Mansoor Changes His Lame Story

Steven Greenhut: Assemblyman Allan Mansoor, R-Costa Mesa, told me and others that he decided to vote to save the state’s noxious redevelopment agencies because he saw some poison pill language in the governor’s RDA-elimination bill. That was always a crock — the bill merely continued the same existing collective bargaining agreements for the successor agencies charged with dispensing with RDA debt. Now Mansoor tells locals that he supported redevelopment in order to keep the money at home: “Philosophically, do I feel we need to end RDAs? Yes. I don’t know that this bill is the best way to do it. I don’t want to hurt cities. I saw this as a money grab by the state. I wanted local control and local oversight. Once it goes to Sacramento, it’s not coming back as much to Orange County. We are already a donor county. If you’re going to close RDAs, I believe there’s a better way to do it.”

Try to follow that logic. He is against RDAs and thinks they need to end but he voted to save them because he likes that they keep money locally. He found a poison pill, he told reporters, but he tells the general public another reason for saving these eminent-domain-abusing corporate-welfare schemes. Mansoor is just another Republican who likes to preach about limiting government when it doesn’t matter, but then serves to expand big government when push comes to shove. Expect little from him.

APRIL 25