With seven days to go before redevelopment agencies vanish from California's landscape, two consortiums of cities are sending up two different hail Marys in the hopes that the Sacramento Superior Court will give redevelopment a stay of execution -- or even wholesale salvation. 

With only a few days to go before the February 1 deadline to dissolve the state's redevelopment agencies, the Department of Finance has published a website describing the dissolution process as mandated by Assembly Bill X1 26. The site is intended to answer a host of questions that have arisen among many agencies and cities throughout the state. 

Last week bond rating agency Moody's took California's redevelopment bonds down a notch, and today fellow rating agency Fitch is expressing similiar concerns. 

A certain beloved urban theorist once wrote about cities and the wealth of nations. With all due respect to Jane Jacobs, forget about nations. In the age of globalization, nations matter less and less. You'd think that cities would too, with the proliferation of electronic communication and the magic of the "cloud." But, argue John D. Kasarda and Greg Lindsay, one of the big reasons why cities will continue to thrive is actually up among the real clouds. 

Credit rating agency Moody's Investors Service downgraded by one notch all California tax allocation bonds rated Baa2 and above. Moody's is monitoring all other redevelopment bonds and may issue a downgrade in the future. 

Sen. Alex Padilla (D-Los Angeles) has introduced legislation that could give California's redevelopment agencies if not a reprieve then at least a stay of execution. Senate Bill 659 would push the dissolution date from Feb. 1 to April 15 in order to allow cities and agencies time to put their affairs in order -- and, presumably, to allow the Legislature to deliberate on a replacement for redevelopment before the agencies are dismantled and their employees laid off.

While cities around the state have been, reluctantly, agreeing to serve as undertakers for their respective redevelopment agencies, the Los Angeles City Council indicated this week that the city will not do so. 

It’s taken me a few days to absorb the California Supreme Court decision in California Redevelopment Association v. Matosantos, which effectively killed redevelopment in California. Although I was a longtime critic of isolated cases of abuse, it believe it was a huge mistake to relegate the entire institution to the glue factory of failed policies.

In releasing his proposed 2012-13 budget last Thursday, Gov. Jerry Brown also proposed a major reorganization of state government that would separate transportation and housing at the same time Brown’s policy thrust is intended to link the two closer together.

In particular, Brown has proposed a major restructuring of the Business, Transportation, and Housing (BTH) Agency that would have here parts:

Amid all the debating and litigating around redevelopment's demise, it's sometimes easy to forget what, exactly, Californians are fighting over. But this week's premature release of Gov. Jerry Brown's 2102 budget offers a handy reminder: it's money. 

The California Supreme Court’s decision to strike down AB 1x 27 and uphold AB 1x 26 sets off a frantic timeline by which redevelopment agencies essentially must preside over their own funerals while “successor agencies” take control of their assets and contracts. 

In a hastily called press conference to roll out the 2012-2013 budget on Thursday afternoon, Gov. Jerry Brown said he would consider funding redevelopment only if the Legislature brings him offsetting cuts.

The California Redevelopment Association is seeking legislation that would postpone the elimination of RDAs beyond the February 1 date set by the state Supreme Court last week. In response to a reporter's question about whether Brown would support an extension "for a few months," Brown said:

Cities and redevelopment agencies are pushing for legislation that give them a stay of execution past the February 1 deadline contained in last week’s Supreme Court ruling.

In last week’s ruling, the court pushed the date for dissolution of redevelopment agencies back from October 1, 2011 – the date originally set by the legislature – to February 1, 2012. The redevelopment establishment is planning to push for compromise legislation to allow agencies to stay in existence – but first they have to push the February 1 date back.