The Fresno Redevelopment Agency is no more. The Fresno City Council created the RDA some 60 years ago. But the council, left with no legal choice, killed the RDA on Thursday night.

The council then turned around and named another agency to succeed the RDA. That successor agency is the City of Fresno.

The council then named an agency that will be responsible for all the work that the RDA once did and that now must be done in the unwinding of that former agency's obligations and assets. That agency is the Fresno Revitalization Corporation, which, like the RDA, was created by City Council many years ago and in effect was part of the RDA.

The council then hired a bunch of people to do the work once done at the RDA and that now must be done in the unwinding of that former agency's obligations and assets. They are the same people who did the work at the now-dead RDA.

The council then created a governing body for the Revitalization Corporation. That governing body is the same City Council that governed the RDA and created the Revitalization Corporation. The mayor is now added to the governing body.

Then the council said a heartfelt good-bye to an RDA that its supporters called an honorable and effective tool for revitalizing the community and its critics called the very essence of crony capitalism.

If all this sounds confusing, join the club. A council member after Thursday's meeting admitted he has no clear idea what all these council decisions really mean. Another council member on Friday said the same thing.

I, too, was confused as I sat in a nearly empty council chamber Thursday night and witnessed the death of the RDA. There were only 14 people in the audience, myself included. Most of the other 13 were RDA employees.

I've gotten to know most of them. They're all first-class people and public servants of the highest integrity. Their employment futures are uncertain. I thank them for their help over the years and wish them well.

Something else of interest happened Thursday night as the City Council dissolved the RDA. It's a small thing. So small that no one on the dais mentioned it.

Yet, it was such a burr under my saddle that, for the first time in all the years I've covered City Council meetings, I went to the microphone during the public comment period and made a request of RDA Board Chairman Oliver Baines.

It went something like this: "Sovereignty, Mr. Chairman. Fresno is a charter city. Do I understand correctly that the council is giving up the city's sovereignty?"

City Attorney Jim Sanchez was kind enough to give me an answer. I didn't understand it, other than my assumption is wrong.

My confusion was this.

As I learned while covering the Valley's Indian gaming industry, sovereignty is a squishy concept that is monumentally important to any person or any entity that lays claim to it.

Which, near as I can tell, is just about everyone and everything in America. We want to be an independent moral agent, the shaper of our own destiny. We hold in contempt those who think otherwise, about us or themselves.

In the stew that is American self-government, Fresno is a sovereign entity. It says so right there in the City Charter's second paragraph:

"The City of Fresno shall continue to own, possess and control all rights and property of every kind and nature owned, possessed or controlled by it at the time the Charter takes effect and shall be subject to all its debts, obligations, liabilities and contracts."

Of course, there are limits to Fresno's sovereignty. Still, I go back to this part of the paragraph: "... shall continue to own, possess and control all rights and property of every kind and nature owned, possessed or controlled by it ...."

I read that to mean: When it comes to Fresnans governing Fresnans on Fresno matters, don't tread on us.

If I recall correctly, mayors and city council members take an oath to defend that concept.

Then came Thursday night's historic RDA meeting.

I understand that the council and city staff were working under a terrible deadline. The state law that killed redevelopment agencies across the state required the dissolution of each agency by Feb. 1 (next Wednesday). The law required a successor agency to be in place by that date. The law permits the city that created the redevelopment agency to step in and be the successor agency.

The law also creates a process for the creation of an oversight board for each of the state's approximately 400 redevelopment agencies. In Fresno as elsewhere, this oversight board of seven appointees will pretty much be the boss as the former redevelopment agency's affairs are slowly disposed of.

The oversight board in Fresno should be up and running by May 1.

All fine and dandy. I'm sitting in the audience on Thursday, listening to the council members, when I hear someone on the dais say that the successor agency "will report" to the oversight board.

I'm a veteran. Maybe it's my memories of those Army days that made me do a double-take when I heard "will report."

I thought: Surely the City of Fresno is mandated to "report" to no one or no entity. If that were to happen, there would need to be a change to the City Charter. The people would have to agree to revise "... shall continue to own, possess and control all rights and property of every kind and nature owned, possessed or controlled by it ...."

Maybe the revised language would say something like: "Fresnans shall continue to own, possess and control all rights and property of every kind and nature owned, possessed and controlled by them unless the City Council decides otherwise."

The revised City Charter could say that. But the people would have to agree to the revision.

Then I thought to myself: There's got to be more context to what I just heard about "will report."

That's why I went to the microphone. The council had yet to vote on the legislation that would require the City of Fresno to report to an Oversight Board that is never mentioned in the City Charter. I still had time. Not to change the council's mind. That's not my charge. But there was still time to encourage the council to put something on the public record about the relationship between the City of Fresno's sovereignty and the City of Fresno reporting to an oversight board.

In essence, I was saying at the microphone: Come on, guys, talk to us Fresnans about our municipal sovereignty. Don't patronize us if we're all mixed up about super-sophisticated legal maneuverings. Tell us in plain language how we're going to retain our self-respect if the sovereign corporate entity called the City of Fresno has to report to an Oversight Board not mentioned in the City Charter.

Now, before I conclude, let me emphasize that I know the City of Fresno and its departments and its employees have tons of legal and moral obligations that must be met in the course of living each day in a complex world. I'm not talking about attending a mandatory meeting or paying a mandatory fee or sending in a mandatory report.

I'm talking about sovereignty.

After speaking at the microphone, I returned to my seat and thought: Maybe I"m reading too much into the term "will report." Maybe I'm exaggerating its significance. Maybe my hearing is shot.

So, the council went ahead with its vote to designate the City of Fresno as the RDA's successor agency. The vote was 6-0. Sal Quintero was absent.

I returned to the newsroom and, for the first time, read the report explaining in greater detail how this new arrangement will work. The report was written by Baines and council members Larry Westerlund and Lee Brand.

Page 3 of the report states: "The Successor Agency, an entity governed by the Oversight Board, is a distinct and separate legal entity."

Maybe it was just an oversight that the three council members, on page 3 of a report that on page 1 clearly identified the City of Fresno as the successor agency, decided to use a generic term as that sentence's subject.

Because what that sentence was really saying was "The City of Fresno, an entity governed by the Oversight Board, ...."

I'll be so bold as to suggest that Fresnans would love to know how that sentence squares with the second paragraph in the City Charter. Thursday night, before the council vote, was the right time to get an answer.

Too late now.