The latest redevelopment scheme

As part of the annual budget crisis in California, it appears that cities may be given the go-ahead to extend their redevelopment programs beyond what the law currently allows, in order to transfer still more taxpayer money to Sacramento. Dan Walters has the details:

the state would allow cities to extend the lives of their redevelopment projects – thus allowing them to keep property taxes that the projects generate – without having to meet the stringent requirements for redevelopment project extension in current law, including new findings of blight to be cleaned up. And in return, the state would be given a share of the property taxes from those extensions that would repay a loan in the $2 billion-plus range to help cover this year's $15.2 billion budget gap.