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Council delays CRA plan to reallocate CDBG funds for Blue Line entrance, seeks committee review
Summary
The Los Angeles City Council continued items 23 and 24 after members pressed the Community Redevelopment Agency (CRA) for more detail about moving CDBG funds into a Blue Line entrance and parking project and to preserve a memorandum-of-understanding deadline with the MTA.
The Los Angeles City Council on the dais continued two agenda items after members asked the Community Redevelopment Agency to explain why Community Development Block Grant (CDBG) funds and an MTA grant were being shifted to a Blue Line entrance, parking and bicycle-parking project.
Councilmember Nick Pacheco moved an amendment asking that the CRA return to committee for approval before expending the funds and said the change was intended to meet the Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA) grant deadline. "We definitely wanted to fund the programs and the projects so that we could comply with our memorandum with the MTA, our grant agreement, because we want to meet their deadline and not lose our funding for these projects in the city," Pacheco said.
Councilmember Mark-Hernandez and others pressed CRA for a clearer work plan showing how the proposed parking/entrance project fits within the area's redevelopment plan and which projects would lose CDBG dollars. Hernandez said CRA had repeatedly moved CDBG money between projects without providing the committee a work plan showing which projects were being funded or how the moves affected items already listed as "projects ready to be funded." "…they continue to use those CDBG monies rather than their discretionary monies. And that's where my problem lies," Hernandez said, asking for a one-day continuance so his office could review the funding sources.
Councilmembers agreed to a one-day continuance; Pacheco said CRA would meet with Hernandez’s office that day to explain the CDBG funding sources. The council did not approve expenditure authority at the meeting and directed that the items return to committee for further review before funds are spent.
Background: The items involve a proposed entrance and parking facility adjacent to a Blue Line station and reference receipt of additional MTA grant funds. Councilmembers said the staff report lacked specificity on which projects were being decreased to free CDBG funds for the new project.
Next steps: The CRA will meet with council offices and return to committee the following day with further details, per the council’s direction.
