The Mercury News recently published an article drawing attention to the salary [$259,000 in 2007—Editor] of Harry Mavrogenes, the director of San Jose’s Redevelopment Agency (RDA). What should concern San Jose residents more is whether or not the RDA is adequately serving the interests of the people.
Mavrogenes was quoted as saying, “We’ve been successful in our mission in terms of trying to create more jobs and revitalize the city.” This remark raised my curiosity. Exactly how many jobs has the RDA created over the past few years?
Here are a few more questions for the RDA Director:
How much outstanding debt does the RDA currently hold?
How much of the RDA’s annual budget is spent on debt service?
What proportion of San Jose land is designated as a redevelopment zone?
Is it true that RDA funds can be spent on street repairs? If so, given the city’s current budget problems, why doesn’t the RDA spend more on street and other improvements?
Would you support the creation of a citizen-based RDA oversight committee that would review prospective projects and make recommendations to the RDA board?
What questions would San Jose Inside readers like to have answered by the RDA director?
Per this newsletter:
http://www.ctrc.org/newsletters/CTRC_2008_3WEB_Layout.pdf
I would like to know why “Redevelopment Agency (RDA) staff, CTRC is being guided in another search for a museum site. The RDA has declared that our preferred
Coleman/Guadalupe Gardens site.”
Who the foxtrot do they think they are? The train museum people collected lots of community group endorsements:
http://www.ctrc.org/projects/museum/community-endorsements-for-the-railroad-museum.html
Why isn’t the RDA getting behind this? The musuem site is currently a weed lot. In order to be commercially developed, a new bridge would have to be built over the Guadalupe river which I don’t think is too popular with the community. If the proposed train museum/park was built, no such bridge was required, according to the presentation I heard.
Heads ought to roll at RDA.
That’s a good question. What did Harry do for downtown? Downtown is a total disaster with nothing to show for: no vitality, no synergy, no shopping, no funky neighborhoods, total sterility, every project failing, and no pride. Downtown still is dead and rolls up by 1:30 after lunch. It’s a total ghost-town during the weekends and in the evenings. Harry should be fired on the spot for no progress because the city is in such sad state. Money have been wasted on subsidies and land speculations. Ask yourselves, what did Harry Mavrogenes from Stockton do? $250,000 a year of wasted city money and then some.
I agree with Tom #2 that downtown San Jose is a total failure. The redevelopment – agency has totally failed in its effort to revive downtown SJ over the last 25 years with 3.6 billion dollars of taxpayer’s money. That money could have be spent on city’s infrastructure and schools to make it much better off. The redevelopment agency must be disbanded since it’s city’s way of fooling around with money and pleasing the corporate elitist. Shut down or phase out the money wasting redevelopment agency!
Does Harry live downtown? Or does he drive in from a gated community somewheres? Either way, San Jose deserves better, no disrespect intended, but the RDA needs to get reshuffled, and new leadership is needed. Is this the classic government within a government scenario?
What has RDA accomplished since Harry has been there as Assistant Director and now Executive Director?
How much RDA $$ have been spent and how many jobs, retail sales taxes, and property taxes has redevelopment generated since Harry has been there?
Why does San Jose still have few jobs, low taxes and poor services and years of budget shortfalls after many billions RDA dollars spent while other redevelopment cites are better not same or worst?
When is RDA downtown spending which returns little to taxpayers or city going to end?
Why hasn’t RDA built large shopping centers in North San Jose after taking but not doing any thing for years while our sales taxs and jobs go to Milpitas, Santa Clara, Mountain View and Fremont?
Why is Santana Row a great success with not cit money while downtown is a failure with bilions spent?
What is the rent per square foot of RDA buildings and why dozens of years latter we are still subsidizing RDA building when owners are making millions and taxpayers are paying millions?
Why doesn’t RDA help small business owners who generate 80% new jobs not just large corporations who move jobs to other states nd countries?
Greg
You miss the major pt. Let me inform you on a bit of San Jose History 101 – prior to the late seventies, the job of mayor was more like a mail clerk for the city manager. The “growth coalition” ruled; they destroyed the small businesses of the downtown and left our neighborhoods bereft of basic services. It was a disgrace. With JGHayes it began to change; mayors and the agenda of real people took over. Of course, the RDA is run by the Council, but only lately, and never diminish the power of the silent unmoving city staff and the always powerful growth cartel – do you think they just went away? The Frank Taylors drove them off, made mistakes, and improved the city. In the arena is the phrase, Greg. End of your tutorial. TMcE
The RDA, at the behest of developers and other special interest lobbyists, has siphoned off so much tax revenue that basic city services are no longer provided for.
