Reminder: Menlo Park HSR Town Hall Tonight at 7

In case you'd forgotten:

High Speed Rail Town Hall Meeting
Wednesday August 26th at 7:00 PM
Menlo Park City Council Chambers
701 Laurel Street

On Wednesday, August 26th, Rep. Anna G. Eshoo will host a Town Hall Meeting to discuss High Speed Rail. Experts from the High Speed Rail Authority and Caltrain will make presentations and answer questions.

In November, 2008, Californians passed Proposition 1A, the Safe, Reliable High-Speed Passenger Train Bond Act for the 21st Century. How this will impact local communities has been the subject of considerable debate.

The meeting will be held at the Menlo Park City Council Chambers from 7:00 p.m. to 8:30 p.m.

If constituents are not able to attend, they can watch the Town Hall Meeting live via webcast at http://eshoo.house.gov. They can also submit questions for the panelists through AskAnna@mail.house.gov. This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it.

The location is wheelchair accessible and parking is available. For more information, constituents can visit Rep. Eshoo’s website at http://eshoo.house.gov or call her District Office at (650) 323-2984 or (408) 245-2339.

I'll be there. Will you?

I'll also be providing updates via this blog's twitter feed @cahsr.

Menlo Park Town Hall Postponed

This Saturday's planned HSR town hall meeting in Menlo Park has been postponed indefinitely, according to Representative Anna Eshoo's office:

Congresswoman Anna G. Eshoo (D-Palo Alto) received notice today that she must postpone the scheduled meeting in Menlo Park on Saturday, July 25th due to critical votes in Washington, D.C. As a Member of the Energy and Commerce Committee she must remain in Washington over the weekend to vote.

Congresswoman Eshoo apologizes for any inconvenience the schedule change may cause and is committed to hosting a meeting in the near future with experts who can answer citizen questions on High Speed Rail. She will inform constituents as soon as possible of the new date and time.

The background here is that the Energy and Commerce Committee is at the center of the fight over health care reform. The "Blue Dog" Democrats, a group of right-wing Democrats, have been holding up the committee's progress on marking up the health care bill. There is a lot of pressure on Congress to postpone its planned August recess to get the health care bill ready for a vote on the floor of both the House and the Senate, so it should come as little surprise that Anna Eshoo is going to have to stay in DC until this is resolved.

There's every reason to expect this town hall meeting will happen and soon. When it gets rescheduled, I'll be sure to announce that here on the blog.

HSR Meeting In Menlo Park, Saturday 7/25

Congresswoman Anna Eshoo is hosting a high speed rail "town meeting" this Saturday in Menlo Park. State Senator Joe Simitian will be there, and has the details on his site:

You are invited to join Joe at a town hall meeting on high-speed rail hosted by Congresswoman Anna Eshoo. The event will give participants an opportunity to receive the latest information on California’s high-speed rail project and to get questions answered. A live webcast will also allow you to watch the town hall from home.

WHAT: Town Hall Meeting on High-Speed Rail hosted by Congresswoman Anna Eshoo

WHEN: Saturday, July 25 at 2:00 PM

WHERE: Menlo Park City Council Chambers
701 Laurel Street, Menlo Park, CA

Live webcast at http://eshoo.house.gov/

This town hall is open to the public, and no RSVP is necessary. For more information, call Joe’s district office at (650) 688-6384 or (408) 277-9460.

I will be there. Will you? We need to ensure that there are HSR supporters at this meeting, people who want the HSR/Caltrain project to be built the right way, a way that maximizes the operational capability of the line, a way that is financially responsible, and a way that is properly integrated with the surrounding urban landscape.

Is the State Legislature Going to Screw Up HSR?

The California State Legislature isn't exactly the most popular group of people these days. As the state budget crisis worsens - and as California's bond rating takes another hit - Californians are losing what little patience they had for their legislators, who remain unable to produce a budget solution. It's not for lack of trying, as the 2/3rds rule and Republican obstinacy has produced the ongoing delays and deficits. But it reflects poorly on the legislators, who are facing some of the lowest approval ratings ever.

