Steinberg: Redevelopment agencies won’t be resurrected
By Torey Van Oot, Sacramento Bee
Senate President Pro Tem Darrell Steinberg said today that he believes an effort to extend the life of local redevelopment agencies through April 15 is “not going to happen.”
Legislation to that effect, Senate Bill 659 by Democratic Sen. Alex Padilla, faces a Tuesday deadline for winning passage in the state Assembly, in addition to the planned Feb. 1 date of closure for the agencies
“I’m skeptical,” Steinberg said. “I think the speaker is skeptical, and the governor is dead set against the bill. The focus needs to be on recreating a new set of economic development tools for cities and not on trying to keep alive the current form.”
The Legislature axed the agencies, which subsidize local projects in blighted areas, and created a new redevelopment entity as part of last year’s budget package. But the state Supreme Court ruled in December in response to a legal challenge to the move that while the Legislature had the power to dissolve the agencies, the replacement organizations could not stand.