Santa Clara city officials aren't going to look the other way while Brown tries to do away with redevelopment agencies. Brown thinks he can save the state $1.7 billion by cutting redevelopment. He proposes giving that money back to local governments and schools, but Santa Clara needs redevelopment money to help fund a new stadium for the 49ers.
"Redevelopment agencies should fix blight, not subsidizing NFL millionaires," Bill Bailey from Santa Clara Plays Fair said.
The group Santa Clara Plays Fair supports the Brown's efforts to cut redevelopment agencies, which are currently allowed to keep some local property taxes that would otherwise go toward schools or local branches of government.
"We're not funding NFL executives we're funding municipal stadium that has a small public contribution one billion private investment it's a good leveraging of funds- return of money," Santa Clara Mayor Jamie Matthews said.
But the city council is digging in. The plan is to change the language in the stadium deal at Tuesday's council meeting -- to make sure everyone, including Brown, knows that this deal has been underway for four years; long before Brown was elected.
"What we'll do is form a stadium authority and encumber our funds through the CIP project and create a cooperation agreement between stadium authority and redevelopment agencies so we can move forward on our project," Matthews said.