Our Mayor and City Council, with the exception of Pierluigi, don’t even seem to recognize what’s going on. Like most city bureaucrats they are content to continue doing a crappy job while hiding behind the excuse that they are constrained by the rules.
Dissolve the RDA. Run San Jose the same way most of us run our households- by living within our means, using common sense,prioritizing, and keeping our entire house in good repair, not just the entertainment room.
This all reminds me of Microsoft’s ‘Mojave Experiment’.
An awful lot of people have convinced themselves that San Jose’s downtown looks something like the Korean DMZ.
I’ll bet if you showed them daylight pictures of the area in front of E&O, they’d comment what a nice downtown area that small town has.
I’m not normally one to defend downtown (I am still in favor of somehow performing a ‘thug exorcism’) but let’s not get carried away.
Dear 1-8: Perhaps we ought to blame Harry for the trade imbalance and the impending bird flu too. Let’s be realistic, the RDA has created much good: an Arena, museums and theatres, housing and numerous neighborhood improvements, and part of our highways. All you “know it alls” perhaps ought to remember that Downtown was murdered by a lot of city hall types who didn’t know a thing about neighborhood services or building a city, or the plight of small businesses – a lot of people were silent as we sprawled and sprawled. There have been plenty of mistakes downtown, but they were made by those like Janet Gray Hayes and Susan Hammer and Frank Taylor and Harry Mavrogenes and me too, of course. They were made by those who care about the city; who know the value of a thriving Downtown; who are not too timid to try for something better. All critics who see the glass always totally empty, should look a big more closely. These are people who don’t just care about their jobs -they care about a better future for our city.“Look to the reality, not just your impressions of a Downtown that you fail to understand. TMcE
What exactly does the RDA do?
Do they take the taxes paid by our constituents and use it to entice developers to the area?
Do they give money to current property owners as a “joint venture” to improve their property?
If that’s the case, why would anyone in their right mind spend their own money on a development project when they can just take it from the local citizens?
Are there any downtown property owners here who play this game successfully that can explain it to the rest of us?
Sounds like a breeding ground for corruption to me. Or just outright theft.
#7 JMOC,
Over $5 billion in PRIVATE investment money flowed into downtown San Diego/Gaslamp District because of Petco Park, home to Major League Baseballs Padres (condos, retail, restaurants, etc.)! Not sure how much RDA money was spent there. The economic synergy that the ballpark has created in downtown San Diego is awesome. We could have had the same thing occur in our downtown, but we are “slaves” to that town/team 45 miles to the north.
#15 Tony D,
So why build a #15 billion BART system from Downtown San Jose To the new A`s Stadium in Fremont? The other town/team to the north.
Excuse me…I don`t understand you?
San Jose continues to lack the city political and management leadership with vision, political will and commitment to public good
The housing “growth coalition” continues to rule; they destroy small businesses by raising city taxes and fees to some highest in California,, gets Council to agree they don’t have to follow General Plan that requires building businesses and retail stores with homes because they make more millions from residential so many residents have to drive miles to other cities for work or for basic shopping and our neighborhoods have less basic services while crime increases since we lack tax revenues form businesses to pay for city services.
It has continued and even worst disgrace.
Council decisions are frequently made to benefit career politicians, city management, lobbyists and housing developers profits not public.
Tax subsidies worth billions – below market city leases, planning amendments, zoning exceptions, tax giveaways, and free city services – are routinely given away to politically connected lobbyists, developers and property owners while public interests was ignored and city services are cut further resulting in current budget deficit, inadequate city services and community planning disasters
Questions,
Did you really expect downtown property owners who get RDA and city tax millions, free city services or below market leases to tell how they get taxpayers money without having to deliver any public benefit – new jobs, new taxes, public facilities etc
7 word Answer – lobbyists, campaign contributors, insiders equals Council paybacks
No. 18 and others – it’s amazing how backassward so many of you have the recent history of the city. It was not the downtown that benefitted from the “lobbyists and insider conversion of our tax base to housing”. It was not the neighborhoods that benefitted from the former staffers’ machinations. Look at it! Do you really think that we are in the state we are in Downtown because of the favorable treatment of the Gonzales years. How much money did Kim Small or the Swig Family make in their “deals.” What color is the sky in your world? TMcE
Pete,
Thanks for the column. I do have one question that’s been gnawing at me for a while.
