Minutes 1993 0524 - Laserfiche WebLink

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1. Minutes - San Leandro City Council Meeting - May 24, 1993 Page - 8 - 6. PUBLIC HEARINGS A. Matter of Approval of Issuance of Tax Allocation Bonds by the San Leandro Redevelopment Agency. This being the time and place for the Public Hearing on the above matter, the Hearing was then opened to the public. Rick Richards, 335 Peralta Avenue, expressed his agreement with the process and the project. He said, when he first went through the process, he was not in favor of the expansion or the swing building; but, looking at the bottom line, he feels it makes sense, and the City Council should move forward with it. He said Council Member Kerr had commented earlier that the Vision Task Force recommended closing one of the fire stations. Mr: Richards said the Task Force and Subcommittee had recommended elimination of a piece of equipment, not closing of a fire station. Mr. Richards said his only concern with use of Bank of America was related to what B of A is doing related to replacing full - time employees with part-time employees, with no benefits. He said this may be an issue. He suggested El Conquistador Restaurant and Mercury Printing be relocated into the old flea market building on East 14th Street to keep them in the North Area. Lou Filipovich, 15376 Laverne Drive, said, when this was discussed in the past, he asked the City Council , if they go through all of this financing and spending, and put the voters in debt without voter approval , and an earthquake destroys the buildings, how would the City take care of that. He said the State debt on non-voter-approved Redevelopment is about $35 billion. He asked if the City is going to honor what the Task Force said, which is to put this proposal to the voters; he said a ballot election was not necessary to do so. He said the staff report stated the General Fund will take care of this; he said the General Fund is taxpayers' money. He said mutual bonds are no longer safe, especially when on the market without the voters approval . He said they are invested with insurance companies, and many insurance companies went into State receivership. He said there are all kinds of ramifications, not enough thought has been put into this, and there are a lot of people who don't like what is going on. Craig Bettencourt, 1750 Scenicview Court, said the rates are important and are already moving up. He said the timing for the bonds is excellent. He said this makes a lot of sense. He said a lot of other cities are doing this kind of refinancing and keeping the State from taking local monies. Referring to Mr. Filipovich, he said one person does not speak for the entire community. He said he personally wants to see investments in the community. There were no further comments from the public.