If you follow this blog’s Twitter feed, you’d have seen this on Tuesday afternoon:
SJRA: Item 8.1 – Creation of San Jose Diridon Development Authority – approved unanimously. Objection by Santa Clara County.
The approval took all of a few minutes and had no speakers for or against. Compared to what was discussed during the rest of the session, it was highly anti-climactic. I left Council Chambers wanting more. After the swearing in of the SJDDA board (mayor + city council), there was a brief stretch used to establish a few ground rules, then an adjournment and a return to regular city agenda items. I didn’t realize what that last bit meant until I got home, when I saw an article in the Merc describing Santa Clara County’s $62.9 million lawsuit against San Jose.
To settle prior lawsuits over redevelopment tax grabs, the agency since 2001 has paid the county a portion of the tax dollars it collects, but agency chief Harry Mavrogenes stopped those payments as the economy soured.
By July 1, the agency will owe the county $62.9 million to fund such essential services as mental health, drug rehabilitation and juvenile justice.
San Jose city officials said they weren’t surprised by the suit.
“They need to protect their interests against whatever the state is going to do, so I understand their action,” Mayor Chuck Reed said Tuesday night. “But we also have to protect our interests as the state takes action.”
Reed said the lawsuit would not stop negotiations with the county, which have been going on for more than a year.
By acting to preempt a raid by the state, San Jose raised the ire of the county. The city and county have often clashed over funding and development priorities. I guess I’m surprised the peace lasted this long. Now we wait for the other shoe to drop in Sacramento, if it happens at all.
newballpark.org 
It was also mentioned by _Better Sense San Jose_ that (somewhere around) $80M is to be put back towards the general fund. Will Lew Wolff pony up any money to help SJ further than he already intends to? Along with a terrible budget deficit, SJ would really be hurting if that “other shoe drops”.
interesting. it looks like the costs (to develop Diridon area) down there in SJ, are growing faster as each day passes. $69 million for this … $80 million for that …
DavidL,
Rather than constantly trying to bring down San Jose with your “SJ is economically doomed!” commentary, why don’t you stick with propping up Oakland and its immunity from the current economic doldrums (sarcasm).
In terms of SCCo. vs SJ, I wouldn’t worry about the “lawsuit” to much. Let’s not forget that we’re basically talking about the same happy family here, with many a councilmember now supervisor and vice versa. Some of SCCo.’s heaviest hitters are also huge proponents of SJ and baseball (Larry Stone and Dave Cortese to name a few). In short, the money issue will be worked out one way or another…it’s all in the family!
David,
Ditto what I told your clone DavidL about trying to bring down San Jose. In reality, the entire Diridon Area is going to cost (as RM stated the other day) easily north of 9 figures: from infrastructure to the grand high-speed rail terminal. Hence the creation of the Diridon Authority and power to issue bonds. There should also be a lot of private investment to go with the civic ala the ballpark, future hotels/residential. It’s going to be awesome!
@Tony — calm down dude. I’m not “trying to bring SJ down”. I just responded to the top post. This blog is open to all, from what I gather. I’m not “against ” you … I’m an A’s fan like you, also a Raiders fan like you. Lawsuits are real. Oakland could face the same time of thing. I hope not though.
Apology…thought you were trying to bring down the home town. GO RAIDERS!
@David- why would you add the costs of a separate issue with SCCo to the cost of the Diridon ballpark for SJ—there is no correlation–
Excellent point GoA’s! There is no correlation between the two. It’s not as if SJ is going to be forced to sell all it’s RDA property to pay off SCCo.’s $69 million. Again, this is a “family” issue that will be settled without destroying San Jose’s (and by extension SCCo’s) development goals. My take is that the lawsuit is merely a subtle reminder to SJ from SCCo., “Don’t forget about us!”
good question GoA’s. But, I don’t have an answer. Maybe ML, will break it all down for us during the day. I thought Ratto was throwing darts in the dark, but maybe there’s something to his last rant …
Nice to see they finally slowed Moonbeam down. It was really starting to disturb me how he was running the state like he had a mandate or something.
Moonbean cannot be trusted. He’s a”Wolff in sheep’s clothing”, lol!
Anybody know what Oakland is doing in light of the RDA death sentence? It is more important than just a new ball park… I haven’t read much about what they plan to do should RDA’s disappear.
Last week they approved a measure with several different approaches:
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http://www.contracostatimes.com/ci_17534318?IADID=Search-www.contracostatimes.com-www.contracostatimes.com
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“They agreed to commit tens of millions of dollars in further aid to about 20 existing efforts, sell a few properties to the agency to draw some cash out of it and buy several more — including the Oakland Army Base — to maintain control of those properties if the agency is dissolved.”
did the date for a June election in SJ pass yet?
@David – No, that’s Thursday. That’s irrelevant at this point since MLB has to make a decision first and no one in SJ City Hall has been talking about the election date.
TonyD, I’m tired of your crap. I was staying on topic with ML, and he didn’t bring up Oakland at all in that post. Why the hell are you? As mentioned by another poster, this blog is open to opinion and feedback, and that is all I did, borrowing ML’s shoe quote as well.
only just read this morning’s paper http://www.mercurynews.com/california-budget/ci_17567674
“Carl Guardino, the CEO of the Silicon Valley Leadership Group, gave unqualified support to Gov. Jerry Brown’s budget and tax extension plan Tuesday, urging legislators to quickly come to an agreement to close the $26.6 billion deficit.”
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The governor’s budget plan includes the termination of redevelopment, and SJRDA is a crucial part of a new ballpark (although now the DDA is formed maybe less so). Still should be interesting conversations at SVLG’s offices as they are also in “unqualified” support of the baseball stadium at Diridon …
re: It was also mentioned by _Better Sense San Jose_ that (somewhere around) $80M is to be put back towards the general fund. Will Lew Wolff pony up any money to help SJ further than he already intends to? Along with a terrible budget deficit, SJ would really be hurting if that “other shoe drops”.
…Why are pro-Oakland advocates spending their time bashing San Jose when they should be rounding up billionaires willing to give Oakland a free $400 million ballpark? That’s what it’s going to take for the A’s to stay in Oakland. Maybe it doesn’t register that San Jose losing does not mean Oakland winning. More likely, it means Las Vegas, San Antonio or some other place winning.
pjk, you’ve gone from shrill and paranoid to a smoldering lump of twitchy goo. Give it a rest.
…You go by the name, thisplanetsux, but I’m the one who’s paranoid. OK
Okay, I guess that’s that. Anyhow, back to the news at hand, is there an official word from San Jose Or Bust as to what the SVLG position on the state budge might mean for the Diridon ballpark project? Conflict worth noting, or trivial flotsam to sweep under the rug?
@tps – Flotsam. It’s a macro/micro issue.