When a particular area is put into the “RDA Portfolio,” I understand that the delta between the original tax basis and the redeveloped tax basis equals the tax increment. Subsequently, the present value of the increment stream is sold to bond investors.
Further, I believe that the 100% of the bond sale proceeds are earmarked for RDA projects. I would like to know, in dollar terms, the degree of adverse impact on our other infrastructure needs.
Were properties to be redeveloped without RDA intervention, the tax increment could be used for such needs. I do recognize, however, that the State retains a large share of property tax revenue, so that must be taken into account.
Harry says“We’ve been successful in our mission in terms of trying to create more jobs and revitalize the city.” I’ll have what he’s smokin’.
Harry, name ONE JOB created by RDA other than the sinecure jobs in your own agency. Billions have been spent since Tom and Frank Taylor started this quest 25 years ago, and I still don’t see a downtown worth a sh*t. Look at San Diego’s Gaslamp District. I have no idea if RDA $$$ were spent on it, but I do know it’s working, and ours isn’t.
SJ is still a ghost town weeknights and weekend days. The element that comes down here Th-Sun nights is mostly not a big plus (unless you’re a parole officer looking for a guy who failed to report), except for nights when there’s something @ The Tank.
If the RDA’s function was to make downtown SJ something, anything, after 25 years and $3.6 BILLION it is an abject failure. And we have paid this putz and the previous putzes HOW MUCH for NO RESULTS??
Like most higher-ups in government, guys like Harry spend a lot of time justifying their existence and their significant salaries and benefits, with little demonstrable results that mean anything to the people who ultimately pay their exorbitant salaries. And, during those 25 years, roads have gone to hell, parks look like weed patches, librarries cut back, pools close, all to spend a ton of $$$ on a downtown that remains moribund to this day; while Valley Fair & Santana Row rock.
Sadly, the same is now true of the private sector, where CEO’s get huge pay and benefits, while their companys’ stock goes in the tank due to bad results.
Jeez, Carly Fiorina screwed up a great company, got an incredible severance package, and is now a mucky-muck for McCain, and could be a cabinet member if he wins.
We’re doomed, people, until there’s another Boston Tea Party.
Harry lives in Almaden in a house the City helped him buy with a low-interest loan. I can see the City using low-interest loans to help attract talented people that don’t already live here, but that is not the case with Harry. And we need to watch those low-interest loans as government often forgives them as part of a severance package.
Tom #9-
Your argument is that you can’t blame the RDA because the it was the city’s fault?
The mayor and the city council are the governing board of both the city and the RDA. It’s ridiculous for one to blame the other, like my right foot blaming my left when I walk into a wall.
#19 Tom,
Politicians work hard, to get their votes, to get elected and, take care of their friends.
The benefits of the tax base do not help the cities general fund, they help the RDA general fund. The City is broke,the RDA is rich.Core City services like police, fire and Emergency medical services get budget cuts.Downtown not for profits get millions of dollars in funding because RDA officials take care of their friends,not city core services.
We have a shortage of police officers,fire fighters and paramedics and you say we are backasswards.
#16 RZ,
Damn straight you don’t understand me! The only reason the A’s ballpark is being proposed 4 miles north of SJ city limits in Fremont is because WE ARE BANNED FROM PURSUING SAID TEAM/BALLPARK! If you really post from “in San Jose” you should be appalled by this set of circumstances. What the hell does BART have to do with this anyway?
In reading this string, two things come to mind:
1) The citizens of San Jose have not been educated properly about the process of Redevelopment. The perception continues after 20 years plus that redevelopment only lines the pockets of developers and does nothing for the citizens of San Jose.
2) The city leaders through the years (and, with all due respect, you are among them TMcE), have failed to build a consensus that redevelopment Downtown is necessary and desirable. They’ve failed to generate enthusiasm for it. Instead, they told the citizens of San Jose were told “we think you need a rebuilt Downtown and we’re betting you’ll ride Light Rail to the retail Pavilion and enjoy the shopping experience over and over again”. And the citizens of San Jose said “pffft, let’s go to Valley Fair, where did you park?”
