Making it up as you go along
It’s pretty ugly when you dislike something (Like, say redevelopment) and then you try to blame everything on it. (quick aside: the Alameda Daily Noose had a gut buster on this one. I’d check it out). Yet another way that the forces of misinformation are trying to bring the two together is to make it sound like we can just take redevelopment money and put it into the schools.
The actual argument is that the school board should negotiate a new pass-through funding agreement so that the schools will just magically get more money. And it would honestly be a great plan, if it were possible. As it stands, the school board might as well start planting quarters in the hopes of growing money trees.
In 1993, the state passed laws that mandate exactly what pass-through agreements have to look like. This was apparently done specifically to head off these types of actions.
But wait there’s more. Under the 1991 agreement, the state does not offset the money it gives to AUSD. So the BWIP money is on top of the state’s cash. A renegotiated agreement would figure directly into the state’s calculations, and the state would reduce the amount of money that it gives AUSD by exactly the same amount of cash that the redevelopment area had provided. It would zero out.
So the last thing the Board Of Education should be doing is renegotiating it’s existing BWIP agreement. The other agreements are already under the 1993 rules. There ain’t nothin’ that can be done about ‘em.
Thinking outside the box is awesome. Running around spreading bad information outside of the box…a waste of everyone’s time. But hey, maybe these folks will get what they want. Less support for
Popularity: 9% [?]
dave
February 20th, 2008 at 8:33 am
Go ahead and toot your horn, John, you are right on a few points of redevelopment. It doesn’t directly or immediately take funds from the schools. Congratulations, you’ve won the Wonk of the Year Oscar (Pointless Footnote division).
But your continued trumpeting of this fact ignores the obvious and very real problems w/ redevelopment:
-It effectively takes these properties off the tax rolls permanently.
-It creates huge overlapping debt. Only so much blood can be squeezed from a stone and right now something like 10-12% of CA’s property tax revenues are dedicated to redevelopment debt.
Do you not realize that ultimately results in budget cuts to schools? That it’s not an immediate quid-pro-quo is not the point, and your focus on that blinds you to the real problem:
a large chunk of tax dollars being paid to developers for non-essential private sector projects instead of used for essential public purposes.
You seem to badly crave credibility as a public servant. Your approach to redevelopment isn’t getting you any.
Lauren Do
February 20th, 2008 at 10:47 am
You are right, dave, there might be some inherent problems with redevelopment. I can’t say that I am well enough versed on the topic to dispute you on the issue, but I feel as though the point the John is making is not necessarily to defend redevelopment to the exclusion of everything else, but rather to address some very serious claims that have been made rather recently about redevelopment literally taking money away from our schools. Which, as you have agreed, is untrue.
Talking about redevelopment as AUSD’s problem only provides a smokescreen for what the real problem is: serious budget cuts made on the state level. Talking about redevelopment as AUSD’s problem provides an overly simplistic “solution” where there is no solution. Talking about redevelopment as AUSD’s problem takes away from supporting possible solutions that could work today.
John’s credibility made by questionable in your eyes, but he’s a whole lot more credible than folks running around using our kids and our schools to further their own political agendas.
dave
February 20th, 2008 at 11:33 am
Those folks are wrong on the details but are right in substance. Redevelopment DOES rob tax dollars from public purposes. Schools are one of our most important public purposes and the largest item in the CA state budget. That a few footnotes keep a few trickles of funding in place is a minor footnote.
JKW is so darn eager to poke holes in the other side’s platform that he misses the point entirely. A fellow who holds himself out as something of a public policy expert oughtta know better.
Stop, Drop and Roll » The MORR we get together
February 22nd, 2008 at 8:42 am
[...] is coming from. Because I disagree heartily with “Dave” when he writes that “Those folks are wrong on the details but are right in substance.” Unfortunately, an argument supported by bad facts falls [...]