Sonoma City Council Tackles State Budget

A single item occupies tonight's Sonoma City Council calendar: an update on the status of the proposed cost-cutting California State Budget, and its effects on the Sonoma's redevelopment funds.

Governor Jerry Brown's proposed budget - which partially passed through the California State Legislature on Thursday, with voting on several key issues, including the proposed elimination of the , still to come - involves deep cuts to solve the state's $26.6 billion deficit.

At the last Sonoma City Council meeting, which sprawled from its usual Monday night time into Tuesday, as the Council worked to solidify redevelopment funds, and projects funded under redevelopment, before the state budget's March 10 passage deadline.

During this meeting, the City Council allocated almost $16 million CDA bond money - bonded in an on a local level, should the state budget pass- for various improvement projects, including updates to the Community Center and funding for the Sonoma Valley Library Renovation.

The Council also created a five-year extension of its contract to fund the Sonoma Valley Visitors Bureau and agreed to a three-year "Cooperation and funding agreement," between the City and the Community Development Agency, with the intent that both of these agreements would create a more compelling legal argument for allocated funds to retain their earmarks on a local level, post budget passage.

In a more conservative action, the council voted not to transfer properties owned by the CDA to the City of Sonoma, unlike many nearby municipalities including and , which have taken this action to protect them from potentially being transfered to the state. 

In the meantime, as the budget winds through the legislature, the California Redevelopment Agency has developed an alternative cost-cutting proposal which would retain the agencies. 

In this proposal, outlined in tonight's meeting packet, Redevelopment Agencies would not be eliminated, but instead would be offered the option of reallocating their 2011 affordable housing funds, which make up a mandatory 20 percent of the CDA's budget, to local school districts.

Alternatively, Redevelopment Agencies could contribute 10 percent of their overall tax incrament revenue to local schools for ten years.  In exchange, the agencies life-span would be extended by an amount of time corresponding to the percentage of funds lost. (Redevelopment Agencies are created for a set term of typically no more than 10 years.)

The group estimates these funding changes would raise about $2.7 billion worth of revenue for schools, rather than the $1.7 the Governor expects to save by eliminating the RDAs.

The public session of the Sonoma City Council Meeting starts at 6 p.m. tonight, Monday, March 21 at the Community Meeting Room at the .  The council meets in closed session starting at 5 p.m. to discuss labor and property negotiations.