It doesn't help matters when the Legislature proposes something that is manifestly stupid, wasteful, and unnecessary. And that is what has happened regarding high speed rail on the peninsula, where the legislature has caved to Peninsula NIMBYs at the possible cost of $1 billion in stimulus funds:

An obscure sentence inserted deep in a massive state budget bill could delay construction of the proposed high-speed rail route from San Jose to San Francisco, potentially costing the region more than $1 billion in federal stimulus money, high-speed rail planners said Monday.

The language requires that as a condition of getting $139 million next year from the state budget to hire staff and engineering firms, the state High Speed Rail Authority must study "alternative alignments" to the route along the Caltrain tracks, approved by the authority last July.

Though the bill has passed both chambers of the state Legislature, its fate is uncertain because it remains part of the bigger state budget imbroglio.

This is ridiculous. The CHSRA already studied the Peninsula corridor, already studied the Altamont alignment, and already concluded that the Caltrain corridor is the best solution. They spent 11 years on these studies. Neither the Legislature nor the Peninsula NIMBYs have any place calling for another study just because they didn't like the outcome of the first one.

This is especially troubling given the financial implications of the Legislature's meddling:

On Monday, Rod Diridon, a former Santa Clara County supervisor who sits on the high-speed rail board, said that restudying the route could jeopardize federal stimulus money that requires eligible projects have construction started by September 2012.

"If it were to stay in, only our corridor in the whole state would be penalized, and all the federal stimulus money would go to Southern California," Diridon said.

The San Jose-to-San Francisco route will be seeking $1.3 billion in stimulus money, Diridon said. Two other proposed high-speed-rail routes near Los Angeles also will be seeking similar amounts.

The Peninsula NIMBYs would be perfectly happy with this outcome - their goal is to kill the HSR project in their own backyard, and have shown no regard for fiscal responsibility (such as their proposal of an extremely costly tunnel without offering any method of paying for it).

But it would cost the state as much as $1 billion in HSR stimulus, which translates into thousands of jobs and a not insignificant boost to the local economy on the Peninsula, which in turn means rising tax receipts in Sacramento. I'm not surprised at the Peninsula NIMBYs for not caring about any of this. I am surprised at the Legislature for being incredibly reckless by approving this proposal.

Sen. Joe Simitian, who represents Palo Alto, understands as much, as he denied responsibility for this moronic provision:

Adding to the drama Monday was that neither Diridon nor any other member of the high-speed rail board said they knew who wrote the provision requiring the extra study.

"We're all mystified. The whole board was caught by surprise how the language got in the bill," Diridon said.

State Sen. Joe Simitian, D-Palo Alto — whose constituents are most upset by the route — said he's not the author.

"That's not my language. I didn't have anything to do with it," he said.

Political skulduggery may not be to blame. In the rush to finish the budget, legislative staff members crafted the new requirement based on what Peninsula residents who testified at hearings and senators seemed to want, said Brian Annis, transportation budget consultant on the state Senate budget committee.

"We were incorporating many different comments and issues that staff and legislators were involved in," Annis said. "As far as the specific language, we drafted something we thought was workable."

So the problem seems to be in the Senate Budget Committee. There are a LOT of Senators on that committee - including one familiar name:

Senator Alan Lowenthal.

Now granted, we don't know whether he was responsible for this provision. But it would not surprise me if he were. Senator Lowenthal has been working for the last year to gut the HSR project. My assessment has always been that he wants to turn the HSR project into a vehicle to deliver funds to commuter rail projects in Southern California, and that he has no commitment to the statewide project, and certainly not to the route voters approved in Prop 1A at the November 2008 election.

Was he behind the provision in question that would undermine the HSR project AND cost California $1 billion in HSR stimulus? We don't know, but someone in the Legislature was, and they're currently trying to keep quiet. These things don't just wind up in the legislation by accident. California deserves to know who in the State Senate believes that a few NIMBYs should have the power to upend 11 years of studies and cost the state $1 billion in stimulus funding.

It's also time for the Legislature to stop meddling with the HSR project. The CHSRA exists to provide clear leadership and project management that isn't tied down by the vicissitudes - and, frankly, the incompetence - of the state legislature, which has shown itself incapable of offering anything positive toward the HSR project. The legislature needs to take advantage of the budget delay by stripping this provision from the bill, and ensuring that the legislature remains committed to the HSR project as approved by voters in November.

