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How far should counties be allowed to go to attract a High-Speed Rail maintenance facility?
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I understand the competition is intense for a maintenance and operations facility for the California High-Speed Rail system. The California High-Speed Rail Authority has selected a site somewhere in the San Joaquin Valley, apparently, but a final decision has yet to be made. I wrote about this in an earlier post. Contenders are Merced, Madera, Fresno and Kern Counties.
An interesting article in today’s Fresno Bee focuses attention on this matter.
“Fresno County leaders may divert funds from Measure C, the county’s half-cent transportation sales tax, to attract a high-speed rail maintenance yard that could employ 1,500 skilled workers,” the article’s author Russell Clemings wrote. Also according to what Clemings wrote, the county is making the assumption that it must decide on a specific location in order for it “to get serious consideration.”
“A task force of county officials and other local leaders has already chosen an undisclosed site along the system’s route on the Burlington Northern Santa Fe corridor in rural southern Fresno County. The cost could be as much as $40 million,” Clemings wrote.
Irrespective of whether a specific site has already been identified or not, is suggesting funds be diverted from Measure C to try to get the maintenance center in Fresno County, going too far? That depends on who you are and what your point of view is, I reckon.
According to what was written in Clemings’ article, Fresno County Supervisor Susan Anderson at a recent Council of Fresno County Governments policy board meeting, “made clear that she thinks the most likely source is Measure C - specifically a $37 million fund reserved for ‘new technologies such as personal rapid transit or similar system.’” In reaction to this, League of Women Voters of Fresno representative Mary Savala at that same meeting said, “’I think you have to be very careful … that this is thoroughly discussed in public, with lots of opportunity for the public to comment on what you’re planning to do,’ Savala said,” Clemings wrote.
Also suggested by the council’s staff was that a portion “of the measure’s $106 million fund for moving the Fresno’s BNSF tracks to the Union Pacific corridor could be diverted to the maintenance yard project.”
This elicited pointed criticism from advocates of rail consolidation.
“’Make no mistake, folks: They’re not talking about borrowing funds from rail consolidation,’ said Tom Bailey of Fresno Area Residents for Rail Consolidation. ‘They’re talking about flat taking,’” Clemings wrote (in citing Bailey). Efforts to consolidate the two rail properties onto one corridor have been going on since 1918.
So what's wrong with having a referendum and letting the people with their votes decide what they want? Anyway, it was just a thought.
