Senate & Assembly Committee Joint Interim Hearing on Redevelopment & Blight. Weingart City Heights Library, S.D.

Good afternoon honorable members at this joint session. I am Larry Gilbert, Orange County Co-chairman of Californians United for Redevelopment Education. Please check out our 45 minute video on Eminent Domain on our web site. www.califcurehome.com

Having attended college during the riots in Newark, New Jersey I know what blight looks like. Abandoned and burned out buildings and cars, high crime, high unemployment, rampant prostitution on major streets, etc. You get the picture. Now let's fast forward to the California Promise, also known as Mission Viejo where I currently reside. In 1992 we received an award for excellence from the prestigious Urban Land Institute which stated that "Mission Viejo stands as one of the most successful American new towns ever realized." That same year we declared our award winning city a slum, placing roughly half of our commercial zone, including our trauma hospital and community college, into an RDA project area. The photos on these exhibits were taken by me in 1996.
The question to each of you. Which of these areas is truly blighted?

AB 1290 describes conditions of blight. "Areas lacking proper utilization to such an extent that it constitutes a serious physical AND economic burden on the community which cannot reasonably be expected to be reversed or alleviated by private enterprise or governmental action, or both, without redevelopment." Case in point. The renovation and expansion of the Mission Viejo Mall by Simon Property Group, the largest mall owners in America, whose pockets are much deeper than the city of Mission Viejo. Our city council, functioning as the RDA, authorized up to $85 million of Bonded indebtedness on their behalf. Simon stated that they needed our corporate welfare to satisfy a specific return on investment for their REIT eight months AFTER the renovation was underway. Where was the RDA project oversight? I visited Sacramento to challenge the legality of this project. In reviewing the facts Deputy Attorney General Marsha Bedwell stated that "while the timing and progress of the project may cast some doubt on the findings of blight, the statute makes judicial review of their adequacy extremely difficult."
As to public participation. As we did not have the right to vote on this debt we took League of Cities lobbyist Ken Emannuel's challenge and in three election cycles removed that council including a sitting mayor and mayor pro tem.

In his book entitled "Subsidizing Redevelopment in CA" Michael Dardia stated that Blight conditions need to be aligned with the goal(s) of redevelopment and should be more precise. With the financial incentive of tax increment revenues, blight conditions cannot remain in the eye of the beholder if redevelopment efforts are meant to target the most serious cases of blight. This means they must be more like the quantitative criteria used to determine eligibility for enterprise zones in some states. Criteria such as poverty rate of at least 20% of the population, 20% population loss in recent years, x percentage of the buildings or assessed value abandoned, y percentage of property taxes in arrears, or the crime rate z times the state average. If the redevelopment subsidies are to be targeted, blight must be judged more on an absolute than a relative basis.

Thank you for listening.

Larry Gilbert, O.C. Co-chairman Californians United for Redevelopment Education (CURE)
28302 San Marcos, Mission Viejo, CA 92692
email lgpwr@aol.com