Should CHSRA Be Abolished - Or Improved?

by Robert Cruickshank

Leaving no doubt as to where he stands on high speed rail (he hateses it!) Palo Alto Vice Mayor Jack Morton, who misrepresented reality to the Senate Budget Subcommittee last week in Sacramento is now demanding that the CHSRA be abolished:

Vice Mayor Jack Morton of Palo Alto caught City Council colleagues by surprise with a suggestion Monday night that perhaps California's High Speed Rail Authority ought to be dissolved.

He said the $40 billion rail project could be turned over to some other entity with staff that has experience handling large planning/construction projects -- possibly including even Caltrain.

Morton made the suggestion Monday night when he was reporting to the council and public on a trip he, Councilman Pat Burt, Deputy City Manager Steve Emslie and citizens and officials from other Peninsula communities made to Sacramento last Thursday to convey a key message: Don't allow the rail authority to override local concerns.

Morton said authority staff members at the subcommittee hearing revealed a general lack of experience in putting together a large-scale project, and there was a feeling that the planned $40 billion rail project needs a staff highly experienced with large-scale projects.

Unfortunately, as I have reported here before, Senator Joe Simitian seems to have fallen hook, line and sinker for this nonsense, agreeing to delay the CHSRA's $130 million bond money request.

Let me ask everyone this - if you believe an agency needs to "staff up" with people who have experience implementing a big project, why would you deny them the funding they need to accomplish this? It's like telling someone to repair their roof and then garnishing their wages.

Jack Morton and his fellow HSR deniers are hoping that if they kill the CHSRA, then they might be able to either destroy the project outright by neutering it along Sen. Alan Lowenthal's preferred lines (taking the money away from an SF-LA train and instead building glorified commuter rail) - or put it in the hands of a more pliable agency.

The CHSRA's strength is in its independence. It is an agency charged with the task of building a high speed train to connect SF to LA. Putting that power under a single agency is a smart move as it allows the agency to focus solely on building the train. Staff aren't being pulled away to look after the Pacific Surfliners as they might under a Department of Rail, or focus on a roads project as they might under Caltrans.

Further, "governance reform" has often been used as a trojan horse by those who want to kill a passenger rail project - as our friends up in Seattle discovered. Using claims that the Sound Transit agency was somehow flawed or in need of reform, various state legislators floated proposals that would have gutted the agency's ability to implement the light rail project voters had repeatedly supported. Sound Transit's supporters were able to fend off governance reform, although various forms of it still crop up from time to time.

That all being said, this blog's focus is, has always been, and will always be to support the best implementation of the SF-LA high speed rail plan. We want it built, but we want it built right. If there are legitimate ways to improve the CHSRA to help build HSR, we're more than open to it. What we rightly and strongly reject are calls for "reform" by known HSR opponents.

Which takes us to the state legislature, which already has several bills floating around that would impact the work of the CHSRA and the HSR project itself. Some of them are worth supporting, others are not. They include:

SB 455 (Lowenthal): Despite its author, this one actually looks workable. It would provide the CHSRA with more eminent domain power, which it needs to quickly, affordably, and efficiently build the system. It also provides for Senate confirmation of CHSRA board members, which might politicize the agency's work but is something I could probably live with. The bill would also mandate the creation of a project schedule, which I'm all for.

AB 289 (Galgiani): This would make clear that existing CEQA exemptions for building grade separations for existing tracks would be extended to the CHSRA as well. I am all for this, as it could prove an invaluable asset to ensure that the project gets underway in a timely fashion.

In fact, I believe we should go further and exempt the entire CHSRA project from CEQA entirely. Instead we should set up an alternative method to evaluate the project's environmental benefits, one that includes carbon emissions, impact on pollutants, impact on traffic and sprawl, and renewable energy and gasoline savings, while making absolutely clear that non-environmental issues, like aesthetics and "community values" are excluded from the evaluation process. NIMBYs have found ways to abuse the CEQA process, and a project like HSR is too important to allow to be held up like that.

Two other bills are less welcome:

SB 783 (Ashburn): Would mandate yet another business plan, this time by September 1, 2009. I do not believe this bill is being offered in good faith, since Senator Ashburn surely knows that September 1 is not enough time for an agency whose funds are once again the subject of political wrangling to produce this plan. This bill should be rejected out of hand.

