For the first time, Assemblymember Holly Mitchell (D-Culver City) explained yesterday why she voted last year to kill California’s 400 Redevelopment agencies.
There wasn’t a choice, Ms. Mitchell said.
“It was a tragic, tragic vote I had to take in the bigger scheme of things,” she told the newspaper, “in terms of what was confronting California as a whole.
“What that means is, I have gone on record and stand by my position I would not vote on an all cuts budget.
“Last year, to remind you, we were confronted with a $26 billion deficit. Gov. Brown had proposed a balanced approach, cuts with new revenue, kind of even-steven. The $26 billion was cut in half to $13 billion to address the structural deficit issue.
“He said ‘no more one-time fixes,’ which is, frankly, what the previous administrations had been doing for the past decade.
“Given the fact we were not able to deliver on that, because (Gov. Brown) could not get my colleagues on the other side of the aisle to support any tax increase, any revenue generating proposal.
“Our backs were against the wall. As chair of the Health and Human Services budget subcommittee, I saw, first-hand, the draconian cuts we took to critical, lifesaving, life-preserving programs to eliminate adult day healthcare services for the tens of thousands elderly, disabled Californians, to reduce the CalWorks payments to low-income mothers and their children to the level of payments we were making in the mid-‘80s, to reduce the MediCal reimbursement, to eliminate the Healthy Families program — those were all horrible, horrible decisions we had to make,” Ms. Mitchell said.
“These are programs I have worked on my entire career.
“To take a vote to eliminate those was devastating. “The billion dollars couldn’t be found anyplace else. I read over 1,000 pages of the budget document, cover to cover. I sat in and chaired nine budget sub one and budget committee hearings. I have a 100 percent attendance record.”
Does Ms. Mitchell believe Redevelopment Agencies will be resurrected in a recognizable form?
“I can’t say it will resemble the previous way in which redevelopment operates statewide,” said the second-year Assembly member. “The previous mission of redevelopment, addressing blighted areas, and redirecting dollars to low-income housing, yes, I believe that will come back.”
With the King Day program, at the Senior Center about to begin, Ms. Mitchell, from her front row seat was asked for a single-sentence response to why she voted out Redevelopment Agencies.
“I didn’t have a choice,” she said. “We needed to find every resource available to keep the state afloat.”
