For much of that hour city residents – many wearing bright yellow stickers that said “Vote yes” in bright red capital letters – had directed their comments toward getting positive votes out of Simons, one of three council members able to vote on the plan, which needed all three votes to continue.
With the large gallery audience and council colleagues Chuck Leonard and Judy Thein still in suspense, Simons told them, “I'm going to vote yes,” which elicited a round of applause and caused Leonard to smile and give Simons a light and playful punch on the arm.
It was a nerve-wracking culmination of hearings that began with a special June 7 meeting, and had been expected to be settled late in June.
But Simons – suffering from a malady that still hasn't been disclosed – was hospitalized and unable to attend the council's last regular meeting on June 24, not a special meeting on Monday that was called and later canceled.
He had been scheduled for surgery last Sunday but his doctor felt it was too risky, as Lake County News has reported.
Earlier in the week, it still wasn't clear whether Simons would make Thursday's meeting. With the 20-year-old redevelopment agency set to shut down on July 9 if the vote wasn't a positive one, the council was up against a tight deadline for final action.
City Administrator Dale Neiman told council members in an e-mail message last week that, if Simons couldn't make it, Vice Mayor Joyce Overton and Councilman Curt Giambruno – who have recused themselves from discussions and votes related to the plan because their homes are in the redevelopment area – would have to draw cards to take Simons' place.
But Simons made his appearance at the hour-long Thursday meeting. He was pale and gaunt, but no less vigorous or outspoken in his concerns about how the city has used redevelopment in the past, or how it might fail in the future without the proper oversight.
At the meeting's beginning, both Giambruno and Overton read conflict of interest statements before leaving the meeting. Simons said the council didn't have any right to ask them to leave. “You're depriving them of their rights as citizens,” he said.
Thein said they were asked to leave on the advice of City Attorney Malathy Subramanian, who did not attend the Thursday meeting.
Neiman reported to the council that at the June 7 meeting, 92 percent of the speakers spoke in favor of extending redevelopment, with 8 percent against. At the same meeting, a show of hands revealed that 96 percent supported it, while 4 percent didn't, he said.
He said Subramanian wrote a legal decision in response to Simons' assertion at that meeting that the redevelopment plan could only be extended through a vote of city residents. Subramanian concluded it wasn't legal to place it on the ballot because California redevelopment law gives amendment power exclusively to the council.
Neiman said all city council ordinances are subject to referendum. “That's the legal way to put it on the ballot.”
Community members circulated petitions to measure support for redevelopment, and Neiman said 357 people signed the petitions. Neiman said he instructed city staff not to participate in the process once he found out about it.
The city needed California Housing and Community Development's support for the housing element in order to move forward with amending the plan. The city received a letter from the state agency on Wednesday that the city is in compliance with state law.
He thanked attorney Andy Rossoff for working with the city and helping encourage the state to get the letter to the city on time, even pushing the city's housing element consideration ahead of others.
Simons questioned city staff about letters supposed to go out to people in the project area to announce the meetings, saying he couldn't find anyone who received the letters. Neiman said the mailing list was based on assessor's information, and sometimes the information is out of date. Leonard said he had spoken to many people who had received the letters.
During the meeting, Simons argued with Neiman over the use of redevelopment funds to clean up blighted lots. Over the past three years the city has budgeted $100,000 to hire contractors to clean up properties, with liens then placed on the properties in order to recover the funds, Neiman said.
That use is perfectly legal, said Neiman. “The whole concept of redevelopment, the intended purpose is to remove blight,” he said, pointing to that use of funds in the city's original 1990 redevelopment plan.
Community gives support to redevelopment amendment
During public comment, Estelle Creel urged the council to vote against redevelopment. “This money's not going to go to this community,” but rather to developers and the “pipe dream” of developing the city's airport property, she said.
Creel said redevelopment would destroy local business, not help it, and she suggested the council vote it down and put it on the ballot, which began a heated exchange with Leonard who said, “If we vote it down, that's the end of it.”
