2/1/2012: CRA/LA R.I.P.

Gov. Jerry Brown today announced the formation of a three-member panel to dissolve the Los Angeles Community Redevelopment Agency, an act mandated by law that ends its 67-year-old relationship with the city.

Under state law, today is the deadline to eliminate the agency and transfer management of its projects and properties to a "successor agency."

Brown named to the panel Timothy McOsker, former chief of staff to former Mayor Jim Hahn from 1997 until 2005, including when Hahn was the city attorney; Nelson Rising, a developer and former Federal Reserve Bank board member; and Mee Semcken, a corporate communications and real estate consultant. All three are Democrats.

Rising, 70, of La Canada Flintridge, was named chair of the new local authority. He is chairman of Rising Realty Partners and has been a developer since the 1980s. He was also chairman of the board of the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco.

Semcken, 54, is the president of Lee Consulting Group LLC. She was vice president of corporate real estate and public affairs at Warner Bros. from 1992- 2000.

The panel will be charged with paying interest on bonds, following through on existing contractual obligations, maintaining reserve funds and disposing of assets. The committee will manage properties under contract until development projects have been completed. Brown formed similar boards in Merced, Stanislaus and Ventura counties.

The CRA-LA has been instrumental in developing the NoHo Arts District in North Hollywood. The recent opening of the completed the 10-year, $375 million NoHo Commons project, which included housing, retail space, office space and the recently-closed .

This past spring, North Hollywood-Toluca Lake Patch took a long look at the CRA's work in North Hollywood, both in the NoHo Arts District and the Valley Plaza area, in a five-part video series that included an interview with Gazala Pirzada, the CRA-LA North Hollywood area project manager. Check out the series to learn more about the long and complex history of the CRA in North Hollywood:

Pirzada appeared at the Midtown NoHo Neighborhood Council in October, where she gave a detailed review of the CRA's current projects in North Hollywood that would be allowed to finish and others that would have to be cancelled if the dissolution of the CRA-LA were to happen.

Redevelopment agencies are funded by the increase in tax revenues generated by projects in their areas. The agencies use the revenue to invest in additional projects mainly in blighted parts of cities. Brown's plan is to funnel this money into the school systems.