High Cost Rail - Part 32 Simitian's Perspective

Our own local HSR activist David Harris attended Sen. Joe Simitian's Town Hall meeting on Oct. 2nd and has provided this short synopsis.   Thanks, David:

• Simitian believes only a handful of state assemblymen and senators are aware that there is strong opposition to HSR on the Peninsula and in Southern California.  Most of them support it and believe their constituents do too. He believes that only he, Sen. Alan Lowenthal and a few other senators have focused on HSR and all the problems with the High Speed Rail Authority. It's just not on other legislators' radar screens in any significant way. 
   
  He said that the most effective way to make your opposition known is to target members of the Senate Transportation and Housing Committee and the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee.
   
  After the Legislative Analyst Office and Auditor's Reports came out earlier this year, he had to get his subcommittee on Resources, Environmental Protection, Energy and Transportation to support him in forcing the HSR Authority to come back to the subcommittee in Feb 2011 with a viable business plan.  If the Authority doesn't, he has threatened to withhold funding.
• HSR might be able to be stopped either by actions of the Peer Review Committee (still being set up), appointing new HSR Authority directors (he said a couple of seats are up for either reappointment or replacement), or a new Proposition to overturn 1A which he doesn't think is very likely.
• He said litigation is a very legitimate way to get the Authority to listen.

At least one or two elected officials are paying attention to this massive boondoggle!

 

 

Comments

[JF]

With 10% unemployment (15% in real terms), people are eager for all the high paying state jobs that were promised by HSR. That's why the outcry is so limited. Brown looks like he's on his way to become governor (again!) and he supports this boondoggle. Yes, litigation, anit-HSR board appointees, and withholding of funds is the only way to stop this train wreck.

[mike]

projects like this should require two votes, one statewide for funding and a second one within specific communities for allowing the construction of line.

[Elise Patterson]

Nice how they tricked the opposition by putting up a deceiving height indicator. Not only did they make it somewhat transparent where people could still see through it..but they made sure it sagged and used poles 6 feet highers than the height of the proposed train.

[jennifer]

Could the Harris information (above) be reset to not be black on gray, it is really difficult to read.

I understand the gist of it to be that Simitian is having a hard time convincing his colleagues that several Peninsula cities are unhappy about the direction this has been going, and lack of oversight-- and to write the (other) legislatures. Can these folks be listed as a post because it is sometimes difficult to find the links to them through other sites.....