Third in a series
[img]1048|left|Jim Clarke||no_popup[/img] Re “Should Jim Clarke Actually Be on the Reading, PA, City Council?”
One week from Thursday afternoon, on Sept. 13, the lightly understood, still-new, amorphous Oversight Board will convene in Council Chambers to vote on whether to forward to Sacramento the City Council’s recently approved sale to a private developer of the prime Downtown plot known as Parcel B – as in, long-dormant Parcel B.
Even though Culver City interests are well represented, numerically, winning the vote is not a cinch.
City Councilman Jim Clarke – he and his colleagues still are a week away from returning to active duty after the Council’s month-long late summer hiatus – addressed the sensitive subject.
“We want to go before the Oversight Board with Parcel B proposals,” he said. “When the state dissolved the Redevelopment Agencies (last winter), they created the Successor Agencies, which are the City Councils. Then they created something called the Oversight Board, which is made up of members of the various taxing districts. Seven members.
“They are to look at various contracts and determine whether those are legitimate under the previous arrangements with the Redevelopment Agency.
“We want to take Parcel B, as an example, before the Oversight Board and see if we can get their approval to say, ‘Yes, this contract should be what they call an obligated expense that should go forward (to the state for the ultimate approval).
“That decision would be reviewed by the (state) Dept. of Finance,” said Mr. Clarke. “They have the ability to possibly veto it. We are hoping we can prove this to them:
“The state and all of the taxing agencies will do much better (fiscally) if they will allow Parcel B to go through because of the increased revenues that will be developed from that rather than just requiring us to sell the property at a fire sale to the highest bidder.”
(To be continued)