SB 409 (Ducheny): This is the 2009 version of Senator Denise Moreno Ducheny's Department of Railroads bill. It would transfer the CHSRA to the new DOR as a specific division within that department, and move all other passenger rail projects to the DOR as well. I've always said I'm open to this concept, and I'm not going to close the door on it entirely - but it doesn't strike me as a necessary move, and brings with it the risk that passenger rail funding could be ghettoized.

Ultimately the key issue here is that there is no real or strong pro-HSR leadership in Sacramento. And that enables the Peninsula NIMBYs to fill a vacuum. Why aren't Central Valley, or Los Angeles, or San Francisco and San Jose legislators firing back against Palo Alto's effort to dictate terms to the rest of the state? Those regions have an enormous stake in this project and their representatives should not tolerate their colleagues' effort to kill HSR or to give fuel to a small and unrepresentative group of people who are trying to reverse the will of the people and destroy one of this country's cornerstone projects for the 21st century.

And just so we have a sense of perspective, two people have been killed in recent days along the Caltrain tracks. That is what the Peninsula NIMBYs are so determined to defend. Makes me sick.

Senators Lowenthal and Simitian Are Getting Played

by Robert Cruickshank

One of the drawbacks of using an independent authority to manage and build the high speed rail project here in California is that it risks not having enough political support to properly do its job. And that may be what we're witnessing here in California, as two state senators - Joe Simitian and Alan Lowenthal - are launching an attack on the California High Speed Rail Authority and its funding. Unfortunately, this attack, particularly in Senator Simitian's case, is based on outright lies being told to him by a very small group of people on the Peninsula who want Simitian to step in and overturn the will of the voters by changing the route of the high speed train.

As related in a recent Palo Alto Online article:

A state Senate subcommittee Thursday expressed concerns about the structure and business plan of the California High Speed Rail Authority -- the agency charged with building the $40 billion rail line between San Francisco and Los Angeles....


Simitian said the community's message was "loud and clear." The subcommittee agreed to hold off on authorizing the funds and urged rail-authority officials to expand their outreach efforts.

The senators heard from about 30 concerned Peninsula residents who made a morning trek to Sacramento to lobby for more oversight and transparency.

"What we really asked for is for them to change the structure of who is running this," Palo Alto Vice Mayor Jack Morton, one of the speakers, said.

"It's quite clear that the high-speed rail staff is insensitive to the community and has no ability to be responsible for the funds," he said.

Simitian said the nature of the rail authority has changed over the past few months from a small study group advocating a high-speed rail line to an organization actually building the line. Now is the time to consider changes that would bring more oversight and more community outreach to the process, he said.

"We deferred action in part to ensure that before the funds are authorized for the coming year that we see a stepped-up program for outreach and oversight," Simitian told the Weekly.

Simitian is getting played. There's no other way to put it. Those "30 concerned Peninsula residents" include opponents of the high speed rail project, people who want to exercise an unfair and illegitimate amount of power over the project. They believe that unless the HSR project is compromised and weakened to suit their outdated and anti-environmental preferences, then the project should be killed - and they're working to line up Senate support for it.

I will be blunt here - Vice Mayor Jack Morton lied to the committee, if his words as quoted by Gennady Sheyner are accurate. "Insensitive to the community" is Morton's own distorted spin on events, since there is no evidence whatsoever of such insensitivity. Palo Alto has been regularly consulted. The CHSRA extended the Peninsula EIR comment period to accommodate Palo Alto. The CHRSA has also created a working group with Peninsula cities, including Palo Alto.

Even worse is Morton's lie about CHSRA irresponsibility with funds. As we have explained here the CHSRA's work has been hamstrung by financial factors totally outside its control - the state legislature refuses to pass a budget on time and CHSRA staff and contractors go unpaid; the state can't or won't sell the Prop 1A bonds; Arnold Schwarzenegger tries to zero out CHSRA funding (which he attempted to do in 2007).

Jack Morton should be ashamed of himself for making such blatant misrepresentations of the truth to a legislative committee like that. It is disreputable and makes the city of Palo Alto - which in reality has a diverse set of opinions on HSR, including a large number, probably a majority, of residents who back the project.

