A Twisted ‘Fairness’

Like many of his friends in the San Fernando Valley secession movement, longtime Los Angeles City Councilman Hal Bernson is no fan of the city’s perennially controversial Community Redevelopment Agency. That makes his defense of a new downtown redevelopment project all the better to counter the plan’s critics.

The project--which would add 13,000 housing units, provide mental health services for people who live on the streets and sidewalks of downtown’s skid row and transform ramshackle stretches of the city core into commercial and industrial spaces--won preliminary council approval last week. But in the debate beforehand, three other council members representing the Valley switched their votes to no, echoing the charges of secession advocates that the redevelopment would siphon money from the Valley. Because the vote was not unanimous, it will go back to the council this week for the final approval it deserves.

A yes vote by the council is not a rubber stamp for a new football stadium, contrary to what some critics claimed last week. The council needs to make that clear. If redevelopment funds were to subsidize a developer’s plans to build a stadium, the council would have to separately debate and approve it, as it would any project seeking more than $25,000 in redevelopment aid.

Reasonable people have honest differences over spending public money on redevelopment. But cities establish redevelopment agencies to spark investment in areas where private developers fear to tread. Though the agency, because of past problems, requires careful oversight, it has found the right target.

And then there are the dishonest differences, the ones secession advocates twist to support breaking Los Angeles into two or more cities. Redevelopment downtown, they say, would deprive the Valley of its “fair share” of property taxes from the redevelopment area. It would stick a new Valley city, assuming secession wins voter approval, with yet more bond debt. It would redirect tax money from schools, police and parks to downtown “special interests.”

Wrong, wrong and wrong.

No one--not the schools, not the county, not the city general fund that pays for police and parks--loses any of the property taxes currently collected. If dilapidated properties are redeveloped, increase in value and thus generate more tax revenue--and that is the goal--only the amount of the increase is set aside. That money is used to pay back the city-issued revenue bonds that paid for improvements. And even then, 20% of any increase is passed on to the county and schools and another 20% is set aside for housing.

Nevertheless, Los Angeles County Supervisor Zev Yaroslavsky, who says he is neutral but seldom misses a chance to side with his secessionist constituents, is threatening to sue the city over the project, repeating the claim that it would take money out of county coffers and “the mouths of poor people.” Since when is helping the homeless, creating jobs and building houses bad for the poor? Affordable housing downtown is also the kind of development supported by homeowners who don’t want apartments in their neighborhoods.

“I’m wearing my city hat,” longtime Valley representative Bernson said in announcing his support for the project. “This is good for the city.” That’s the kind of thinking Los Angeles needs. It’s the kind of thinking that could even keep the city together.