The MLK Coalition, in conjunction with Urban Progressives
and Clean Sweep, is attending the Community Redevelopment Agency bi monthly
meeting on Thursday February 3, 2011 at 9:30 am. The purpose of the coalition
attending this meeting is to make a community inquiry about the expropriation
of CRA funds by Los Angeles
officials in order to prevent the funds from being seized by the State. The
address is 1200 West Seventh
Street. The MLK Coalition slogan is “$52 million could stop
all foreclosures and help
to end homelessness in LA – or build a parking lot for a
billionaire’s museum. Where do you think the money should go?”
The question asked by Nyabingi Kuti, president of the Urban Progressives and a leader in the Martin Luther King Coalition, in this press release announcement goes to the heart of the controversy over the CRA in Los Angeles and across the state.
It’s why LA Clean Sweep, the South Central Farmers and others from across the city are coming together to challenge the CRA Commission’s plan lock up nearly $1 billion in taxpayer money in defiance of Gov. Jerry Brown’s efforts to restore California’s financial stability partly by abolishing all CRAs. 
The trigger for many was the CRA’s approval two weeks ago of $52 million to build a garage for billionaire Eli Broad’s art museum as part of his vision for Grand Avenue and Bunker Hill — the most valuable and heavily subsidized properties in LA.
What Kuti and others have trouble understanding is how such a lavish gift achieves the CRA’s mission of improving the quality of people’s lives in blighted areas.
They see blight in much of South LA and East LA and many other areas of the city where CRA money could be and should be spent to keep people from becoming homeless, or putting people without homes into homes, or even creating homeowners out of tenants.
Those actions would provide real public benefits in a way a garage on Bunker Hill does not.
The same is true about most the $1 billion the CRA is trying to lock up: Are the benefits to the public so great that they justify gifts of taxpayer money to private interests?
On Jan. 14, the commission in a special meeting with just 24 hours notice approved negotiating an agreement with the city to protect its funding from the governor’s proposal — a meeting that was challenged on multiple grounds as being illegal in violation of the state open meeting law.
So the issue is back on the CRA Commission’s agenda Thursday, presumably to clear the legal cloud over its action.
This is a chance for the public to take a stand against the folly of City Hall’s policies that enrich the rich at the expense of the poor, of working people of all classes, races and regions.
If the people of Egypt can risk their lives to defy an authoritarian dictatorship, it doesn’t seem too much to ask of people in LA to show up at a meeting to condemn City Hall’s corruption and neglect of the interests of people all over the city.
If you care about the future of LA, you’ll show up at 9:30 a.m. Thursday at 1200 W. 7th St. and make your voice heard.
Question? Would AEG get any of this money to build the stadium? Ron, you mentioned this awhile a go but the failure of a Mayor just stated it to the media at the press conf. today naming the NFL stadium that hasn’t been approved by city council yet. If any incumbent running for re election or council member wanting to seek higher office votes for this corrupt piece of crap VOTE THEM OUT. Everyone needs to email or call your council member NOW and say NO to AEG. The media has been reporting the corrupt way this is all going down.
LA Weekly: Villaraigosa mentioned how Wasserman “first brought this” stadium idea “to me, what, two years ago.”
Leiweke then got up to the podium and said, “When Casey came to us a few years ago and said I have a little idea, I said uh-oh … [But] we stayed on the mayor.”
If the mayor knew about this two years ago, why is being brought to City Hall now, with “rush” stamped all over it?
Please give me a few fact filed statements as to why we should oppose the building of the stadium. Does AEG require a low coast loan? What happens to the taxes collected? Will this really cost no taxpayer dollars?
3:34 Asks: “Will this [stadium] really cost no taxpayer dollars?”
Please call me at 310-471-2489 any time, day or night. I have exclusive rights to sell this red bridge in San Francisco at a steep discount, and I’m sure you’ll be interested.
3:46, I know you are right I just need to be able to explain it simply to other people and I am not as conversant as I should be. I am not looking for cries of Tony V is a thief, etc., etc. Simple facts will suffice.
Where are the numbers guys like Jack or Paul? AEG is saying they need a City bond costing $300 million. Where is that money suppose to come from?
Everyone need to know Police Officers are beyond outraged OUR union is getting involved in this political issues. PPL have no business saying anything about the AEG stadium. Its bad enough they spend over $2 million of OUR dues without telling us on moron candidates that have lost. Is it any wonder why many cops want Bob Baker or Tim Sands BACK. Our Union has been an embarrassment to the rank and file. Thats the reason meetings with teamsters are now taking place.
