Marina Rebuild Project needs $10 million more

The Alamitos Bay Marina Rebuild Project is underway, despite voiced by City Auditor Laura Doud. It is a nearly $100 million venture that has been in the works since 2005 and is planned to be funded in stages, which means the money will be gathered as they go.

This week, the Long Beach City Council will vote on whether to approve an additional $10 million in loans from the California Department of Boating and Waterways to fund the first phase of the project. Another item asks to revise the contract with Bellingham Marine Industries, the contractor for the job, to increase the total amount of funding for Phase 1B by $6 million, not to exceed $18 million.

Mark Sandoval, Manager of the Marine Bureau within the Department of Parks, Recreation and Marine, told Joe Tony, Legal Assistant to DeLong, that the department was not sure what the exact cost would be for the first phase of the project, and after the EIR came out, the amount had to be increased.

If this loan is approved, it will cover all the funding needed for Phase 1 to be completed, capping in at a total of $24 million for the first phase. The rest of the funding for Phase 1 comes from previously established DBW loans and a previously budgeted Marina fund.

Increasing the loans to fund the Marina Rebuild Project will not affect the City General Fund, according to the memo from the Department of Parks, Recreation and Marine. The loans will be paid off solely through revenue increases to the Marina Fund, which are gathered by membership fees and boat slips, hiking upward starting October 1, 2011.

The first phase of the project will rebuild Basin 4, both in land and water, and create an eelgrass mitigation area in Marine Stadium to comply with a policy set forth by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

Once construction begins, it is projected by proponents to create about 100 jobs.

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Recently, the people of Long Beach Governor Jerry Brown's Budget bill that essentially seeks to dissolve redevelopment agencies across the state.

Assembly Bill 26 requires all redevelopment agencies to stop spending and prepare for final dissolution on October 1, 2011. The activites and funds involved in these agencies would be overtaken by oversight boards, with the intent to pay off debts and redistribute funds to cities, counties and schools.

However, Assembly Bill 27 provides an alternative to completely evaporting a city's redevelopment agency. It is called the Voluntary Alternative Redevelopment Program, and basically, cities can keep their redevelopment agency as long as they pay the state a fee to do so.

Long Beach's Director of Developmental Services, Amy Bodek, is requesting the Council's approval to take part in this program. She states in the agenda item, "it is unlikely the City will reap significant financial benefits from the dissolution of the Agency" and the Redevelopment Agency is the "city's most successful revitalization tool."

Despite financial hardships facing the Agency and mounting challenges to the constitutionality of ABX 26 and ABX 27, Bodek recommends that the City make the $34 million payment to partake in the program and thereby keep the Agency, using Agency funds to reimburse Long Beach.

Making these payment will not hinder the City from challenging the constitutionality of the bills; it will simply prevent the Agency from disappearing.

So what does the Redevelopment Agency actually do? Its mission is to improve neighborhoods, promote economic development and enhance the quality of life for residents. It has been responsible for creating  affordable housing, office space and retail services in underserved areas, as well as building fire and police stations and providing facilities like the Mark Twain Library, Orizaba Park and Admiral Park Teen Center, the city argues.

During the period from 2002 through 2010, the Agency spent more than $148 million in redevelopment funds on public facilities and improvements. Opponents of redevelopment (not necessarily Gov. Brown) argue that it is widely under-audited and lacks oversight statewide as to where some of the funding is spent (personnel); some critics of redevelopment believe the economic development is often of greatest benefit to private builders, developers and banks that finance them.

If the item is approved, the Redevelopment Agency can be re-instituted in 30 days.

Other items on the agenda include receiving grants or enacting budgeted funds for community development services such as an AIDS program, a program to provide health insurance for low-income families, an STD prevention program, a homelessness program and program to find strategies to prevent layoffs and improve business.