“More than 10 cents of every dollar in property tax collected in California last year—more than $4 billion—was intercepted and spent before reaching the school districts, fire departments, municipal general funds and other agencies.” So begins real estate developer and former school board trustee Doug Kaplan’s article, “Redevelopment Boondoggle,” recently published by the San Francisco Chronicle.
“The taxes were diverted, as they have been diverted every year for the past 50 years, to an opaque network of private real estate interests and public development agencies…. Redevelopment long ago morphed from a program begun in the late 1940s to redevelop blighted inner-city slums into the current boondoggle used by some 360 California communities to develop brand new Costcos, Home Depots, Walmarts, shopping malls, movie theaters, hotels and other tax generating projects, many located on prime, sometimes pristine, commercial sites.
“Redevelopment has diverted money from essential public purposes to pay for less-than-essential, sometimes frivolous, often dicey, private projects. Sure, after all this time and billions spent, redevelopment has contributed to some worthwhile projects. Its cumulative impact on state finances, however, has been disastrous.”
Shouldn’t Kaplan’s thesis be tested? San Jose has the biggest redevelopment agency in California. Are the people of San Jose getting value for their redevelopment buck, or is it just an expensive “boondoggle” that enriches a select group of developers and investors? Is the San Jose Redevelopment Agency a public institution or a semi-private corporation?
Given the current state of the economy and the poor fiscal shape of city, county, and state governments, now’s the perfect time for the local media to dedicate itself to a thorough analysis of the questions surrounding redevelopment. Is redevelopment working for San Jose?
As a city/county tax payer, can anyone down at city hall publish a detailed list explaining the city’s operating costs (police, fire, school, social, etc).
All we hear about is how the city needs to generate more revenue to fight the ever increasing budget.
Shouldn’t we the taxpayers decide what we need and what should go? Is the city employing too many people? Do union contracts need to be renegotiated? Does every library need to be remodeled?
When are we going to get complete fiscal disclosure from our city leaders? How much money is coming in and how much needs to go out? How many “government” employees are going to retire will full medical disability this year?
SJT,
The Government Industry has no interest in providing you and me with this information. They’ve discovered that 75% of the voters are gullible ninnies who will unquestioningly fall for their pleas for more money.
As far as they’re concerned, the less we know the better.
Apparently the voluminous City budget document is inadequate to provide the answers to your questions? What else would you need to educate yourself on the City’s revenue and expenses?
Oh, I don’t know. How about a detailed list of all the City Departments with the names of the employees in those departments, a detailed description of each of their job responsibilities, their salaries and benefits, a disclosure of the number of sick days they’ve taken and any worker compensation benefits received. Also a list of all the employees who have taken disability retirement and a per annum dollar figure on each of those persons.
I’d also be interested to know just how much the City pays out to settle lawsuits, the nature of those lawsuits, and particularly those that are brought against the City by it’s own employees.
Furthermore, I’d like to see a detailed summary of the non-profits the City gives money to, and a description of the names and salaries of the officers and employees of these non-profits.
All this information should be put together in one easy to evaluate document. I think it would be an eye opener.
It’s all public information. The taxpayers decide how to spend the money by electing leaders to make those decisions. All decisions are made in public and public input is taken at meetings. If you disagree with the spending priorities of those elected to serve, then vote for somebody else.
What you seem to be suggesting is that you should vote on every budget decision. That obviously isn’t practical and is the reason democracies elected representatives to make those decisions.
David,
Given the state of our city’s budget crisis, I completely disagree with your statement.
I thought I did vote for the people who promised fiscal responsibility, at least that was what they told me when they were campaigning, but what I got were individuals who bowed to the unions and status quo of city hall. We’re in worst shape now than before these folks took office.
I’ll be more than happy to vote for someone with the foresight to get the city budget back on course but I have no faith once they get into office its business as usual.
What as taxpayers can we do?