2:54pm | State legislators spared redevelopment — no thanks to Long Beach’s state representatives — as both the state Assembly and state Senate issued floor votes last night on several bills included in Gov. Jerry Brown’s controversial proposed budget package.

The program aimed at providing cities with the funding necessary to eliminate blight, spark economic development and create affordable housing is not out of the woods yet. The proposal failed by just a single vote in the Assembly and can therefore be reintroduced.

The redevelopment bill calls for the termination of the program statewide, which would shutter the states roughly 400 active redevelopment agencies and auction off each agency’s assets to the highest bidder. 

Cities statewide have mounted a tireless campaign to rally their representatives in Sacramento to save the community improvement tool. Long Beach city and elected officials have been vocal in their opposition to redevelopment’s elimination, with a handful of council members issuing a public plea last week to the city’s state representatives to save the program and warning them that a long, drawn out legal battle would ensue should the budget package measure, which city officials contend violates the state constitution, be approved.

Their pleas appear to have fallen on deaf ears as illustrated by how state Assembly members who represent portions of Long Beach voted Wednesday. 

Assemblywoman Bonnie Lowenthal, D-Long Beach, who represents the 54th Assembly District, supported the governor’s proposal to end redevelopment in casting a “yea” vote, as did Assemblyman Warren Furutani, D-Gardena, who represents the 55th District, which includes portions of Long Beach. Assemblyman Isadore Hall III, D-Compton, whose 52nd Assembly District encompasses a portion of North Long Beach, followed suit.

The agencies spend a collective total of about $5.5 billion annually. The governor’s plan would have reprogrammed $1.7 billion next fiscal year that would have gone to redevelopment agencies in the form of tax increment to Medi-Cal and the courts system.

The state Senate did not consider the redevelopment measure last night, and the Sacramento Bee reports that it does not plan to vote on the item, which “remains in limbo” after falling one Republican vote short in the Assembly, today, either.

Progress in whittling away the state’s $26.6 billion deficit was still made last night, with lawmakers agreeing to more than $7 billion in cuts. The two legislative bodies approved eight measures authorizing an estimated $7.4 billion in cuts to the CalWORKS welfare-to-work program, services for the developmentally disabled, the state’s health insurance program for the poor and other spending areas. About half of the cuts come from shifting money away from local communities to programs normally paid for by the state’s general fund, according to the Associated Press.