He told Creel, “You're incorrect, you don't know what you're talking about once again, and you're definitely wrong for about the 400th time,” which got applause.
Creel shot back that Leonard didn't make any sense to her, and Leonard replied, “I'd be worried if I did.”
Alice Reece also spoke against redevelopment, suggesting that the council needed to look not just at how the amendment would affect the city but the whole county.
Rossoff, who works with the Senior Law Project and the Legal Services of Northern California, said he's the local expert on what the city's redevelopment agency has done wrong, pointing out he was part of a litigation team that sued the city over use of its housing funds.
But he said the focus should be on what to do from this point forward. Rossoff said he was a strong supporter of seeing the redevelopment agency continue, and stated that he believed Neiman's intentions are good.
“This city needs so much, and the redevelopment agency is a means to acquire some of what this city needs,” he said, noting that if they said no to redevelopment, millions of dollars “will simply go elsewhere in the state of California.”
Noting that he's seen redevelopment in the county and around the state do wonderful things, Rossoff said, “If you say no to it you are simply giving up.”
Neiman said one of the best days he's had working for the city was when he and Rossoff shook hands on a settlement agreement needed because a prior settlement agreement had been breached by the city.
Numerous other city residents spoke in favor of extending the plan, including Supervisor Jeff Smith, who admitted that the city has mishandled redevelopment in the past, but the potential for the future is too great to pass up.
“What do we really have to lose other than redevelopment completely, all by itself?” Smith asked.
Pete Gascoigne offered Simons an analogy; he asked if Simons had children, and they blew money he gave them, would he never give them another opportunity to spend the money right?
“Why don't you go home?” Simons said.
Simons said he objected to what he believed was unlawful use of redevelopment funds to clean up blight, which Gascoigne maintained was legal based on Neiman's statements.
“That man sitting over there wouldn't know the rules if they hit him over the head,” Simons said, pointing to Neiman.
Businesswoman Jeri Spittler told Simons she appreciated him being at the meeting, knowing he didn't feel good, and said she also admired him for his knowledge about redevelopment.
“When I see negative people spurring you in in a time like this, it doesn't make sense to me,” she said.
Spittler suggested that in this time of recession everyone should be pulling together.
Joey Luiz encouraged the city council to approve the plan in order to create job opportunities for young people. Luiz, himself in his late 20s, credited the county's redevelopment successes on the Northshore with giving him employment opportunities.
“My story should not be rare,” he said.
Lakeport businesswoman Nancy Ruzicka, who noted she also owns property in Clearlake, said she believes Clearlake affects other parts of the county.
“There's a lot that can be done here to make this city really the jewel of the county,” she said.
When the discussion moved back to the council, Simons recounted his frustrations with redevelopment, including failed attempts at creating assessment districts.
He said he wasn't against the redevelopment amendment. “All I would like to see is that it's done in accordance to the rules,” he said.
Simons said he had met with some local business owners earlier in the day and spoken by phone with others, who said their efforts would suffer if redevelopment didn't pass.
Noting he was still on the fence at that point, he said, “Let's get on with it.”
Leonard agreed with Simons that things needed to be done according to the rules.
“I believe the people of this city deserve progress,” Leonard said.
Thein said she believed in the future. She acknowledged that the city had made mistakes with redevelopment in the past, but added, “If you stay in the past you'll never have a future.”
She suggested mistakes were due to lack of leadership, but referring to Neiman, she said the city now had the leadership in place to move forward positively.
Leonard then offered the first of three resolutions needed to extend the plan. Simons moved to amend the first resolution to require that the council form an 11-person project area committee chosen by lottery. He got no second on that motion, which died.
City Clerk Melissa Swanson then called the roll on Leonard's original motion, and Simons said he would vote yes, followed by affirmative votes from Leonard and Thein.
With the gallery giving the vote a round of applause, Thein said, “Hold on, we have two more.”
Leonard then offered the next two resolutions, both of which also were approved 3-0.
E-mail Elizabeth Larson at
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