina Rebuild Project, secured by Senator Lowenthal.

The impacts of last night’s vote will take time to discern. The California Redevelopment Association (CRA) and the League of California Cities will file an immediate lawsuit seeking to stop the elimination of Redevelopment and forcing a payment. The City will continue the analysis as to whether making a payment is advisable and affordable or not and identify the immediate impacts to current projects. We will be speaking with employees as we learn more, but there may be significant impacts to our employees as a result of the vote. We will also continue to assess the General Fund impacts, which could be significant.

We will continue to keep you updated. Thank you to the Mayor for his tireless efforts all these months, our City Council for their strong leadership and united resolve to fight the proposals, and our RDA staff for doing everything possible over the past several months to advocate for a different outcome and provide much better alternatives to the Legislature.

This will be a difficult time for our City, but as always we will do our best to find creative solutions to keep our neighborhoods strong and continue as much progress as possible.

PATRICK H. WEST
City Manager