Bye-Bye to Redevelopment Agencies

I for one am glad to see this happen. While RDAs did some nice projects, the value of these projects pale in comparision to the need for education funding.
If we took a vote locally in the City of SB to continue spending $20m a year on RDA projects or to direct the money back to education and safety, I would hope eduction and safety would get the vote.

Did you know that California is so desperate for money it is sending out auditors to every state that we do business with? They are checking to see that California companies are paying CA sales taxes on machinery and trade items used to do commerce here. Why are people and businesses leaving the Golden State? Duh! CA sales tax is practically a tip and the state still can’t balance the budget because they are officious, greedy and can’t keep their hands out of the public coffers.
What is California going to do at the end of the fiscal year, July 1st 2012, when they are already over budget by more than 6.4 billion dollars and the projection is a 14.4 billion dollar gap in spending? If they are raiding 1.7 billion, from cities that have had good economic business planning, it’s not going to matter. We will be bankrupt as a state in six months.
It’s a democracy right? How can we be worried about 2 coastal communities when the whole state is being run into the ground? The 1.7 billon dollars is not going to have a significant fiscal impact on the state were we live and do commerce in; we are all connected somehow. With this current administration overspending at double the rate of Arnold’s administration, we need a balanced budget so “our” savings don’t get plundered by “other” voters. That’s democracy, that’s what was voted for. We are supposed to be a Republic, and the road to socialism is through democracy like this. People voting for public funds that are not theirs, spread the wealth; Occupy Wall Street people love this. How is the HOPE and CHANGE working for you now? Get rid of the golf courses and the movie theaters, put a stop to those revenue generating businesses and affordable pass times. That should boast the economy. The City of Santa Barbara has a great community Golf Course that makes money and allows an affordable opportunity for locals to play there. So, good job Santa Barbara, I vote we legally rob you. Goleta has the Camino Real open air mall. Good job Goleta on becoming a city, I vote we legally rob you too. Stupid economics, good job Jerry Brown, which you help, put up more vacancy signs in the windows everywhere across the state. Every county would have to pull 30 million dollars out of the air and give it to the state to balance the budget. With 400 cities paying $425,000 each; with the stroke of a voter’s pen; in a liberal state, why the shock, when the Supreme Court of California reflects its voters.
This is a good example of how trickle down poverty starts.

RDAs collect money by redirecting 'incremental' property tax to the RDAs. To make this clear, my house dowtown that I paid $900k had a previous tax base of $200k. The pervious owner paid $2k a year in property tax, I pay $9k a year. Instead of the increase of $7K going to the normal property tax agencies, primarily education and safety, the RDA keeps the money.
Who is robbing who here? I believe the RDAs are robbing education and safety. I would be delighted to see the entire $5B+ currently going to RDAs go back to the original agencies.

It is odd that School Districts have had to hold bond elections to build decent facilities, but the downtowns in Goleta and Santa Barbara, as well as the County RDA in Isla Vista, do not have to have any kind of election to spend lots of money on upgrades for business storefronts, on open space (Isla Vista), or for new public benches (Old Town Goleta).

Let's go ahead and try to do all the infrastructure projects that RDA now do... just do it with bond elections.

Gosh I have to pay all my sales tax all the time. Why shouldn't other states who purchase from California businesses have to pay theirs too?

"Public safety" means prisons and jailers' pensions. As for education, yes, it's important but already much of our property taxes goes towards education. A city, a community is more than its schools. If anyone can prove to me that pouring more money into schools will increase test results, will increase literacy, I will be happy my property tax money goes to that, rather than overall community betterment, such as a new police station. That last, a new police station, would be "public safety". (Can do without the facelift to the exterior of the library and also to the de la Guerra Plaza changes.)

Thanks Das Williams for pushing to do away with more affordable housing and for taking our local money for the state "needs" — it will be hot day in hell before local communities will vote this fall to increase the regressive sales tax.

Thank you loneranger for explaining why public funding stagnated while property taxes kept going up. For years I've wondered how they could bulb out the intersections downtown while wringing their hands about the police station, eliminating school librarians and increasing class size.

I've seen the decline in personalized reading services at my daughter's school since the librarian left, and my daughter's class now contains one (great) teacher and 28 9-to-10-year-olds. Money needed for schools isn't for premium extras it's for basic services and maintenance. Every day, hundreds of little kids show up at 8 am and have to be cared for and educated, fed and exercised, until mid-afternoon. It's a giant job, and the quality of public education certainly reflects the quality of the community.

Many years ago, Redevelopment Agencies did what their name implies: they used public funding to refurbish seriously blighted areas in communities. We all know that they morphed into a pool of money used by politicians to make themselves look good on projects that had nothing to do with blight. Were the street corners without bulbouts "blighted"? Seriously? Therefore this is a good ruling since we will have to actually vote to raise money for political projects.
On the other hand, our education system is no less screwed up than the Redevelopment Agencies, so simply pouring money into that pot exacerbates another problem we need to address.

What will happen now in the Isla Vista RDA? The RDA owns the old medical clinic building (the perfect spot to have a "community center" vs. building a new one out on Estero Rd.) and the old St. Athanasius Church building (a good spot for the Park District offices to move to). What happens to them and the hideous multi-story parking garages that are under construction to accomodate over-flow parking from the UCSB campus?

Bulbouts! I'm outraged! Except when I walk and try to cross De la Vina Street, State Street, Cabrillo Boulevard, Garden Street, and more. And see when I am there.

