High Speed Rail Archives - Friends For Fullerton's Future

July 19, 2011July 20, 2011Behind Closed Doors

Pringle’s Cash Cow Stops Giving Milk

PringlePud — When the money ran out did Der Pringle?

Thanks to Friend Tony Serra for providing a link to a Sac Bee story about Anaheim’s former Mayor-for-Hire Kurt Pringle quitting the California High Speed Rail Board.

Could it be true? Sure looks like it. According to the story he wants Governor Brown to be able to appoint someone who represents his point of view. I wonder what that point of view might be. Ethics? Brown, who as Attorney General took note of Pringle’s conflicts of interest over many years may have asked him to go.

So Der Rat is jumping off Das Sinkingboot; timely, too, now that all the revelations of incompetence, waste, misinformation, and decreased funding are dragging the HSR to a well-deserved grave.

The funniest thing in the piece is the glowing valediction to Pringle from fellow HSR barnacle, Tom Umberg, who in the past has proved there is no moral morass too low for a politician to sink into, and who recently penned a pro-HSR op-ed piece in the Register that was so incompetent I’m not going to link to it to save Umberg any more embarrassment.

March 4, 2011March 4, 2011Behind Closed Doors

LA to Anaheim HSR on Verge of Derailment

by Mr. Peabody16 Comments

Our friends over at the the Voice of OC(EA) are reporting on yesterday’s California High Speed Rail Authority meeting. And if you’re one of the repuglicans or make-work junkies supporting the unsupportable, the news ain’t good.

Everybody now admits that the LA-Anaheim link is the most impractical and least effective segment of HSR. In fact, if it is ever built, it may not be “high speed” at all! Hiding behind euphemisms like “phase-in” the reality is that this segment has been pushed all the way to the back of the CHSR bus.

Hilariously the HSR-ocrats are paying lip service to the Will O’ The People who voted a multi-billion dollar bond to support this extravagant boondoggle. Oh, that’s right. The People. The ones who were given false information at every step of the way and who were never presented with a business plan as required by the initiative. And the People, these miscreants are quick to remind us, voted for a system that would come all the way to Anaheim! No prize for guessing who got the Anaheim language into the initiative.

And speaking of Der Pringle, he provides the best quote of the article when he cautioned not to use the word “splippage” since it might undermine confidence in the whole gig. Hooboy!

Meanwhile Pringle’s glassy monument to himself, the egregious ARTIC 200 mil bus barn continues to loom in our collective psyche, promising to suck up $100,000,000 of Measure M revenue that is supposed to bring HSR to an expanded Metrolink station. Of course ARTIC does neither, but as we have already noted, that means nothing to the small-town drones on the OCTA board. And this reminds me of a poem:

In Anaheim did a ‘puglican

A stately pleasure-dome decree:

Where Santa Ana, the part-time river, ran

Through suburbs measureless to man

Down to a closed-beach sea,

etc.

November 5, 2010November 5, 2010About Us

Another Nail in Pringle’s High Speed Rail Coffin?

by Mr. Peabody10 Comments

The Voice of OC is reporting that the Feds are finally getting tired of Anaheim Soon-to-be-ex-Mayor-for-Hire Curt Pringle’s misdirection of High Speed Rail priorities to feather his own Anaheim nest.

It appears that the Feds have suddenly realized that they require that the initial track be laid in the Central Valley – not in a stretch of territory already covered by existing rail and commuter lines, and where a high speed rail line makes virtually no sense.

Good to see the US Gov’t get one right.

In other news, the HSR hired a former Parsons Brinkerhoff executive to be project manager. Hmm. That’s a tentacle that may need to be lopped off.

traincrashthroughbuilding — Gee, we told it to stop.

And finally, more good news: the new Guv is said to intensely dislike Pringle’s HSR shennanigans.We know he got our letter.

So maybe soon Pringle will be off the HSR board althogether. And that would make for an early Christmas.

