Believing that it should not have to pay what it regards as a state-sponsored extortion fee of $12.1 million to stay alive, the Redevelopment Agency — with no choice — is expected to approve a $12.1 million fee to Sacramento to remain alive at tonight’s 7 o’clock meeting in Council Chambers.
They will pay under protest, says City Manager John Nachbar, because the threat to exterminate the agencies “is real,” and communities have no alternative.
The fiscally radical, dense, mysterious new state budget Gov. Brown signed a dozen days ago has, as promised by the governor, already begun to wreak chaos among the 400 communities that host the redevelopment agencies he seeks to kill so that more revenue can pour into Sacramento.
Even though the City Atty. Carol Schwab and City Hall’s consulting lawyers have judged the Pay or Be Dissolved mandate of the state budget to be unconstitutional, City Hall is handcuffed but hopeful.
The Pay or Die dictum devised last month by legislators desperate to stitch a budget together so they could resume drawing their halted salaries resulted in what the governor had been promising since January:
A scheme to eliminate the redevelopment agencies he says deprive the state of needed revenue.
Not only will cities be obligated to mail $12.1 million to Sacramento next year — half by Jan. 15, the rest by May 15 — apparently for as long as anyone is alive on the planet, City Hall will be required to send $3 million a year to the capital – just because.
Two large groups, the League of California Cities and the California Redevelopment Assn., have threatened to sue the ambitious legislators, but no papers have been filed.
If the potential litigants follow through, depending on a temporary preliminary ruling, Redevelopment Agency life may turn into the most fascinating fiscal soap opera in town.
It is the city’s intention to divide next year’s so-called extortion payments between the Agency’s cash-on-hand fund and the Low- and Moderate-Income Housing Fund.
Thereafter? It may be up to a judge.
