The Big Lie in Pinole Government

Citizens to Be Heard

It has bothered me each time; I have seen the graph or heard that the City has lost $8 million dollars since the Dissolution of the Redevelopment Agency.  The City of Pinole did not lose $8 Million Dollars.  The Redevelopment Agency lost $8 Million Dollars with the Dissolution of the RDA’s State wide.  The RDA was funded with 100% of the parcel taxes from the properties within the Redevelopment agency area.  This is what went away when RDA went away.    The City of Pinole never had a claim to these funds. 

Now the City receives 19% of the ad valorem parcel taxes from these same properties which used to be in the former redevelopment areas since the dissolution of the RDA.

Pinole Finance Director, Mr. Loomis finally understood something that I have understood for quite some time recently and this is that property taxes on our homes will not rise to the level of 2006 because these housing values were artificial due to the “housing bubble”, and that overall property taxes have recovered because of the dissolution of the RDA and this “New Revenue Stream” is from the properties which were formerly in the Redevelopment areas. 

 Redevelopment did what it was supposed to do, raise the sales receipts and raise the property taxes for our City.  These sales receipts are sustainable. The sales receipts from 2006 were part of the bubble and was cash from people using their houses as ATM machines, eventually losing those same houses.  You know who you are.  

The Recession is over, property taxes and sales receipts have recovered and the RDA is no more.   The so called “50 people” people laid off were all from the RDA, not on the City of Pinole’s payroll.  Please stop propagating the lie. 

I see now why the dissolution of the RDA has been so traumatic for City Staff.  City Staff treated the RDA Agency budget as its own personal cash cow, that all of sudden was taken away. 

I also have come to understand that the positions which were cut in the various RIF’s were funded by the RDA.  This makes sense, since the RDA is no longer, then the positions and the work went away, aside from the administrative wrap up. 

Had these individuals been working exclusively on RDA projects as the money was intended for, this would be a moot point, but because of the corruption of the RDA budgets it became a problem!   Contrary to what we have heard from the dais, the responsibilities of the RDA no longer continue, aside from the wrap up. 

The problem is that individuals were working on non-RDA area projects and were working for the City, yet were being paid by the RDA.  This should have not been taking place from the very beginning and is ubiquitous with the poor management decisions which I witnessed in 2013.   I wonder what a State Audit of the Former Redevelopment books would conclude?

What bothered me is the confounding of the RDA with the City of Pinole.  These are two separate agencies.  However, it is apparent that Staff treated them as a single agency.  I guess the temptation for easy dollars was too great. 

In 2006 the City of Pinole had a budget which was autonomous of the RDA Budget.  The Revenue graph that we have seen ad nausea might as well as put the Hewlett-Packard Revenue numbers on the same graph because in 2006 the City of Pinole had the same legal relationship with Hewlett Packard that is had with the RDA.

So for anyone to say that the City lost $8 Million dollars when the Redevelopment agency went away is propagating a pure lie, or at best a poor understanding of the legal relationship between the two agencies.

Granted, I would assume that the Agency did lots of business with the City (permits, etc), however the two agencies were not the same prior to 2011. 

The City of Pinole has become the Successor Agency of the Former RDA.  This implies that the RDA no longer exists and the City of Pinole signed up to handle the dissolution of the  former RDA and which is why the State now gives the City $250k per year to handle the administrative wrap-up of the former RDA. 

From what I have heard the RDA spent monies outside of the areas which were designated as part of the boundaries of the RDA.  I cite the building of Fire Station 74 as a prime example.  

Not to worry, the new cash cow in town is the Sewer Fund and as long as the Residents to do not tire of the rate increases the City will continue to function in a dysfunctional manner and continue to make the bad decisions that I witnessed in 2013. 

I apologize if I have lifted the lid on your little game of charades that you guys like to play downtown, but as I have said before, this is not personal for me, this is strictly business.  

This co-mingling of personnel and of accounts is the main reason why the City under the leadership of the former Mayor Long decided to sue the State over the dissolution of the Redevelopment Agency.   City Staff somehow felt the assets (Cash and Real Estate) belonged to the City. 

They were wrong and in the City of Pinole v. Cohen set the record straight by ruling against the City in a $24 Million judgment that the City has opted not to Appeal.   Why waste even more money.  You know sometimes you just have to shoot broken horse. 

I am not willing to give the Council any credit for this, because the damage is already done.  You see, the State of California never attempted to lay claim to this $24 Million since January of 2011.  The State only requested that the left over assets from the Redevelopment be sent to the County who by law would simply send the money back, within 5 days to all of the taxable agencies within the County.  The City of Pinole would have received 19%, which is $4.56 Million, at a time when the City surely could have used the money back in 2011.

  Also the school district being one of the Taxable entities would have received a fair share of the money, which would have helped with teacher layoffs, high Student to Teacher Ratios, and combined classrooms. 

 Can you believe at Ellerhorst we had combined First and Second Grade Classes with 32 students instead of the recommended 24 students?   Experts in education all agree if students do not learn to read in the first three years of school, that student will be deficient for the rest of their lives.

This is the real damage that the poor leadership by City Staff and City Hall has brought to our City.  We will have a generation of students, who we cannot turn back the hands of time, who will have to someday become adults and try to survive on an inadequate education.

  At last night’s City Council Meeting former Mayor Long desperately tried to argue that there are some positive aspects to the litigation. Finance Director Loomis could find none, and disagreed with the former Mayor.   This is a great example of failed leadership trying to re-write history or spin bad leadership, to no avail.  Some people feel that the citizens of Pinole are not sophisticated enough to catch the deception.  

In other words, this extremely poor self serving decision by our incredibly myopic City Council and Staff have really hurt the young children of Pinole with their extremely poor leadership in regards to the dissolution of the Redevelopment agency. 

 I myself find it criminal to deny young grade school kids of a basic education.   All the while their hard working parents who have been hood-winked by the well orchestrated Council meetings and Rhetoric from our self serving Politicians pay property taxes, and as of last count we pay annually for 5 WCCUSD bond measures to pay for Taj Majal buildings that are only capable of producing a D-minus grade in academics. 

Now here comes along the City of Pinole withholding precious dollars for the education of our children.

This past election the Citizens of West County said enough is enough and rejected the sixth bond measure to build more Taj Majal’s.  Rightly so.  I say academics and other important facilities, not more construction projects which at this point are only depriving kids of decent educational experience.

Granted we need jobs, but let the tradesmen build an ice skating rink, the skate park, and other industries that our small town could surely benefit from.   It is high time that the workers of Pinole invest in the Capitalist System and take a few risks instead of sitting around waiting for a government (or school district) hand outs.   It is called entrepreneurship and this is what makes America great, not governmental handouts.  

 Take Pinole Valley High School, as my son enters High School this year, he will be in portables the entire time he is in high school.  And will he ever set foot in a real gymnasium, or do portable gyms now exist.   Oh yeah, my son is an athlete.  Oops!  And what about the drama students among our children, will they ever set foot on a stage while in high school, or do portable amphitheatre’s now exist?  What about lockers, will my son ever have a sports or even hallway locker during his entire time in high school or will he have to lug around both his sports gear and his books around with him all day?

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