Comments on: Making it up as you go along

By: Stop, Drop and Roll » The MORR we get together

Stop, Drop and Roll » The MORR we get together — Fri, 22 Feb 2008 16:42:00 +0000

[...] 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 [...]

By: dave

dave — Wed, 20 Feb 2008 19:33:17 +0000

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.

By: Lauren Do

Lauren Do — Wed, 20 Feb 2008 18:47:14 +0000

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.

By: dave

dave — Wed, 20 Feb 2008 16:33:42 +0000

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.