The fact that Downtown redevelopment has taken so long, has required so much money, still is not complete, and is perceived as a failure in most circles, is probably as injurious to the Downtown neighborhood as the exodus from Downtown in the ‘50’s and ‘60’s.
The cynical citizens of San Jose will now never allow Downtown to be what it still could be, because they will point to redevelopment’s past failures as evidence that redevelopment will never work. And even the victories of redevelopment have been tainted by cynicism. Even the fabulous success of the Arena wrought public policy that would keep future sports facility successes from ever happening again (because no sports facility will ever pass a public vote in this cynical society).
And that’s why the San Jose Athletics would play in far-flung Fremont. We’ve already voted them down.
The pathological need that so many San Joseans have to believe that Downtown has failed—that there is nothing to show for the redevelopment money spent—is the biggest barrier to greatness for this city.
I have lived Downtown for 9 years, and visited it for 14 prior to that, and anyone who hasn’t noticed the vast, positive change since then is working awfully hard to not see it.
The only reason to visit 23 years ago was Camera 1. Now I live here for all of the cultural, entertainment, and dining options on offer within 3 – 4 blocks of my apartment door.
But this attitude! This reverse alchemy performed by so many of my neighbors, where the many gold nuggets of Downtown are turned into lumps of lead. There’s just no pleasing people whose mindset is that the only city money that should be spent is to fix the pothole in front of their house. Just the one, though.
RCID #24: that’s really the point, isn’t it? Most San Joseans do not see downtown as either a destination or a place to live? This view is validated by the lack of people walking around downtown evenings during the week if there’s nothing at The Tank; and it’s a ghost town days as well on Sat. & Sun.
Perception is reality, RC. Most folks who I know who live downtown LOVE IT. I’m seriously considering leaving Willow Glen where I have been since 1980, and moving to either The 88 or Axis. There’s lots I like to do downtown, and the walking everywhere including stumbling home afoot has an appeal. But that’s just me..and you…and the relatively few compared to our entire population who see it that way. Besides, they’ve priced their units at amounts that would sell two years ago, and are now at least 25% too high for current market conditions.
Those outlanders who hate coming downtown have seen $3-5 BILLION spent with relatively little to show for it in their view, while their streets are full of potholes, the pools are closed, library hours are cut back, we’re short of cops, and the city council wants to close one firehouse in WG just to build another a few blocks away.
I enjoy wandering around at lunchtime and dinner time and checking out how so many older buildings have been restored, and new ones have been built, but unless you work downtown, you’re unlikely to see those things in your headlong rush to and from lunch…then hop in the car and drive back to suburbia.
Downtown fans are in the distinct minority. I doubt 10% of the residents of SJ give a hoot about downtown. That’s the reality, and is likely to be so for a couple of generations at least.
The new ball park is another proposed BART stop on the BART route. Another BART endorcer or property owner along the route.
There is nothing wrong with our overhead Light Rail in Milpitas connecting with BART in Warm Springs at an Intermodal station there.This connection of BART and the Light Rail in Warm Springs would save the tax payers in Santa Clara County and especially San Jose Billions of dollars.
Tony, just one more important un-answered question from VTA and the SVLG, what would the “cost comparisonbe using Light Rail to connect with BART, vs.Building BART to Santa Jose.
What would the cost comparison be?
#26 YYY,
I agree with much of what you said but, I would like to add to your comment about questions answered by an independant examiners. The RDA has an independant examiner that is not so independant.This firm was selected by a former City Manager,Les White, after which he appointed the firm, he was awarded a job working for the independant consultant.This firm is headed up by a former San Jose City Manager,Newfarmer, that served during the time Tom was Mayor.Well…conflict of interest? Maybe just a little?
Another carry over from Tom`s administration is Dean M., who was awarded a position on the RDA`s top staff. The award for Dean came after the fine job Dean did on the non profit the,“Sports Authority” and the great decisions to bring the sports car races to downtown and spend $4million to move the downtown Palm trees.
There is more but,seems to me RDA is run by the same good old boys club.This group just keeps on changing hats and titles.
These people just sit there in these cusion jobs and wonder why people are upset with the downtown developments.
