Redevelopment business at the council's regular meeting on Thursday, Jan. 14, included discussion of the proposed amendment and the possible formation of a project area committee.
City Attorney Malathy Subramanian was unable to attend the meeting, so Melanie Donnelly, another attorney from the same firm of Best, Best & Krieger, sat in on the meeting to help the council work through the issues.
Donnelly helped lead the council through the discussion regarding some members' potential conflicts of interest with regard to the proposed redevelopment plan amendment, which City Administrator Dale Neiman said must be completed by this coming July 9.
She said the council needed a minimum of three members in order to have a quorum on the subject, but three council members – Mayor Judy Thein, Vice Mayor Joyce Overton and Curt Giambruno – all said they believed they had conflicts because of their homes' close proximity to the redevelopment area, and that they would realize property value improvements as a result.
Donnelly said they would need to “rehabilitate” one of those council members and allow them to sit in on the decision, which she said could be done using the legally required participation exception, which allows for a conflict of interest exception to political reform act rules.
The method for selection had to be done randomly, so Donnelly presented a deck of cards and had Overton, Giambruno and Thein each draw a card, explaining that the high card would win the draw.
Thein drew a queen, Overton a three and Giambruno a 10. That meant that Thein would stay on the dais, while Overton and Giambruno recused themselves and left the room.
Councilman Roy Simons questioned if the redevelopment agency's amendment could go through just by the council's approval, or if it needed to go to a referendum, which Simons believed it did.
Neiman disagreed. “I have a different interpretation of that.”
Councilman Chuck Leonard said the plan was amended in 1994 by the council, not a referendum.
Simons insisted that the matter needed to go to a referendum. Neiman said he'll have Subramanian provide a legal opinion.
With the quorum reestablished, the council next needed to consider if establishing a redevelopment project area committee was appropriate.
“This is the first decision that you have to make in order to proceed with amending the redevelopment plan,” Neiman said.
Neiman told the council that the redevelopment plan, between the housing and project funds, will generate a total of $42.2 million for the community if it's amended.
He said they couldn't meet the deadline for establishing the committee, but that it was wasn't needed because they were not planning to add use of eminent domain or expand the project area.
“Basically there's no legal requirement to create a project area committee,” Neiman said.
Simons asked why they needed the amendment. To get the $42.2 million, Neiman replied.
“How do you expect us to believe that when we've just been through two decades of total failure” in redevelopment, Simons asked.
Neiman agreed that there have been problems in the city's redevelopment history.
Simons considered a project area committee important to the whole plan, and said lack of one in the past is one of the reasons why redevelopment, in his opinion, has failed. He added that Neiman was promising them millions when the city can't even do a sidewalk project, referring to the Lakeshore Drive area.
Neiman said the $42.2 million would be generated over a 10-year period.
“I'm not against the amendment, I want you to know that,” said Simons. “I just want it to be done right, that's all.”
Neiman said he agreed with Simons.
During public comment, community member Rick Mayo asked about a $14 million bond set to take place in 2019, which Neiman's report to the council cited as revenue. Mayo asked how a bond could be considered revenue when it's really a loan.
“That's worse than fuzzy math,” Mayo said.
Neiman replied that the bond will generate revenue for the city.
Mayo, who formerly sat on the Clearlake Planning Commission, told the council that they held 100 public hearings when Wal-Mart wanted to come into the city.
He said such a public hearing process is being circumvented for the Lowe's shopping center project at the former Peace Airport property on Highway 53, for which the redevelopment agency is proposing to help fund improvements.
Mayo said that the planning commission had wanted to keep Pearce Field opened as an airport, but then Wal-Mart decided to build in the flight path.
“This whole thing should have gone through the planning commission,” said Mayo. “The council was always a last resort.”
When Estella Creel asked about the proposed bonds, Neiman said there would actually be two – one for housing, and one for the redevelopment project. He said there would be more discussion “down the road,” as the amendment began taking shape.
Creel asked why Neiman wouldn't just say he doesn't know the answers to her questions. “I know exactly what I'm doing, Estelle,” Neiman replied.
One community member pointed out to Simons that redevelopment had helped build Clearlake City Hall, and wasn't “a total failure.”
Another member of the public, Tim Williams, suggested that if there was a comprehensive plan to redevelop the lakeshore, some additional properties might need to be acquired. The fact that the city wasn't considering enlarging the area was, Williams suggested, more evidence that the redevelopment agency was abandoning the downtown area.
He also asked why the city once again was being told by city staff that they had little time to act. “Why must you act now? This has been under consideration since 2002,” he said, asking if it was bad management or something else.
