California pushing for fine due to clerical error
September 12, 2012 5:24 PM
FROM STAFF REPORTS
APPLE VALLEY • A judge granted a preliminary injunction halting the California Department of Finance from imposing $1.2 million in fines on Apple Valley for a clerical error tied to the town’s dissolved redevelopment agency.
“Our assertion that this was an error needing a simple correction is one step closer to being rectified,” Mayor Barb Stanton said in a statement Wednesday. “Although the ruling is preliminary, this is a substantial success and we are heartened.”
Apple Valley filed a complaint July 17 after the state’s finance director refused to approve a “correction of a clerical error” made on a state form, town officials said. The error led to a demand for payment from the San Bernardino County Auditor-Controller for $1.2 million.
“Having found that plaintiffs demonstrated a likelihood of success and that the balance of harms tips in their favor, the motion for preliminary injunction is granted,” Superior Court Judge Shelleyanne W. L. Chang wrote in her ruling issued Friday.
The error occurred when the town — serving as successor agency to its redevelopment agency, which was dissolved Feb. 1 along with all RDAs in California — misidentified on its Recognized Obligation Payment Schedule the funding source for debt service payments on outstanding bonds.
Apple Valley’s former redevelopment agency issued three bond issues and must pay approximately $3.4 million each year in debt service. With redevelopment agencies gone, the town as successor agency must file a ROPS every six months to receive property taxes to pay its obligations.
The misidentification of the funding source on the ROPS became a problem when Assembly Bill 1484 passed in June, authorizing California to demand that former redevelopment agencies make so-called “true-up” payments based on numbers established by the Department of Finance.
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See what kind of political pull a little Town Lawyering by Be$t, Be$t and Krieger gets you!
Little shout-out to BB&K JB, how’s that Brown Act going in AV and ONT simultaneously… maybe even rivaling the Mikey and Moonbeam Show in the legal services fraud due to favoritism?
If AV is anything like Redlands where BB&K is Special Council for RDA, now Successor Agency legal consultation, the “source” for these Recognized Obligation Payment Schedule or ROPS debts (totally resembling the BK process that the City of San Berdoo is going through) are Prop 218 protected ENTERPRISE FUNDS being used illegally to pay-off these RDA related obligations.
At the same time, is AV increasing their supposed RESERVE FUNDS (like Redlands CM Nabar’s supposed $13M+ Rainy day account <— ha, ha, ha, SHOW ME THE MONEY)… but right now, all Cities and SBCo. are asking for major concessions from their employees groups?
Somethings got to give, and the employees groups, especially SBPEA, is going to have to make the first moves. Nice showing of solidarity at the last City Council meeting, but Super Mario and The SBPEA Chicken still don't have the employee's best interests as priority one, they are just looking to PAD THEIR OWN CHECKING ACCOUNTS on the backs of the public employees they are employed or elected to represent!