Councilman urges bonds for green projects including L.A. River and CleanTech zone
Los Angeles City Councilman Herb Wesson plans to ask his colleagues today to consider issuing a yet-to-be-calculated amount of bonds for a series of green projects. The work would include the early stages of the city’s $2-billion plan to revitalize the Los Angeles River, the retrofit of city buildings to make them more energy efficient and the acquisition of land to attract and house green manufacturing firms in the area east of downtown designated as the CleanTech Manufacturing Corridor.
Wesson’s staff said he also hopes that money from the potential bonds could be used to aid firms in building factories and purchasing equipment if they locate in the CleanTech Corridor.
The Community Redevelopment Agency has begun talks with an Italian rail firm, AnsaldoBreda, that has said it would build a rail car manufacturing plant in the CleanTech Corridor if it wins a $300-million contract from the Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority.
Wesson plans to hold a news conference this morning to discuss his proposal, but most of the details are still vague.
Wesson’s aide said the councilman was open to issuing the bonds any time in the next three years, depending on the pace of economic recovery. Part of the proposal, which would have to be approved by the City Council, would ask that officials spend the next six months studying how much money the city should seek through the bonds.
The city’s Community Redevelopment Agency, for example, would be asked to calculate how much would be needed to purchase desired land in the CleanTech Corridor; the Bureau of Engineering would look at how much money would be needed for river revitalization projects over the next 10 years -- with a focus on removing concrete along the river bed to return the waterway to its natural state.
-- Maeve Reston at L.A. City Hall
EDITOR'S PICKS:
NO MORE BONDS!!!!
ARE YOU CRAZY??!! I DON'T CARE HOW GREEN THE PROJECTS ARE, THE CITY CAN'T AFFORD IT!!!
GET THE CITY'S BUDGET IN ORDER AND COUNCILMEMBERS TAKE A 30% PAY CUT AND CUT YOUR STAFF IN HALF.....THEN WE (THE TAX PAYERS WHO PAY YOUR SALARY) WILL DECIDE.
Posted by: DRE DAWG | July 14, 2009 at 08:35 AM
Bad time for new taxes however good the project. Meanwhile Janice Hahn is back pushing her property tax for gang intervention programs. All while people are losing their homes and jobs or seeing sharp reductions in property values and cuts in even basic services.
Good that Wesson is open to waiting the economy improves at least, upto 3 years, but this business of pushing for bonds and taxes on everything is just the kind of thing that turns people toward the rightwing wingnuts who then come equipped with an agenda of other things too including their xenophobia and the kind of rhetoric we've been hearing lately where they treat even companies like AEG/ LA Live and Staples as evil villains.
Green is good, green is essential to our future, but people want to see more self-sustained projects not more taxes and bonds. We're still paying off huge bonds for billions of dollars for constructing schools and community colleges then hear the projects were never done or went way over-project, so they come back for more and more.
There needs to be a mechanism for greater accountability so it's not out of sight, out of mind as soon as a bond is passed and they get our money.
Posted by: fed up | July 14, 2009 at 08:39 AM
If I am correct, Ansaldobreda did offer to pay over than 15 Million dollars cash for one of the sites offered by CRA. Seems like that CRA happily took that offer but the County hasn't decided yet whether to buy the trains from them or not.
I did some research online to learn more on the subject, and I find hilarious that there's somebody in this city willing to believe that the MTA is in good faith.
Probably they hate that company because they refused to build them another mausoleum.
Posted by: Money Savvy | July 15, 2009 at 11:55 AM