As for Joe Simitian, I don't really know where he has been, but as far as HSR is concerned he seems to have been out to lunch. The CHSRA has already worked proactively to provide even stronger community engagement.

Let's be clear here. This isn't about CHSRA's supposed failure to engage the community. This is about a small but loud group of NIMBYs who want to kill HSR outright who are doing the equivalent of whining to mom and dad when they don't get their way. They are making up things to undermine the CHSRA in pursuit of their actual goal - gutting the project - which is quite clear from the statements quoted in the article:

Hundreds have attended community and council meetings to raise alarms about the potential of an elevated wall splitting the city, and to express concerns about the possibility of having portions of their property's seized through eminent domain.

Palo Alto Councilman Pat Burt emphasized the eminent domain issue at Monday's council meeting, calling it the "elephant in the room."

Pat Burt is not being straight with the council or the public, since eminent domain takings are expected to be VERY small. I am also concerned with Yoriko Kishimoto's statements, which may indicate a "tunnel or nothing" attitude:

Councilwoman Yoriko Kishimoto, who organized a coalition of Peninsula cities that meets weekly to discuss high-speed rail issues, said city officials are now discussing a variety of proposals they'd like Sacramento legislators to consider.

The coalition, which met Friday morning, wants the rail authority to use the "Context Sensitive Solutions" developed by the Federal Highway Administration in designing the new rail line. The method emphasizes stakeholder involvement and design elements that integrate the project with the surrounding communities.

Kishimoto said the coalition also plans to request that the rail authority conduct an economic analysis for the various design alternatives concurrently with its environmental review of the options.

"We don't want to go through all the environmental analysis only to find at the very end of the two-year process that the tunnel is not feasible," Kishimoto said.

Yoriko, I can tell you right now the tunnel is NOT feasible from an economic perspective unless your city plans to pay for it. It's really that simple.

Further, this who "Context Sensitive Solutions" concept is total bullshit unless it includes the true context of HSR. That method must necessarily include:

• The impact of HSR on carbon emissions
• The jobs and economic benefits of HSR
• The benefits of high speed passenger rail and the costs of automobile congestion
• The impact of rising gas prices
• Safety upgrades of grade separations along the Caltrain corridor

Further, who exactly is the "community" that is at stake here? Palo Alto residents are implying they're the only community that matters, and that is nonsense. Such "Context Sensitive Solutions" need to be examined against the needs of the state as a whole if this exercise is to have any legitimacy whatsoever. Palo Alto believes that their needs trump the needs of everyone else. They are wrong about this, as they are about to discover.

The other part of the article notes that Senator Alan Lowenthal of Long Beach is on the subcommittee and joined in the attack on the CHSRA. At this point I am forced to conclude Lowenthal is an HSR denier - someone who not only refuses to acknowledge the benefits of HSR, but who persists in spreading incorrect information and even disinformation about HSR. We have discussed Lowenthal before - his report from June designed to undermine the HSR project ahead of the Prop 1A vote, and his successful effort to get the Legislative Analyst to produce a flawed report on the CHSRA Business Plan.

As long as Senator Lowenthal is in office it seems he is going to try and kill high speed rail. Unfortunately he may now be joined by Senator Simitian, who has gullibly bought the BS being sold by Palo Alto interests who hope to kill the project, or to severely weaken its ability to provide for California's needs.

CHSRA also needs stronger institutional support inside the Capitol. That was supposed to be Quentin Kopp's role, as he was a former state senator, but clearly more is needed. I don't know if that means some changes to the board, or whether it means other Senators need to step up and chide their colleagues for trying to undermine a core initiative not just of California but of President Barack Obama.

Make no mistake - Peninsula NIMBYs are trying to sneak a gutting of the HSR project through the state legislature. They are out of their minds if they think we're going to let them happen.

The first step is to contact Senators Simitian and Lowenthal and ask them why they are opposing the will of the people and trying to undermine the HSR project.

Sen. Joe Simitian
Email page
(650) 688-6384
(916) 651-4011 (Capitol office)

Sen. Alan Lowenthal
Direct email
(562) 495-4766
(916) 651-4027 (Capitol Office)