Protecting San Diego redevelopment dollars

The San Diego City Council has approved a 4-billion dollar list of future projects it hopes to protect if Governor Brown is successful in phasing out all of the states redevelopment agencies.
KUSI's Steve Bosh has been following the redevelopment limbo and reports on the latest details.

Ironically, it was Attorney General Brown's office that wrote the language of Proposition-22 which states, in part that it prohibits the legislature from borrowing or enacting a law requiring the transfer of tax increment for the benefit of the state, even during severe fiscal hardship.

Now the governor wants to circumvent Prop-22 to plug a hole in the state's deficit.

During council debate Lori Zapf wanted the city attorney's opinion on prop-22 to which San Diego City Attorney Jan Goldsmith said the city is prepared to defend prop-22's restrictions on the state taking local revenues, “if we need to we will fight for it and we will protect the interest of local government.”

Councilmember Carl DeMaio wanted to know why the transfer of the Petco Park bond debt from the general fund to CCDC wasn't on the list, which would free up money for city services.

Councilmember David Alvarez pointed out the lions share of future projects are downtown, short changing other parts of the city.

San Diego is attempting to protect 4-billion dollars in future projects and more than 40 other cities are doing the same.

There's no assurance this strategy will work but the blowback from dozens of cities across the state is forcing negotiations that could prevent the shutdown of all redevelopment agencies.

More than half of the projects are downtown but it is downtown that generates most of the tax revenue, about 62%.