Cohen

This case arises, as have many, from what we have previously characterized as the “Great Dissolution” of California redevelopment agencies. (City of Pasadena v. Cohen (2014) 228 Cal.App.4th 1461, 1462-1463 [ 176 Cal.Rptr.3d 729 ] (Pasadena))

The City of Azusa, its municipal utility (Azusa Light and Water, hereafter Utility) and the successor agency to its redevelopment agency (hereafter collectively City except as noted), timely appeal from a judgment denying their amended mandamus petition (Code Civ. Proc., § 1085). The petition sought to compel the Director of the Department of Finance (Department) to recognize as enforceable certain obligations between the City and the Utility. These “obligations” consisted of loans from the Utility to the City’s former redevelopment agency (RDA). The City asserts the invalidation of these loans in effect harms the Utility’s ratepayers and therefore is unlawful for various reasons. The trial court rejected the City’s view, and the City timely appeals from the ensuing judgment.

We agree with the trial court that once Utility money was loaned to the RDA, it ceased to be “ratepayer money.” Because the City’s legal claims hinge on a…