“When did the tail start wagging this dog and where has it gotten us?” Williams asked.
Businesswoman Jeri Spittler, who said she has had a business on Lakeshore Drive for 20 years, said redevelopment to many businesspeople always meant helping the business district along Lakeshore Drive, not an airport closed by poor decisions.
She said she was troubled by the council being led by Neiman. “It just really bothers me that you're letting him lead you like a ring in your nose,” said Spittler, adding that Neiman “sits and smirks” when people ask questions.
“He thinks we're all fools, and we're not,” she said.
Thein told Spittler and the audience that the item on the floor was the project area committee, not the shopping center plan.
Neiman said the actual ordinance to amend the plan would come at the end of the amendment process.
The city can extend the plan a maximum of another 10 years, he said. Under the current plan, the agency's ability to incur debt ends on July 9. The plan originally was approved on July 9, 1990, Neiman told Lake County News after the meeting.
Spittler wanted to know the precise portion of the city the redevelopment area covers.
“It covers a big chunk of the community,” said Neiman.
When Spittler asked what that chunk was, he said it was 75 to 80 percent of the city, including the airport.
Leonard moved to approve not having the project area committee, with Thein seconding. Simons voted no.
Neiman's report to the council included a lengthy to do list with approximately 25 steps that have to be taken to update the redevelopment plan.
With the council's actions on Thursday taking a project area committee out of the mix, that makes about nine of the 25 steps unnecessary and allows the city to jump ahead to step 14, which is the finalization of a preliminary report on the update. Neiman said that preliminary report already is about 80-percent complete.
That report must be released 150 days prior to the July 9 deadline. Neiman said he anticipated working over the three-day weekend to get the plan closer to completion.
Flags introduced; impromptu Lowe's discussion held
In other council news, Spittler introduced a new way for audience members to show their support for speakers without getting gaveled, as was the case at the Jan. 7 special council meeting – she handed out 120 little American flags that people could wave instead of clapping.
The little flags fluttered furiously during the course of Thursday's meeting.
On the council's consent agenda, several items related to the proposed Lowe's shopping center plan – which was the subject of a public hearing at the special Jan. 7 meeting – were placed on the consent agenda, with a request from staff that they be continued to the Jan. 28 meeting.
“We are not approving or disapproving anything this evening,” said Thein.
Simons wanted the item regarding the disposition and development agreement for the shopping center site pulled for discussion. Thein said it would be discussed Jan. 28.
“I have an awful lot to say about this airport,” said Simons.
Tim Williams, speaking on behalf of the Sierra Club Lake Group, said he also wanted that item and the certification of the project's proposed mitigated negative declaration pulled for discussion, which the council voted to do.
Regarding the mitigated negative declaration, Williams said the city has received more than 60 pages of information from the local Sierra Club about the project's potential for many significant environmental impacts. The lead agency, in this case the city's redevelopment agency, must do an environmental impact report (EIR), Williams said.
He agreed with City Administrator Dale Neiman that a lot of work already has been done to study the project.
“A full EIR should be as quick and painless as possible, but it should not be avoided,” Williams said, adding that the consequences could be “dire” if the city didn't do an EIR.
Williams said it appeared that the city's intention was to avoid further public comment. All comment submitted should be considered before a decision is made, because such a decision must be “as informed as possible.”
He suggested that members of the public have been cast as “obstructionists,” but in reality they are the city's partners in this project. Flags waved from the audience.
Addressing the disposition and development agreement, Williams said entering into such an agreement puts the city at considerable risk if a full EIR hasn't been done. Without all of the needed information, that agreement would be built “on a bed of quicksand.”
He said the community is being told that “the sky is falling” and the project needs to be pushed forward quickly, which Williams said is how the country got into the Iraq war and the TARP bailout.
If the developer, KK Raphel Properties LLC, can't do the project without a full EIR, Williams suggested it might not be right project at the right time. If it's still doable after a full environmental review, “Get 'er done,” he said.
The council then voted to continue the items to the Jan. 28 meeting.
On Thursday council members also voted unanimously to use redevelopment housing fund money to make a state-required payment into the Educational Revenue Augmentation Fund (ERAF).
That's necessary because Neiman said the state is “stealing” $1.2 million from the redevelopment agency to pay its own bills.
That ERAF shift is the focus of a California Redevelopment Association lawsuit against the state, Neiman reported.
The city would have to repay the housing fund by 2015. The loan from the housing fund was the only way the agency could make the payment “without shutting down and going defunct,” according to Neiman's written report.
E-mail Elizabeth Larson at
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