Redevelopment Agency Saved, Marina Loans OK'd

At last night's Long Beach City Council meeting, the from the Department of Boating and Waterways was unanimously approved. So construction should begin, Marine Bureau Manager Mark Sandoval guessed, in about a month, and should be finished within six months.

Basin 4 will be the first target of the pay-as-you-go $90-100 million project, costing a total of $23.7 million. The wooden docks will be replaced with concrete, and the construction project will include dredging, sea wall repair, pile replacement, bathroom and parking lot upgrades and an eelgrass mitigation center.

The overall plan is to remove many of the smaller boat slips of 20-25 feet, since they are more often unoccupied, Sandoval said, essentially removing 320 slip spaces. However, in order to accommodate smaller boats, Sandoval said they would consider a "dual usage" rotation program to fill larger slips with smaller boats if there was such a need.

In order to pay for debts incurred, all marina slip holders from Alamitos Bay Marina, as well as Shoreline and Rainbow, will have their slip fees increased by 4.4%, Sandoval imparted. When asked by Councilmember Rae Gabelich whether the next phases could increase fees even more, Sandoval replied, "potentially."

Funding for the next phase of the project has not been secured. The next target after Basin 4 is Basin 1, though $5 million more is needed to begin the $17 million venture. The DBW is already funding $41 of the approximate $94 million total.

"We will have to find funding from an outside source, without a doubt," Sandoval said. "There is a shortfall that must come from borrowed monies somewhere. But we factor in the sensitivity of the economy itself and recognize we can't simply ratchet up rates beyond our capacity to sustain them."

The treasurer is also looking into issuing bonds as potential funding sources.

When questioned by Councilmember Gabelich about any legal discrepancies behind the project, Chief Assistant City Attorney Heather Mahood confirmed that “these actions are entirely legal.”

Despite previous dissent from the public and by City Auditor Laura Doud, only one citizen raised concerns. Four spoke up for the project, including members from the Long Beach Marina Boat Owners Association and Marina Advisory Commission.

This rebuild plan has been in the works for many years, delayed partly due to opposition in the past, and Gary DeLong remarked that he hoped they'd "move forward this evening and get this thing started."

Also on the agenda was a motion to increase the amount going to the contractor Bellingham Marine for construction, though a vote was delayed without explanation.

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In an urgent vote to save the Long Beach Redevelopment Agency, the Council approved an agenda item that authorized the City to commit to the Voluntary Alternative Redevelopment Program, or as Mayor Bob Foster referred to it, "ransom" and "an outrage." The vote passed 8-0, DeLong absent.

The VARP is the program laid out in that will allow cities to keep their local Redevelopment Agencies if they pay a one-time fee to the State, in this case about $34 million, possibly more in the future.

The other option was to take no action, thus allowing Assembly Bill 26 to dissolve the RDA on October 1, 2011--as it will do to redevelopment agencies statewide. The funds would be redistributed to satisfy debts and pay for schools statewide.

"This is not a case of local governments not willing to help out the State," Foster said. "But local funds have to stay locally."

The constitutionality of ABX 26 and 27 are . The California Chamber of Commerce and those locally have teamed to publicly rail against it, since Proposition 22 was passed last November, which explicitly "prohibits the state from borrowing or taking funds used for transportation, redevelopment, or local government projects and services."

Making this payment will not keep the City from taking part in legal action; it will just keep the Agency from elimination.

During the period from 2002 through 2010, the Agency spent more than $148 million in redevelopment funds on public facilities and improvements. Opponents of redevelopment (not necessarily Gov. Brown) argue that it is widely under-audited and lacks oversight statewide as to where some of the funding is spent (personnel); some critics of redevelopment believe the economic development is often of greatest benefit to private builders, developers and banks that finance them.

A handful of people spoke at the podium in support of the Council's efforts to retain the redevelopment agency.

Kraig Kojian, CEO of Downtown Long Beach Associates said, “obviously the RDA is not perfect and in some instances we’ve seen mismanagement, but we’ve seen outstanding progress that has built strong communities.”

Another was a board member of the Redevelopment Agency, John Thomas, who expressed that the RDA intends to be “leaner and meaner, and more decisive in how we slice the RDA pie. But we’re glad we got the pie back.“

Support was strong all around, the Council reluctantly but unhesitatingly moving forward to approve the "Voluntary" program and $34 million remittance payment.