City Authorizes Sale and Transfer to Protect more than $100 Million

By Jorge Casuso

Jan. 10 -- The unanimous vote to authorize a deal involving more than $100 million was swift, generating no debate. But that's not surprising when those authorizing the sale were also the same people making the purchase.

That was the case Thursday night when the City Council, sitting also as the Redevelopment Agency and Parking Authority, voted 6 to 0 to authorize staff to negotiate and execute a series of agreements to protect more than $100 million from the state.

"This is a very important step that we take to protect the City finances from potential actions," Mayor Richard Bloom told the handful of people attending the special meeting in the Main Library auditorium.

Under one agreement, the Redevelopment Agency -- which has generated approximately $20 million a year since it was created in the wake of the 1994 Northridge Earthquake -- will pay the City more than $10.8 million for the City-owned Downtown parking structures and nearly $49.2 for the authority-owned structures.

Under the agreement, the agency would be charged with retrofitting and rehabbing the six structures.

The Council also voted to transfer funds for other capital improvements, including $20 million to shore up the Palisades bluff and $30 million for affordable housing.

The transactions and transfers -- which took less than half an hour to authorize -- came less than 24 hours before Gov. Gray Davis' public unveiling Friday of a plan to bridge an historic $34.8 billion budget gap.

The local funds had been earmarked by the council to retrofit and rehab the parking structures, assist in building a new Main Library and the new Civic Center Parking structure, create affordable housing and shore up the Palisades Park bluffs.