November 1, 2010November 1, 2010About Us

Pringle Gets Dangling Appendage in Wringer. Again.

by Grover Cleveland3 Comments

The LA Times is after poor Curt Pringle again. It seems he represents all sorts of people up and down the state who have major interest, one way or another, in the California High Speed Rail boondoggle.

Check out the Boy Scout response: Gosh, gee whiz, I didn’t know. Thanks for bringing that to my attention!

PringlePower — You are becoming very sleazy...

For a while now we have shared stories about the manifest sleazes of Anaheim’s Mayor-for-Hire, Pringle, the worst repuglican in the County, who has his dipstick stuck into just about every conceivable honey pot, and a man whose only political principles come with a price tag affixed.

We finally got sick of watching Herr Pay to Play shove his bogus pork and kickback laden High Speed Rail project into California. When our boss discovered a legislative opinion that both HSR Boardmembers Pringle and Richard Katz held “incompatible offices” he reported this fact to the Attorney General.

Only last week tales of unreported foreign trips by Pringle emerged once again. Although we had already shared that story, here, it seems that nobody in the HSR enterprise was keeping track of who was going where. The idea of shipping jobs overseas didn’t seem to bother Der Pringler. Well,what the Hell, France and Germany have unemployment problems, too, right? Even worse, it slipped out that the HSR’s army of consultants and camp followers were getting gifts, too. Lots of them, apparently.

Well, as they say, the fish rots from the head.

And now that the election is upon us and Pringle’s rancid days as an elected official and an OCTA board member are coming to an end, it’s time to do whatever we can to kick this creep off the HSR board and then to kill the greatest boondoggle in the history of California.

October 1, 2010October 11, 2010Repuglicanism

Pringle’s Perplexing Pitch for Public Prosperity

by Mr. Peabody8 Comments

gomez — An HSR project? Capital idea! Let's get down to brass tax...

If anyone had any doubt about the validity of a high-speed rail project in California, all they need to do is read a succinct editorial by Steve Forbes in the online edition of Forbes magazine.

Typically we think of high-speed rail projects as a local affair, but Forbes demonstrates that it’s really a not-so-original template for the grabbing of public money, and can happen just about anywhere. The ratio of dollars spent compared to the percentage of the public who would actually end up using such services is dramatically out of proportion.

Forbes points out that high-speed rail projects are a relatively risk-free ticket for politicians to further their careers, fleecing the taxpayers big-time in the process. The fact that the proposed line from Anaheim to San Francisco would cost an estimated $43 billion should be enough to make any sane person think twice, and perhaps even lose a little sleep, but apparently Mr. Pringle is immune to such basic human contemplation.

alfred_e_neuman — What? Me worry? Are you kidding?

This sort of shenanigans on such a grand scale would never occur in the free market, it’s only under the guise of government serving the public good that such perverse misuse of public funds could take place legally. Just what planet is he from, anyway?

TSDSTTR PA062 — HSR? Hah! What we should really be considering is a transporter!

September 30, 2010September 30, 2010Hidden Government Agencies

Is Pringle’s Runaway Gravy Train Coming To A Halt?

by admin17 Comments

After months of wondering how Anaheim’s Mayor-for-Hire, Curt Pringle, could get away with pushing through his high speed choo-choo on the folks of Buena Park, Fullerton, Anaheim, Orange County and all of California, I discovered a legal opinion from Legislative Counsel addressed to the Secretary of the State Senate that unequivocally opines that Pringle holds incompatible offices as Chairman of the California High Speed rail Authority, while simultaneously representing the City of Anaheim and the Orange County Transit Authority. He is breaking the law.

Pringle has already directed the better part of $200,000,000 of Orange County transportation funds to Anaheim’s idiotic “ARTIC” facility, and that doesn’t even include more that will be necessary to accommodate his high speed boondoggle. Is it a coincidence that the first leg of the CHSR will be built in the least necessary or useful stretch of this concept – LA to Anaheim? Is it just as coincidental as Pringle’s lobbying firm being there to “consult” after hizzoner is out of office?

Pringlescrib — Mr. Curt? He up in the Big House.

Of course, Pringle is the heart and soul of Orange County repuglicanism: he runs the plantation and we all are just his cheap labor.

