Opinion: State is wise to eliminate redevelopment agencies
To the community,
The city of South Lake Tahoe is unhappy about the state’s new laws on redevelopment and labels the state an extortionist. The fact is the city’s Redevelopment Agency has been the extortionist when it exercised the power of eminent domain.
It goes like this: If a property owner isn’t willing to sell, the agency condemns the and takes the property. The result is the property owner loses a business or home or livelihood. So the city pot is getting a taste of distasteful medicine and lectures the state kettle, yells foul and threatens a lawsuit.
Bill Crawford
In fact, the city’s Redevelopment Agency through use of eminent domain has created a tyranny in South Lake Tahoe. Redevelopment here is financially and morally a failure. It is time to kill it.
The state is right in its attempts to control or lay to rest redevelopment agencies in California.
Bill Crawford, South Lake Tahoe
Mr. Crawford is right. There have been to many problems with re-development in our community, from broken promises, over optimistic outlooks, and mishandling of funds. Our City needs to take the lead through other existing means to help businesses to re-new and upgrade. Bringing our commercial corridor back through encouragement and incentives, not regulations, restrictions, or requirements that we all look the same.
Re-development is dead in South Lake Tahoe… let’s bury it for good!
As one who has walked the walk, Bills post is mild compared to what one has to go through dealing with redevelopment. It’s like living in China or Cuba.
It is easy to criticize and fixate on one component of redevelopment from years past and use that as a soap box to stand on.
Mr Crawford’s views are short-sited and screams vigilante politics that take no responsibility for the long-term welfare of our Community. It’s easy to criticize…. without any solutions. ‘Hope’ is NOT a strategy!!
How does Mr. Crawford ‘hope’ to encourage capital investment in this community or ‘hope’ to fix the blight in this community without redevelopment????
A major revenue for the City is the TOT tax (some $4 million per year comes in to city coffers as a result of redevelopment)
A couple million in land asset would be repossessed by the state if the Agency was dissolved- land assets that belongs to the redevelopment of THIS community!
Tax increment created through redevelopment is another key source of income and will be pretty much the only incentive the City has to encourage developers to fix the Convention Center debacle.
How does Mr Crawford expect to fix the blight in this community – ‘Hope”?
I am tired of vocal politicians who criticize with no constructive feedback or solutions. If you’re going to do something positive, and support initiative that helps build this community – by all means, speak up! but if you are just throwing out empty criticism beside your photo to gain popularity, give it a rest.
Crawford is good one “having to walked the walk” both sides. I remember in a open meeting when he was the The Teacher Union Representative to decide whether the District should change insurance from their “pet backer” ie the BLUES CROSS AND SHIELD to another plan that guaranteed idenical coverage at a saving of $100,000 per year. His question was “If the coverage is the same what would I gain by changing” Answer nothing other than saving the District $100,000. His comment was “If there is nothing in it for me, I vote No, I don’t give a damn about saving the District money”.
You guys (Citizen and farkworth) are absolutely right, Bill has been throwing bombs at everyone from the sidelines for years. He rarely has anything but wit to add to a conversation. Not that wit is a bad thing, it is just not sufficient to run a city.
The reality is that entirely too many government workers (yes, including teachers, Bill) managers and administrators have the same attitude about spending taxpayers’ money as Bill allegedly had at that meeting. Many government agencies spend taxpayers’ money completely differently than they would spend their own money. Over the years here, I have seen incredible waste by many of the taxpayer-funded organizations. SLT Police Department, El Dorado County, the US Forest Service and others. This terrible paradigm must change for our country to recover and thrive. It HAS to.
Have to call it the way you see it and if this town speaks for it’s wrongs, you can see it in that big waste time hole and street maintenance…..Making a few TOURIST more important than locals is one lame excuse for the community.
Bill airs it out and you make the call,was it a strike,above the waist,or down at the bank?
The Concerned Citizen reads like one of John Uptons spear carriers of old.