California Court of Appeal

In this case, plaintiff County, in its capacity as the "successor agency" to the former Sonoma County Community Redevelopment Agency (Sonoma Redevelopment Agency), reentered into agreements in March 2012 between the Sonoma Redevelopment Agency and itself after it received authorization from its "oversight board." The trial court ruled that these are “enforceable obligations” of a former redevelopment agency that continue to be payable out of property taxes before distribution of the remainder to the taxing entities and issued a writ directing defendant Department of Finance to treat two county redevelopment agency agreements as enforceable obligations. The judgment of the trial court is affirmed, where: 1) the 2011 version of sections 34178 and 34180 that allow the reentry agreements to become enforceable obligations with the permission of an oversight board is not contrary to the overall intent behind the Great Dissolution legislation that brought about the end of California's redevelopment agencies (City of Pasadena v. Cohen); 2) the 2011 versions of sections 34178(a) and 34180(h) unambiguously authorized a successor agency to request approval of a reentry agreement, and an oversight board to grant the request; and 3) June 2012 legislation amending sections 34178(a) is not retroactive so as to invalidate the March 2012 approval of the reentry agreements.

Appellate Information

• Decided 03/12/2015
• Published 03/12/2015

Judges

• Butz

Court

• California Court of Appeal

Counsel