Ugh is that what they're building on Pardall? Parking? That intersection is already the worst congested in SB. With all the bicyclists, skaters, and pedestrians at that intersection adding more cars is a recipe for tragedy. People forget that there is a huge elderly population here as well. Making it more dangerous for them to access the few stores here is also a very bad idea. If the university has the money for parking garages then they need not raise tuitions.

The RDA is the property tax from the project area, not your property taxes, unless you live in a project area. So go to the State Legislatures Office and read about how RDA money comes from the very project area it redevelops. It’s too bad that the loneranger is not a loan officer or a title company officer. Your annual CPA on your property tax has nothing to do with RDA money. Bad sell.

jW - I do live in the RDA project area and my taxes do go to the RDA and it effects everyone in my school district and the town.
I strongly dislike the fact that the incremental property tax since the 1960's go to the RDA instead of schools and safety.

Loneranger,
Not all of your RDA property tax project money is diverted to the project. Only a small percentage is used for RDA projects, it’s a special tax break for neighborhoods that are in blight as well as keeping our city attractive. The City Attorney and the Risk Manager would be able to explain how RDA money helps the city from being sued. The problem is propaganda and not facts. 1.7 billion dollars of years of funding from these projects is a fraction or your property tax bill, of the total gross property tax collected a portion a sanction by law is diverted to RDA projects. The problem is that the descending scales of values in community building and orientation to fact finding. The property taxes collected for 2011 -2012 in Santa Barbara County $1,824,666,812. You can look this up at County of Santa Barbara Fiscal Year 2011-2012. Your want for education is as strong as mine, however, the mathematics do not show a significant in taking RDA money for education in when there are fewer children to educate. In the City of Santa Barbara the US Census shows that 92% of our City’s population is over 25 years old.

JW, I have studied the details of RDA for the last several years and have reviewed it with both the city officials and the school district and have read all the legislation regarding RDA.
The City of SB RDA project area is basically the downtown area from the freeway to SB street down to the harbor area.
Sure special bonds, such as school bonds do not go to the RDA but every penny of increase in the base % since the RDA was formed in the late 1960's from the RDA project area goes to the RDA. RDA collects over $5B statewide (the 1.7B is the amount the state asked for this year). in the City of SB it is $20M a year. These are huge numbers for the state and for our city.

A nice park at De La Guerra or the Library is pleasant but I can think of nothing better than a top educated community.

loneranger,
I am glad you are familiar with the city. The city wrote a sustainable growth plan for 2010 in 1980 and we surpassed it in 1990. Now we are 22 years past that and all we have here is “a city” because of the environmental regulations we placed upon ourselves in 1960 after the oil spill. So we have no industry, no businesses that can support families; since the defense industry left Goleta. We are a cottage industry, a travel destination, a red dot on the map, not a Fortune 500 house packer. So, if the city is barren of tourists and the shopping and the tour busses stop rolling in, then we won’t have anyone to educate in schools K-12. We won’t have anyone to service. So slowly more and more people will leave town; it’s too late to go backwards. The money is supposed to go to K-12; so they can matriculate into college; hopefully. You can see by the census that the demographic is shrinking. Santa Barbara City College is not going to provide us with a community of well learned and educated people. The likelihood of them leaving town after 2 years there; 4 years of college is great. There is nothing here in Santa Barbara for them. There are 100 Fortune 500 companies in CA if they want to stay in the state.

There is as little relationship between UCSB having the money to build a parking garage and their levels of tuition as there is a relationship between SB spending RDA money from the State while raising user fees for everything under the auspice of the city.
There are many reasons we do not have sufficient major industries and there is no short term solution. Our very location, which has helped keep SB from looking like LA, also makes SB isolated. Basic economic forces along with political partisanship will keep SB expensive and without a huge middle class for perpetuity.

JW,
You and I are just going to have to agree to disagree.
The idea that Santa Barbara can grow as sustainable economic engine based on tourism in my mind is crazy. Hiring minimum wage people to clean rooms, be servers, work retail is not an engine that will work for a high priced area like SB.
This single biggest people look for when relocating is the ratings of the public schools. Fix the issue with our public schools and SB will be much more attractive to start up and midsize company. Certainly we do not and will never have the population to support Fortune 500 offices with 5,000+ employees.

I hate those user fees and time allowance reductions, to collect more fees, using the Santa Barbara Municipal Code a tool at the hands of the City Administrator. Jim Armstrong’s great fiscal and GIS planning of our city over the last 10+ years has been bland. A decade of leadership and what has he done to improve the quality for life for the city? Kept it as you say, isolated and expensive?
UCSB does whatever they want to. They will build a parking garage at the same time they are removing "non-native plants". What epoch are they trying to go back to anyway I thought they were evolutionists?
We don't need to look like LA to have a strong economy; we need to have parking that is close to where people work in the city now; they should not have to pay for parking while making “a living wage”.
While we are an isolated community, parking is at a premium. The city uses parking and parking enforcement as a revenue generator. The free parking areas are getting further away from local commerce and the free parking time is shrinking. A 90 minute zone was barely reasonable enough to shop for a pair of shoes. The 75 minute parking is so frustrating that I would rather drive south and shop there and have a meal. Without RDA funds it’s going to get worse, they are going to squeeze every penny out of your dollar to keep Santa Barbara pretty.
The middle class spender is going to be a thing of the past as well. Thank goodness for upper State St. and Goleta for doing local business right. Sorry downtown SB . . . validate my parking when I shop or dine out and I will reconsider.