Maybe, the City Council should bring the Santana Row people in to fix the problems with downtown.Maybe the RDA`s time has come and gone?
Downtown San Jose is a neighborhood, a business and entertainment center, and home to San Jose State (an often overlooked attribute). But there really is no center of San Jose or Silicon Valley any more. Perhaps, downtown could have been much more significant and more positively developed over the last twenty five years. Perhaps it could have been or could still be the more significant icon many people want to build. But let’s be realistic, the quasi-urban face of Silicon Valley is distributed across multiple locations from Palo Alto and Mountain View, to Santana Row/Valley Fair. In the future, new centers of San Jose may emerge if the proponents of higher density development succeed in parts of north or south San Jose.
Walk around downtown San Jose, especially during a weekday and you will find a vibrant and pleasant environment. I’m glad I live here, but I think it’s time for the City to scale back the role of the RDA and let market forces drive development. It’s time to also examine RDA governance and demand that our elected representatives take a more active role in questioning the RDA.
While the RDA Director may be able to answer Pete’s questions, a higher level analysis of RDA and the role RDA should play in our City is more important. These top-line questions can only be answered objectively by independent examiners – not from within the RDA itself.
That said, my top question for the RDA is – do they have maps/charts/lists showing all RDA owned properties, price paid, and date of acquisition. A related question is whether they have a compilation detailing the history of properties sold and developed?
The RDA does not have San Jose’s best interest it has Harry’s best interest. It has become a great boondoggle for a few peoples salaries and little to help the city. The problem is the city officials rarely make true decisions (filters on computers or naming a piece of road
fill their agenda).
The center of the center of downtown SJ is the Cupola in the Dirt and the Mussolini-like tower next to it filled to the brim with bureaucrats—the real beneficiaries of RDA, the Black Hole for tax money that also sucks up all available energy and imagination. It certainly isn’t Swig’s nice hotel or the museums—or formerly unsanitized Fountain. Tom keeps talking about The Tank as a great success, and it is, but as noted in this blog, it shot its wad. Nothing will build on that success—and it isn’t the center of downtown. Even the Convention Center, which could be a center, is not. Nothing for attendees to do except wander down to OJ’s. The museums don’t fit with convention schedules.
RDA has an endless supply of tax dollars, but not a drop of imagination. It absolutely cannot think of a way to get retail downtown. Cindy Chavez and His Ronner pick Richard Meier when they could have had Santiago Calatrava (like even Redding, CA did), Frank Gehry, Arquitectonica—to help design an exciting downtown. How hard can it be when there are so many examples of what downtown could be, so close at hand? Aside from Santana Row, Los Gatos, Campbell, Palo Alto. Let Federal Realty Trust, not the RDA, take over planning a downtown that Dutch Hamman’s neighborhoods would visit. Tom complains about the bad old days when the mayor was a messenger, just king or queen of the prom, no council power, and now we have the mini-mayor system, still intact with Chuck Reed in charge, and Pierluigi the only council member ever who doesn’t play that stupid game that gives all representation to the neighborhoods and none to any coalescing principle. Hopeless. Overlooked in all the hand-wringing is the airport and it’s negative impact on the possibility of a majestic downtown. Two landscape plans for its entrance, neither executed, the perps at city hall still not fired for pissing away all that tax money—and folks all over the USA and Europe going to Mineta, not San Jose
(unlike O’Hare, JFK, John Wayne) to satisfy the vanity of the local ruling Democratic Party. How about hundreds of acres off the tax rolls forever for the approach to the airport? Who thought of that? Give ‘em credit. But all we hear of is the old guy who had the “vision” to put the airport where it is—the same kind of “vision” that SJ still enjoys, i.e., none at all. George Green
Nice Labor Day commentary Mr. Green. The airport is overlooked because at the present there’s absolutely nothing the city could do about the current site; the airport (operation) isn’t going to South County, Hollister, or Moffet Field anytime soon (if at all). But you’re right, SJC is the largest obstacle to our downtown becoming truly great and majestic. Try enjoying The Tapestry Arts Festival this weekend with loud jets flying over every few minutes…you won’t get that at next weeks Mtn. View Art and Wine Festival. The airport is also a joke in that it keeps loosing flights to SFO; a true waste of 1000 acres! Again, nice commentary.