… PPL We’ve finally seen a plan that we can enthusiastically support and urge City leaders to make happen. We’re getting behind AEG’s bold plan to build a 64,000-seat retractable-roof stadium (expandable to 78,000 for NFL Super Bowls and NCAA Final Fours) that would complete the 15-acre campus that already includes the Staples Center, Nokia Theater and L.A. Live.
” … To get the ball rolling on this exciting project, LAPPL favors the issuance of $350 million in municipal bonds, which would fund construction of a new wing of the L.A. Convention Center (increasing its size by 90,000 square feet) and demolition of the old West Hall.”
Here’s one data point on the finances of the stadium. AEG wants the City to borrow $350 Million (by issuing bonds), and effectively lend this money to AEG, using AEG’s loan payments to make the City’s loan payments. Why, you may ask, doesn’t AEG just borrow the $350M, and cut the middleman? I’ll give AEG the benefit of the doubt and assume it does make all its payments.
Even then, if you are an investor, would you invest in AEG-issued bonds to finance a football stadium or would you invest in municipal bonds. The answer is, of course, that it depends on the interest rate they pay you. Municipal bonds are usually at a lower interest rate because they are 1) perceived as less risky, and 2) you don’t have to pay taxes on the interest you receive.
Thus, by having the City issue the bonds, AEG gets a lower interest rate because investors believe they are taking less risk, and because the Federal and State governments don’t add taxes to the interest AEG pays. Homework for the student: are the investors and taxpayers footing part of the bill for AEG’s stadium? Justify your answer.
Nothing illegal, mind you. But I’d love to have the City issue bonds and lend me the money so I can buy a house with a lower mortgage payment. If AEG can, why can’t I?
If AEG promises to give the city the 700 million it collects for the naming rights, then we should consider the bonds. We should be entitled to our full costs plus interest. This issue has been covered extensively on this blog and elsewhere with the same conclusion that the city is being ripped-off. It gets tedious to repeat the same points over and over. The unions along with the Mayor and City Council are whores and we should do exactly the opposite of what they recommend. They don’t work in the interest of the city but for their own interests.
Last night, while listening to the Governor’s speech, one statement stood out. That, in effect, any monies paid out by the CRAs would be honored if those agencies are closed (i.e., could he mean the 52 Million Dollars)?
Seems to me someone needs to consult an attorney and see if it is feasible to get an injunction preventing any CRA from disbursing funds until a final decision is rendered by the legislature. Otherwise, all of this discussion will be moot…and the money we are trying to hold on will have been spent.
Or, am I missing something?
Since we are off-topic, here is an excerpt from Zine’s Council motion from Citywatch – “Today I introduced a motion that passed unanimously asking the Office of the City Attorney to immediately begin a civil suit against Jeffrey Stenroos, Los Angeles School Police Officer, to recover as much of the associated city costs spent in the search of a false suspect and endangering thousands of children, community members, and over 300 hundred sworn officers deployed to the area in search of the supposed shooter”.
Zine is an idiot and he must think the public is as dumb as him. Quit wasting more city resources suing a “Fall Guy” for the stupidity of LAPD and their over reaction. Obviously, no lessons were learned from the AEG/Michael Jackson fiasco. This police uses little intelligence or common sense trained as they are to use brute force in large numbers. Let’s direct our limited resources to the much needed LAPD training in using resources intelligently and spare us the grandstanding.
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Where will the bond proceeds come from?
The investment community….. but who knows what the interest rate will be? The muni market is not that attractive given the uncertainties of state and local finances.
It’s a big roll of the dice to issue bonds in an amount that almost equals next year’s deficit. Just think of the borrowing the city will have to do just to manage its cash flow for next year. Granted, most of that will be short term, but it’s still a lot of paper flying around and it will contribute to investor jitters when the stadium bonds are floated.
Quite frankly, if the stadium pencils out as AEG and its cronies say it will, then they should borrow the funds themselves.
Or maybe they can put $300 million in escrow to pay off the bonds if the city issues them. As the expression goes, “show me the money!”
How about giving it to those rate payers that a judge ruled were over charged by the City?
What’s left can be used for the libraries.
@ February 1, 2011 7:29 PM
Actually the Governor originally talked about any obligations. So not only is the $52 million for the Billionaire Eli Broad.
Sell off City-Owned parking lots, but at the say time, rush to spend $52 million for a City-Owned parking lot.
But this is what the Jan. 14, 2011 Special is all about.
The City and CRA/LA are trying to obligate $930,000,000.