Second of two parts
Re “Is It Possible? Not One Project in the O’Leary Era?”
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Mayor Mehaul O'Leary
Five years into his eight allotted years on the City Council, Mehaul O’Leary says he knows exactly where to assign the blame if a single redevelopment fails to go up in Culver City during this period:
Members of the state Legislature who overwhelmingly approved Gov. Brown’s scheme his first year back in office to destroy California’s 400 hometown Redevelopment Agencies.
Why does Mr. O’Leary fault them?
“Because Sacramento politicians only care about what happens while they are in office,” he said.
“They do not care about the state. They are selfish. This is only about themselves. They want to be able to brag about having a balanced budget. That is more important than anything else.
“It doesn’t matter to them,” said Mr. O’Leary that they will be depriving the state of tens of millions of dollars in revenue.
“Here is what I mean. We have two major redevelopment projects that are stalled, Parcel B and Washington/N ational.
“Now this is how Sol Blumenfeld (the Community Development Director) explained it to me.
“If we are allowed to build the Parcel B project with the grand staircase that has undergone public scrutiny, that project has the potential of bringing in $18 million a year in revenues to the state.”
The state Dept. of Finance, which Mr. O’Leary calls the Dept. of Fiscal Foolishness, has been studying the two projects for months, and is expected to inform City Hall between April and June whether it approves of the agreements that have been negotiated.
“Meanwhile, while they are delaying,” Mr. O’Leary said, “the state is losing millions, but the politicians don’t care. They are just concerned about balancing the budget.”
