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Show Hinckley Journal of Politics Autumn 1998 hearings and were spaced two months apart, the case would only convince "redevelopment lawyers and administrators that these are two different projects. Reasonable persons ... would probably tend to conclude differently" (19). Three months later the report would be issued by the Legislative Auditor General's Office. The report was basically an expansion of previous issues except that the examples were pointed out on a statewide basis. A few additional concerns also were added as to the accountability of the redevelopment agencies. One issue was that the redevelopment agencies were found to have unnecessarily poor relations with the property owners in a redevelopment project. After the redevelopment agencies had used eminent domain to take owners' property, the owners (who of course were entitled to just compensation), often did not know what to do next. This often was because the property owners did not fully understand their rights on the issue. The redevelopment agencies were criticized for not doing enough to inform citizens of their rights and to help them along throughout the duration of the process. The report stated that while day-to-day oversight appeared to be adequate, "policy oversight, the ability to affect goals and objectives, however, is lacking" (LAG 1991, ii). One reason for this is that while redevelopment boards may have the best interest of their communities at heart, their decisions are not necessarily in the best interests of the county or the state as a whole. Such decisions could result in a net loss of revenue for both the county and state, revenue which they could put to a purpose that might better serve the public interest. Another practice called into question was the abuse by certain redevelopment agencies in their interpretation of the laws. Situations have arisen where one town would have a strict interpretation of the law, while a neighboring town might have a liberal interpretation of the same law. Depending upon circumstances, this could put the town with a liberal interpretation of the law at an unfair advantage over the town that strictly adhered to the laws (LAG 1991). Along the same lines of interpreting laws, it was found that larger cities were much more likely to push the boundaries of when eminent domain could be used. Smaller towns were much less likely to even use the power. As one small town director put it, "we still have to live in these small communities" (LAG 1991, 15). It is much easier to force some people out of their home that one does not know, than it is to kick the small-town librarian out of her home that she has lived in for 50 years. In an urban center, such sentiments might not get in the way of the city acquiring its new baseball field. At the same time, to what extent should private property rights stand in the way of redeveloping a badly deteriorated city block? These three reports certainly appear to justify legitimate concerns among those who have conducted audits on the agencies. Although minor changes have occurred in the past few years, such as a stricter definition of blight, concerns still remain. These concerns arise from the past willingness of redevelopment agencies to circumvent laws. While the present laws may be clearer than in past years, there are still ways to get around them when one is searching for ways to do so. Such an example was seen in the 100-acre limitation of project areas. Redevelopment Agencies and the Court System. The next determinant in the issue of accountability is seen in the court system. It seems logical that those agencies which strictly adhere to the laws will find themselves in court less often than those which do not follow the laws. If those who do follow the laws are taken to court, they will come out victorious. However, in each of the last five cases during the 1990s that have reached Utah's Supreme Court, the redevelopment agencies have lost. It is appropriate here to examine a few court decisions that involved redevelopment agencies. While it would be in-feasible for this study to adequately examine every single time redevelopment agencies have found themselves in court, two recent cases with high media coverage are discussed. Going into these two cases, the redevelopment agencies had not had a good track record in recent years. As covered in the Deseret News, it was reported that "the Utah Supreme Court has been the bane of local redevelopment agencies, ruling that RDA procedures were illegal in three major projects in recent years" (Funk 1996). In the two court cases taken up here the redevelopment agencies did not have any better luck. The first case took place in 1995, under the name of Croxford Family v. Salt Lake County RDA. In this particular dispute, the Utah Supreme Court held that Salt Lake County Redevelopment Agency violated the law when it approved a tax-supported shopping-center expansion at Fort Union. In this case the redevelopment agency was accused of circumventing the laws, because Salt Lake County and the developer Hermes were '"in bed together'" according to Walter Bugden, the plaintiff's attorney. '"From the beginning it was developer driven,'" said Bugden. "The agency was not simply a facilitator, but an anxious co-conspirator'" (quoted in Baltazore 1995). It is interesting to note that this accusation is the very same one that Marver Bernstein had previously asserted about such relationships in 1955. Here is an accusation of a regulatory agency becoming captive to the very industry it has been charged to regulate. In the final decision on the Croxford case, the Utah Supreme Court invalidated the Salt Lake County redevelopment project because the redevelopment board members appeared to use blight as a mere excuse in sponsoring the expansion project. In the ruling the Court explained that '"the generic finding-of-blight requirement... is insufficient to guarantee that the redevelopment is driven by the desire to cure blight rather than by the desire for economic development...'" (quoted in Baltezore 1995). 35 |