California High Speed Rail Project: Program Deficiencies discussed at the Capitol
From Examiner.com
February 13th
Round two of meetings with Assembly and Senate sub-committee budget meetings held this week continued to bring a spotlight on High Speed Rail (HSR) issues. Some insightful comments were made at committee meetings last week by Senator Lowenthal, Assemblymember Diane Harkey, and newly elected Assemblymembers Brian Jones and David Valadao.
Brian Jones from San Diego seconded the motion. But before the vote Jones addressed the committee and the audience. He stated he comes to this issue as a Californian, not as a San Diegan or a Southern California resident. “This is a big deal,” and commented that there is dispute “whether the voters were sold a bill of goods.” And he added, “I propose what they thought they were getting, is not what they are getting by a long shot.” He is concerned that “if we keep throwing money at the project it would become, in the new vernacular, too big to fail.” He does not believe the federal government is going to come up with any significant dollars for this project.
Jones had questions:
- Is the private financing and the construction coming from domestic or foreign sources?
- How much of this project is going to be built out of this country and shipped here and put together?
- Are the jobs being created California or transient jobs from professionals from other countries?
Jones closed by saying he wholeheartedly supports the motion to defund the Authority and ended with, “Until I can go back to the voters of California and tell them this is a legitimate project, with a legitimate timeline, with legitimate financing and legitimate funding, I can’t support the project going forward anymore.”