The redevelopment party should be over

In response to the Jan. 22 article “Council fights to save redevelopment money” I say this:

First off, it is my opinion that Glendale has spent enough on redevelopment. The sums that were spent to realize the Americana at Brand are staggering. Not to mention the Glendale Galleria projects, buildings along Brand Boulevard and the Marketplace.

Look at the vacancy rates today. Glendale has reached the point of diminishing returns when it comes to the subject of redevelopment. Now that the money has been spent, it is time to stop spending and to start accumulating our return on that investment.

Secondly, some redevelopment agencies have a reputation for abuse of power. There have been situations where choice of developers was based on political reasons. There is no scarcity of stories about projects gone wrong.

It is true that some redevelopment agencies are better than others, but the temptation to wrongly wield power is great in a redevelopment agency. To support these assertions, I offer the reader the example of Los Angeles redevelopment in South Central L.A. after the riots. It will turn any taxpayer’s stomach to knots.

I did not vote for Gov. Jerry Brown, but I have to give him credit for shining a light into the dark recesses of the redevelopment agencies.

Nobody can argue that California needs to keep spending money. The redevelopment agencies are a great place to start cutting because it will be easy to find large line items, and because I think the redevelopment party is over.

Greg Hiscott

La Cañada Flintridge

Bond can’t be used for the right reasons

In these difficult economic times, Glendale teachers don’t want to burden the Glendale homeowners with 40 years of taxes. Glendale teachers don’t feel the bond money is what our schools need at this time.

Teachers want to protect Glendale citizens from paying additional taxes through the year 2050. Now what is so selfish about that (“Union is on the wrong side again,” Jan. 29)?

If we felt the bond money was needed for our schools, we would let the Glendale community know — we have in the past time and time again. No, we are not being selfish; in fact, as teachers, we are once again looking out for others, in this case, community members. We are letting them know that now is not the time to ask the hard-working people of Glendale for bond money that our schools simply do not need.

If this money could be guaranteed to reduce class size, we would support it in a second. We sought that guarantee from the Glendale Unified School District. They refused to give it to us. With good reason, they can’t; this bond does not allow the funds to be used for class-size reduction. To seek a quarter-billion-dollar bond for anything else in these economic times is foolish.

The teachers say help the citizens in these tough economic times. Don’t extend taxes through the year 2050. We don’t need this kind of money — we need money that will reduce our class sizes.

Look again at who is being selfish; it certainly isn’t the teachers.

Marcelyn D. Bible

Glendale

Editor’s note: Bible is a teacher at Toll Middle School.