Old-School Graft Dies Hard: Will California's RDAs Live On?

We had a lot of not-so-nice things to say about the budget just passed by the Legislature's Democrats and signed into law by Jerry Brown, but one of the bright spots we acknowledged was the putting out to pasture of the state's 425 redevelopment agencies. This is, of course, not a done deal just yet, as a legal challenge is underway to determine whether the state's plan violates Prop 22. Yet even if we assume that the plan goes forward, Dan Walters has some bad news for us over at the Sacramento Bee.

While many of the existing RDAs are expected to survive by paying Sacramento for protection contributing property tax revenues into state-level special funds for education, these will have limited funds to spend. Unfortunately, according to Walters, there may be a successor down the road, in the form of what are called "infrastructure financing districts." A number of the lawmakers who voted to abolish the RDAs are now pushing bills to expand the use of IFDs; some want them to be able to hold onto property taxes from private developments in order to repay debts occurring in project construction, while others would wipe out the requirement for voter approval before issuing IFD bonds. San Francisco Assemblyman Tom Ammiano is already pushing to expand the city's IFD in order to turn Treasure Island, a former Navy base in the Bay, into a residential community, and to touch up the waterfront in advance of the America's Cup yacht race. In other words, there appears to be momentum for turning IFDs into near-identical replacements for the RDAs. For those of you keeping score at home, the RDAs aren't even gone yet, and we're already talking about giving general-fund tax dollars to private developers to help San Francisco prepare for a yacht race.