CRAs Pay For A Lot

With the option of killing off the Community Redevelopment Agencies (CRA) on the table, the Los Angeles Times has a stunner of a story, reporting that numerous cities throughout California are using CRAs as an ATM to pay for basic services, including salaries for city workers. Some of the action is illegal, some isn't, and some of this behavior just falls in a gray area. "In Huron, a hard-scrabble town in the Central Valley, redevelopment money pays for police officers, code enforcement and animal control. All told, City Manager Gerald Ford estimated that redevelopment money accounts for ''between 10% and 20%' of the city's $1.2-million budget." [LAT]