My appearance on NBC 7 San Diego to talk about the city’s redevelopment woes sparked a good conversation on Twitter between myself, City Councilman David Alvarez and Deputy City Attorney Brant Will.
I was talking about how the city budget might have to shoulder tens of millions in debt owed from the first Convention Center expansion and the building of Petco Park. When the state threatened to eliminate redevelopment, the city shifted loan payments from its day-to-day budget to its redevelopment ledger. The state might undo that deal and use what’s known as the “clawback” to recoup money from the city that the defunct agency has already paid on the loans.
Alvarez saw the whole situation as an example of redevelopment’s overreach.
Here are the tweets:
@gcubnbcsd @dillonliam thanks for reminding us that had SD not been so greedy with downtown redevelopment, things might be different.
— David Alvarez (@AlvarezSD) December 11, 2012
@alvarezsd @gcubnbcsd @dillonliam worth noting that neither ballpark nor convention center were redevelopment projects.
— brantwill (@brantwill) December 11, 2012
@brantwill @gcubnbcsd @dillonliam Disagree. Remember the report on how much the ballpark has contributed to downtown? ow.ly/g1bfu
— David Alvarez (@AlvarezSD) December 11, 2012
@alvarezsd @gcubnbcsd @dillonliam Right but the clawback issue is precisely because the ballpark bonds are city bonds, not RDA.
— brantwill (@brantwill) December 11, 2012
@brantwill @alvarezsd Yes. My point on NBC was that they always could have been redevelopment projects. If that happened, no argument
— Liam Dillon (@dillonliam) December 11, 2012
Liam Dillon is a news reporter for Voice of San Diego. He covers San Diego City Hall, the 2012 mayor’s race and big building projects. What should he write about next?
Please contact him directly at liam.dillon@voiceofsandiego.org or 619.550.5663.
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