There is a simple equation for determining our city’s local revenues:
Residents still want their city services delivered. But voters remain ever-resistant to increasing local tax rates. If you want to raise more city revenue and cannot change the tax rates, then you have to change the only other variable in the equation. All that is left to change is finding a way to increase the assessed valuation of property.
It Is About the Money
Instead of relying on natural market forces to dictate the timing of property sales, the Redevelopment Agency has been abusing its power through the threat of eminent domain by accelerating the sales of commercial property in order to fill the city’s coffers.
So, their real cause for action is not for the ridding of blight; it is for the forcible sale of commercial property under the guise of eminent domain, thereby increasing the property’s value in order to get more tax money. Plain and simple.
Since it only has jurisdiction over commercial property at the moment, the Redevelopment Agency is expanding projects to include businesses, long established or not, locally owned or not, that it feels are not paying their way. They are looking to replace them with more tax- lucrative businesses.
Who Decided?
When did we, as a community, decide to do this? Has a like-minded majority on this Agency decided among themselves to use the ever-shifting power of eminent domain to forcibly increase the valuation of commercial property within its boundaries?. Was this type of tax policy ever discussed during the last campaign? Was this new policy ever voted on in public? Was it even publicly debated? Or did a friendly, like-minded majority just decide among themselves to do it? Redevelopment Agency members will argue that during negotiations with property owners, the community expects them to be frugal with the people’s money. Why should the city have to pay for a property’s amenities it neither needs nor will use? What if the project is not for direct public use? What if it adds no intrinsic value to the community? If the city doesn’t pay for them, those unpaid amenities will pass through the Redevelopment Agency and go directly to its new business partner for free. It seems what is good for the community actually turns out to be what is best for the Agency’s newly chosen business partner. This leaves the original owner under-compensated for his property.
Everything in City’s Favor
From the city’s point of view, it certainly looks like a win-win situation. The city receives more tax revenues and the new owner buys the property for less than he could on his own, below market value. Why does the original owner, who probably didn’t want to sell, come out feeling as if he lost? Like he’s been victimized by his own local government? If negotiations do not go well, it’s no wonder the original, rightful landowner feels isolated and abandoned by the city. The Agency acts above it all, imperial. The Agency shields itself behind high-minded slogans. They say they have acted “for the good of the community.” They say they have paid “fair compensation” for the newly acquired property. They use the term “just compensation” as if there is but one price that is fair and, gee, it just happens to be the same as their own opening offer. If the original landowner starts negotiating for a fairer price, he appears to be egotistical, self-centered, greedy. He is charged with impeding the city’s future.
The ill-stated mantra from the 1950s, “What is good for General Motors is good for America,” was not true then or now. Yet, it seems some on the Redevelopment Agency are working under the misconception that what is good for business is also good for Culver City.
Former Mayor Steve Gourley’s list of “What We Have” is a very good example of showing how, over the years, the Redevelopment Agency’s projects have changed from strictly public use and “for the good of the community” to what is best for one business over another. Mr. Gourley’s list does not show what we have lost along the way. His list did not show the past, disrupted lives, the livelihoods that were lost, the broken dreams that still are buried beneath some of those past projects.
The Agency clearly understands that the County’s assessed valuation of property is disproportionately low when compared to their actual market values. So it continues its profound change in policy by circumventing these low property values by forcing business owners into selling in order to clear the city’s landscape until all commercial properties are taxably well-aligned.
At stake is the very future of Culver City’s heart and soul. It seems it is getting too easy for a like-minded majority to decide among themselves to displace and replace our businesses with more tax-lucrative ones in order to help fill city coffers. Do we want to retain our small town feel? Or do we want to end up being a tax haven for national chains stores, car dealerships and other larger businesses?
Postscript
The Culver City Redevelopment Agency needs to be reined in. Now. Once the Agency is through with increasing commercial property taxes, what will be next? What’s left? That’s right, residential properties! Your home and mine.