Yesterday I sent a letter by overnight delivery to our Attorney General requesting a quo warranto opinion from the AG, to wit: if the AG believes that the finding of the State Legislative Counsel is correct then the AG must take action to have the Pringle, and his LA Metropolitan Transit Authority counterflack Richard Katz, removed from their prior public offices to protect us regular folk from the sharks. Eric Carpenter of the register has written about my letter the AG, here.

It matters to Pringle. With a month left in office the influence he can still peddle at our expense is significant.

August 25, 2010Brick Veneer, Fake Old, And Other Horrors

Very, Very Important Information on HSR

by admin11 Comments

Just when you thought a government official could not sink any lower…

Push play and listen to the ridiculous reason High Speed Rail board member and Curt Pringle idolizer Quentin Kopp gives for not having a business plan:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xEkWWZOXA68

August 12, 2010August 13, 2010Hidden Government Agencies

The Continental. Pringle Parties Across The Pond

by Mr. Peabody12 Comments

Looks like Anaheim’s Mayor-for-Hire, the slippery elm repuglican par excellence, Curt Pringle, has been getting some free trips to Europe courtesy of the French and German guvments.

Hmm.

Trips to Europe to “study” high speed rail by Herr Pringle. Paid for by socialized governments who are evidently competing on behalf of their socialized industries with the good old US of A.

And wine. Did I forget to mention the freedom-loving Anaheim Haupt-burgermeister loves his wine?

April 29, 2010April 30, 2010Behind Closed Doors

State Auditor Rains on Pringle’s High Speed Rail Parade

by Mr. Peabody2 Comments

In a comprehensive indictment of the High Speed Rail Authority’s procedures and protocols, and its abilities to manage and oversee spending public bond revenue, the California State Auditor has taken a considerable step in derailing the proposed boondoggle. Read the highlights for yourself.

Although this doesn’t tell us anything we didn’t suspect, it does confirm the worst suspicions about poor planning and lax or non-existent oversight, and raises the worst spectre of all: a worthless, duplicative, hyper-expensive and disruptive system – a mere leg – say from Anaheim to downtown Los Angeles.

Tonight Pringle’s PR consultants are coming to town, not to ask our opinion about anything, rest assured. Rather they are coming to soft sell what’s already been decided. But there’s no reason why we can’t go and share our opinions, and maybe even ask Mayor Bankhead (who’s bound to be there) how come he stood up a couple years ago and told people that the City of Fullerton supports this disaster in the making.

They’re going to be at the Senior Center from 5-8 with a propaganda presentation at 6pm.

April 28, 2010Hidden Government Agencies

High-Speed Rail Circus Comes to Fullerton

by Travis6 Comments

The High-Speed Rail Authority is bringing the show to our own Fullerton Senior Center on Thursday evening.

Considered by many to be the greatest boondoggle in the history of California, high speed rail will waste billions of dollars, threaten homes and businesses throughout the state while claiming to solve an inter-state transit problem that doesn’t exist.

Be sure to get informed before you attend.

The California High-Speed Rail Authority (CHSRA) will host a public open house in the City of Fullerton to provide the community with a project update, information about the proposed alternative alignments, design options, and station locations being considered, as well as details pertaining to the environmental process. Residents will be able to see which areas might be needed for right-of way acquisition.

Fullerton is being considered for a station, in competition with Norwalk for the only other station between Anaheim and Los Angeles.

CHSRA is planning high-speed train service for travel between major metropolitan areas of California. The high-speed train is proposed to connect Anaheim to San Francisco in less than three hours. The Los Angeles to Anaheim high-speed train section proposes to travel adjacent to the existing Los Angeles to San Diego Rail Corridor from LA Union Station to the future Anaheim Regional Transportation Intermodal Center (ARTIC), although OCTA and Metro are now proposing a shared-track agreement.

Thursday, April 29, 2010, 5 to 8 p.m., presentation at 6 p.m.
Fullerton Senior Center, 340 W. Commonwealth Ave.
For more information, call (877) 724-5422