“As members of the City Council,” said Mayor Mehaul O’Leary, “our job is to protect the assets of our city and our citizens. City. During this period when we don’t know how the Redevelopment Agency is going to end, we are going to undertake whatever transactions we can before the Feb. 1 deadline.
“We want to make sure the process has been moved along so far on our properties that it will be more difficult to remove or overturn.
“Remember all of those transfers we made a year ago of redevelopment assets to the city to protect them right after Gov. Brown came to office and said he wanted to kill Redevelopment Agencies.
“We are trying to do things now that will solidify our position.
“We just hope that with what we are doing now, we can get them moved too far forward for the state to touch.”
Yesterday, City Manager John Nachbar took the unusual step — in these unusual, unclear times — of announcing a public hearing on Monday, Jan. 30. On that night, the city hopes to be in position to declare Parcel B adjacent to the Culver Hotel, and the northeast corner of Washington Boulevard/Centinela are beyond the reach of Sacramento.
“So much is unknown,” Mr. O’Leary said. “There is language in AB 26, which the Supreme Court approved, that suggests any assets that are not encumbered, under the jurisdiction of the Redevelopment Agency, will be taken away by the successor agency.”
Last Monday, the City Council voted to become a successor agency.
But exactly what does that mean?
Exactitude is not a virtue of the legislators, and the answer to that riddle will have to wait.
(To be continued)
