With title-heavy Mehaul O’Leary — the Vice Mayor and the Chair of the Redevelopment Agency for a few more minutes — scheduled to be promoted to Mayor of Culver City this evening, let’s see if his successor is as gritty in fending off the governor.
Last heard from on Friday afternoon, Gov. Bald Retread looked as if his truth-light tongue had become entangled in a xerox machine.
Like any adult liberal, Bald wants a slew of new taxes, and he is stomping his patent leathers because has not been granted his wish.
The sycophants are protectively surrounding Bluster Brown. Predictably, the Los Angeles Titanic led yesterday’s edition with a “poll” that said Left and Right Californians are clammering to pay much more in new taxes. Makes little sense to those of us on the outside.
For four consecutive months, he has failed to persuade two teeny Republicans in the Assembly and two teeny Republicans in the Senate to buy into his Rob the Rubes campaign so he can jack up income taxes, sales tax and vehicle taxes.
Okay, GOP, You Be the Adults
Resembling an aging car stuck in reverse, Gov. Retread keeps recycling the same raggedy theme, that even though they are demanding too much in a compromise deal, the Republicans should come back to the negotiating table after he shooed them away last month.
Give that witty, creative man a lifetime Shakespeare subscription.
He also wants to kill off all California redevelopment agencies, and drain their trust funds to replenish the coffers of his labor union supporters — but that drastic step also is being denied because Bald is the world’s worst negotiator west of Swish Obama.
With Swish and Bald at the wheel, there is more imagination afoot in the first grade at La Ballona School than in either of the oval offices. You don’t want either of these bumblers negotiating a raise for you. You would end up owing the company back pay.
Bluster Brown wants to kill redevelopment agencies on the grounds it would save California $1.7 billion a year.
Save? Says Who?
“Save” is one of those misty, elastic words. It owns a half-dozen political definitions, including the all-time favorite: “Monies that will be channeled directly to my favorite labor unions.”
You could wear out two pairs of shoes going around a heavily remade Culver City to find a supporter of the governor’s plan.
However, there are influential Republicans who believe the governor is exactly right, as Ben Boychuk of the conservative Claremont Institute argued Saturday on the editorial page of the Sacramento Bee:
“Even if Brown harbors ulterior political motives for those billions, so what? California’s 425 redevelopment agencies embody most every evil thing Republicans campaign against election after election.
“Expansive and unaccountable bureaucracy? Check.
“Subsidized housing? Check.
“Eminent domain abuse? Check.
“Idiotic and often inexplicable land-use rules? Check.
“Most Republicans say they favor free enterprise and market capitalism. Redevelopment bears scant resemblance to either.
“At the heart of redevelopment is the threat of eminent domain, which gives government the power to take private property at fair market value for a clear public purpose. Traditionally, ‘public purpose’ meant building schools, roads, dams and the like.
But redevelopment agencies, abetted by lawmakers and the courts, have perverted ‘public purpose’ to mean something quite different. A shopping mall has a public purpose, right? The public shops there! And as long as local governments benefit from the sales and property tax revenue, what's not to like? As it turns out, in some counties as much as one-third of property taxes go to redevelopment.
“In certain cities with large redevelopment zones, such as Pasadena, about 95 percent of local property taxes went to redevelopment in the 2008-09 fiscal year. In the city of Sacramento, the redevelopment tax increment was closer to 69 percent, according to the state controller's annual report on community redevelopment.
“That money could go to police, fire departments and schools. Instead, it helps lowball small-business owners out of the shop or hotel they've owned for years to clear the way for another auto mall. Where’s the free enterprise in that?”
What do you think?
