The April 4th High-Speed Rail Authority Meeting was a fiasco in the eyes of many observers. Tweets received during this meeting: “One of the craziest public meeting I’ve ever attended.” “It’s a circus.” “It’s chaos.” There was a comment from a woman at the Fresno meeting, which had a good 100-150 in attendance, asking, “How they can trust the Authority with billions of dollars when they don’t have the competence to conduct a meeting.”
With another multi-venued meeting with board members sitting in Fresno, San Francisco and Sacramento again the public and the Central Valley government agencies were denied the opportunity to look into the eyes of all of the board members and for all speakers to stand in unison together as the expression goes, “ United we stand, divided we fall.” Sound quality was the primary issue.
A side note: With no advance information about specific board member attendance venue camera crews and reporters are unable to decide where they want to go. As political reporter for KABC-TV in LA, Nannette Miranda probably summed it up best in the twitter word: “The effort to tie-in multiple locations is a disaster.”
The majority of the Board with Chairman Dan Richard as well as the Governor’s chosen and newly sworn in board member, Katherine Perez-Estolano met in the City of Fresno, a HSR friendly place, where the video cameras were. Her swearing -in ceremony was not noted on the agenda, and by the way no one could hear the swearing in since the oath was administered away from the microphone. http://www.cahighspeedrail.ca.gov/assets/0/134/35345404-9f74-436d-8fd9-415d9170abd8.pdf
Notably absent was Ashley Swearengin, mayor of Fresno, the Authority’s biggest cheerleader. She was seen in the building but didn’t attend the meeting. It speaks volumes.
People were also confused whether they could comment on each item or had to do it all at once. Usually the commentary is done up front but because of these technical difficulties; it was done at the end. Fortunately in most cases the items up for discussion were discussion items and not considered action items. The only action items were the consultant contracts which slipped through unchallenged.
The agenda, http://www.cahighspeedrail.ca.gov/April_2013.aspx had some controversial items on it such as the announcement of a preferred alternative for the Fresno to Bakersfield route and discussion about the strangely appearing and disappearing Chowchilla Wye section which is officially located in the Merced to Fresno section.
The meat of the meeting was the High-Speed Rail Authority staff recommendations for its preferred alternative choice, which is the West Bypass Route through Hanford and the Bakersfield Hybrid. Although staff recommendations were marked as discussion items on the agenda rather than action items, CEO Jeff Morales indicated that while the board would have the final say, what was presented today was most likely what staff would ultimately recommend as the final route. The fact there were possible serious flaws in the HSR staff analysis brought up at the meeting that would require investigation didn't seem to matter.
Morales warned there were possible “tension points” in the selection of the route since the Federal agencies of EPA and the Core of Army Engineers had to weigh in on those choices. Staff did not indicate whether the agencies would go along with its suggestions but apparently there is frequent mutual communication. Dan Richard indicated that what the federal agencies recommended is appreciated and important, as they pick the least damaging route, “Strong community preferences will weigh heavily on the board’s mind.”
Factual Issues plague data in the Preferred Alignment:
There were strong factual challenges to the staff recommended alternatives. Dave Hartesveldt, Principal and Senior Botanist & Wetland Scientist, Sr. Biologist with Live Oak Associates, an ecological consulting firm which specializes in issues related to the “waters of the US,” was retained by Wasco/Shafter Agricultural Groups to examine both routes: BSFN and the Wasco/Shafter Bypass. The High-Speed Rail team did a matrix that showed 30 acres along the BSNF route that indicated that nearly 18 acres of the Shafter/Wasco bypass will have an impact on waters of the US.
The Life Oak consulting team determined just the opposite. All hydrologic features are man-made and do not connect to Poso Creek, the nearest known water of the US. Thus the Preliminary Jurisdictional Determination that was issued by the Army Corps of Engineers on Feb 7th commits the HSRA, to select an alignment, seek a clean water act permit and provide costly compensatory mitigation because of man-made hydrologic features that are not actually waters of the US.
Another consultant, Stan Wilson, hired to assess fiscal impact to Occidental-owned oil fields located in the newest preferred alternative said that could amount to more the $530 million to relocate six or more oil wells. Uncalculated is the financial damage done to those holding mineral rights, the interrupted stream of income during the relocation of those wells, and the ultimate financial impact on a permanent basis. He wants the BSNF right of way selected since no oil wells on that route.
In addition, many of the speakers spoke about the promises in Prop 1A and in comparison the condition of the project today. Several spoke of the need for a better plan, not this one.
The promise to locate the tracks along existing corridors was emphasized by Aaron Fukuda, Co-Chair of Citizens for California High Speed Rail Accountability (CCHSRA) and a petitioner in the Prop1A lawsuit. He just returned from a belated honeymoon in Italy and informed the board that he followed the train which ran parallel to the highway as he drove along, unlike what is proposed by the HSR in the Central Valley.
There were reports of inconsistencies regarding oral and written commentary about the preferred alignments. For instance, neither the City of Bakersfield nor Kern County, support a downtown Bakersfield alignment, but rather prefer an outside of town. Alignment
The Chowchilla Wye: (Merced to Fresno segment)
Anja Raudabaugh, Executive Director of the Madera County Farm Bureau voiced her objection to what appears to be a strategy to use a subsequent Chowchilla Wye EIR for the Merced to Fresno segment. She stated it is illegal. She stated you can’t do a subsequent EIR in an area that has never been studied.
Note: This area in the Merced to Fresno segment was pulled out for future study in the Merced to San Jose segment which brought criticism to this tactic from several sources, including a filed CEQA lawsuit. While the Authority is attempting to fix this, it is in the first part of the Initial Construction Segment slated for construction this summer.
She also advised that one can’t layer a subsequent EIR on top of an EIR that is being legally challenged. Ms. Raudabaugh is alarmed with this strategy because she fears it has been devised to skirt public input in order to expedite the process to proceed with construction as soon as possible. Staff has told her it’s a separate EIR and not a subsequent EIR. She says if that is true, it needs to be labeled as such and treated as such, with no attempts to rush, silence or shorten timelines for this section.
http://www.examiner.com/article/why-is-the-chowchilla-wye-back-and-is-it-legal
Parting Words:
Frank Oliveira, Hanford resident and CC-HSRA Co-Chair, told the Authority about the theme of the six P’s, “Piss poor planning equals piss poor performance.” Oliveira reviews the tale of what the people were promised- the dream. What could go wrong with this plan?
Then Oliveira discusses the reality. “Our money is going to run out. We will have illegally given money to the LA Basin and illegally given money to the Peninsula because we will be spending Prop 1A money on things that are not high-speed rail. We will extinguish our money here to build an Amtrak line to follow an existing Amtrak line. There will be no electric trains; we’ll still have to invest in roads until the money runs out.
You have sued everybody in the state to prevent us from exercising our due process to challenge this project because of bond considerations. This will all be settled in two months, stop spending the money, it’s illegal. If you take somebody’s money, it’s a crime and it should be a crime for you to do it also.” http://www.examiner.com/article/bullet-project-attempts-legal-maneuver-to-limit-damage-by-lawsuits
Next month on Thursday, May 2nd there will be another meeting at a TBD location/locations on the same subject with life altering decisions for thousands of Californians in the valley.
For the history of the project see all 163 articles written over the last 3 years: http://www.examiner.com/transportation-policy-in-san-francisco/kathy-hamilton
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