Politics & Government

Ashland Youth Center's $4 Million Question

With the fate of redevelopment in limbo in Sacramento, the proposed center faces an uncertain future.

Cautiously optimistic—that's how the Alameda County Redevelopment Agency has reacted to continued uncertainty in Sacramento, where its fate hangs in the balance.

Everyone knows the stakes are high. Yet just how much the agency, the community and the county can expect to lose has been hard to quantify. 

With budget talks at a stalemate—the legislature so far lacks the two-thirds majority vote needed to pass the bill that would shutter the agency—officials said they've continued to move forward on projects faced with certain doom under the proposed bill. 

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"We’re still alive, we’re still active," director Eileen Dalton told the Cherryland Citizens Advisory Committee Wednesday night. "We’re trying to push forward contracts that get us into third-party contracts as fast as we can."

Under legislation wending its way through Sacramento, nearly all of the agency's projects—including about a dozen contracted under a public improvement agreement with the county in February—would disappear.

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Quietly, redevelopment is trying to insulate itself from the blow. It's already transferred its significant land holdings—properties it would be forced to dispose of at fire-sale rates under the bill—into county hands. 

"If none of this goes through, they can be transferred back, but they're in safe hands for now," Dalton said.

But money is another matter. With redevelopment gone, the tax increment previously reserved for community projects in the unincorporated areas would revert to the county's general fund. Without a third-party contractor, many long dreamed-of public works are expected to die on the vine. 

"From what I understand right now from the state, anything from the point that they proposed that budget, anything that wasn’t under contract at that point, they wouldn’t honor," said Lane Bailey, project manger for the Ashland Youth Center.

Among those activities that would be orphaned by the legislature: several streetscaping projects, a handful of low-income housing developments, the San Lorenzo Library expansion, the Cherryland fire station, and improvements to the Lorenzo Theater. 

For the unincorporated community, losing any of these projects would be devastating. 

But perhaps the most painful and expensive loss would be the Ashland Youth Center, among the agency's marquee projects and a crucial development with broad-based support in the community.

Though they're months from breaking ground, it's estimated the county has already spent north of $4 million on the project.

The redevelopment agency has spent between $2 and $3 million purchasing land for the center, including two recent acquisitions—a bar and an automotive detailing shop—immediately adjacent to the project. Another half million has already gone toward engineering.

And late in March, the Alameda County Board of Supervisors approved a $150,000 partnership between the center and Fruitvale's Clinica de la Raza, part of an estimated $672,000 the Health Care Services Agency said it's spent or committed in payroll and agreements. 

While the fate of redevelopment agencies across the state hangs in legislative limbo, the project has continued to move forward.

Late last month, the General Services Agency received project bids from contractors. Despite uncertainty in Sacramento, it expects to choose one in early July.  

The only problem? Under Gov. Jerry Brown's purposed budget, redevelopment agencies across the state would be dissolved by July 1.

All of which has left community members to wonder—what happens then?"

"If the agency goes away, obviously that money is funneled back to the county," said Pedro Naranjo, the center's executive director. 

Redevelopment currently holds about $14 million cash on hand—all of which advocates believe the county would direct back to the Ashland Youth Center.

"It’s such a high priority project that it’s the hope and the expectation is that they’d be able to do it," Bailey said. "I can’t say they would, but I'm saying that’s the expectation at this point." 

Dalton was not available to comment specifically on the Ashland Youth Center project, but she said the agency was doing everything in its power to protect projects important to the community through a painful period of transition. 

"I just feel like really sort of numb to the whole thing," Dalton said. "I can’t even relax until the budget gets passed."


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