Campbell

This appeal represents the latest fallout in this court of the shake-up in the status quo from the “Great Dissolution” legislation enacted in 2011 (and amended in 2012) that abolished the nearly 400 redevelopment agencies in California for reasons of financial exigencies. (See City of Pasadena v. Cohen (2014) 228 Cal.App.4th 1461 , 1463 & fn. 2 [ 176 Cal.Rptr.3d 729 ] (Pasadena).) Plaintiff City of Brentwood (Brentwood) filed this petition, in its own right and as the “ ‘[successor agency’ ” (§ 34171, subd. (j); see id., § 34173) to its former redevelopment agency, for a writ of mandate to dispute administrative rulings of real party in interest Department of Finance (the Department). The Department, in reviewing an audit, determined that “tax increment” distributions the Brentwood redevelopment agency had made to Brentwood before the redevelopment agency’s dissolution in February 2012, which were pursuant to five agreements executed after January 2011 between Brentwood and its redevelopment agency for various redevelopment projects, were agreements specifically excluded from the definition of “enforceable obligations” (§ 34171, subd. (d)) of a former redevelopment…