Claremont, La Verne Escape Redevelopment Rejection From California DOF

The most recent numbers from the California Department of Finance show that both Claremont and La Verne have escaped losing out on millions of dollars that their former redevelopment agencies still owe the cities.

Last December, the California Supreme Court shuttered hundreds of redevelopment agencies across the state. Claremont and La Verne weren't spared. 

However, neither city has to worry much about the current legal squabble over the money that most of these agencies still owed.

The 400 now defunct RDAs still reportedly owe their cities more than $5 billion for projects, but the DOF struck down about $1 billion worth of that money. In its decision, the DOF determined that these loans were not legitimate, indicating that they were not really going toward redevelopment purposes.

Yet neither Claremont nor La Verne had any of the loans owed by their RDAs disallowed. In fact, both cities had a relatively low amount of money owed at all.

For all of 2012, the Claremont Redevelopment Agency owed the city $2.1 million. The DOF determined that the CRA could pay back all of it. The same went for the $1.6 million owed to La Verne by its RDA.

This is compared to the millions still owed by RDAs from neighboring cities like Glendora and West Covina, which are losing out on 55 percent and 44 percent of the loans owed to them, respectively.

The Glendora RDA has $12 million still left on its books, but will not be allowed to pay back $6 million of that money.

West Covina was owed nearly $17 million, but the DOF disallowed almost $7.5 million of those loans.