California Mayors Offer $1.7 Billion Redevelopment Bond Plan
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California should borrow from Wall Street to help ease its $25 billion deficit instead of following Governor Jerry Brown’s budget-cutting proposal to eliminate redevelopment agencies, a group of mayors led by Antonio Villaraigosa of Los Angeles proposed.
Under the plan proposed by Villaraigosa, the state would sell $1.7 billion of bonds maturing in 25 years. Redevelopment agencies would pay $200 million a year in debt service on the bonds and would hand over 5 percent of their revenue each year to the state. In exchange, the agencies wouldn’t be abolished.