High Speed Rail Archives - Page 2 of 2 - Friends For Fullerton's Future

April 20, 2010April 20, 2010Behind Closed Doors

Did Bankhead Shoot Self in Foot? Or have The People Really Spoken?

A Friend just passed along the minutes from a California High Speed Rail meeting back in May 2008. The city of Fullerton “strongly supports the HSR project” per Councilman Don Bankhead. Hey, wait a minute. Did the City Council of Fullerton adopt a formal position on the HSR , and did they appoint Bankhead to be it’s official spokesman on the subject?

And if the Council really and truly already decided that we’re on board the HSR, then why bother with one of those idiotic “work shops” at tonight’s council meeting, and why have another one on April 26th at the Senior Center?

Anyway check this out:

CALIFORNIA HIGH-SPEED RAIL AUTHORITY/ MEETING MINUTES / MAY 14, 2008

The meeting of the California High-Speed Rail Authority was called to order on May 14, 2008 at 9:30AM at Anaheim City Hall, 200 S. Anaheim Blvd in Anaheim, CA.

Mr. Bankhead stated the City of Fullerton strongly supports the HSR Project. To date the City, CalTrans and OCTA has invested millions of dollars in public transit services at the Fullerton Transportation Center. Mr. Bankhead stated Fullerton has the busiest rail station between Los Angeles and San Diego along the LOSSAN corridor. In addition, the City of Fullerton is working with CalTrans and OCTA to construct a new parking structure to accommodate up to 1000 rail passengers. There would be a platform adjacent to the parking structure that could accommodate high-speed rail. Mr. Bankhead stated the City of Fullerton supports the Authority’s budget request for $103M towards the development of high-speed rail. Mr. Bankhead stated on behalf of the City of Fullerton that the Authority consider a stop in Fullerton which would serve the region and build upon a previous transportation investment.

April 14, 2010April 28, 2010Harry Sidhu

City of Orange Votes to Kills HSR; Wake Up Fullerton City Council, NOW!

by admin11 Comments

On Tuesday night, the Orange City Council, led by Councilman Denis Bilodeau (left) and Jon Dumitru, took a bold first step supporting Dianne Harkey’s AB2121 bill here that would put a screeching halt on the high speed rail (HSR). The HSR is perhaps the biggest boondoggle in the making in the history of the United States.

On a 2 – 1 – 1 vote the Orange Council supported AB2121 with Mayor Carolyn Cavecche abstaining. Apparently, Cavecche the former Chair of OCTA said she needed more information, sure she does.

The HSR as currently planned would cut a swath through southern California wiping out untold numbers of homes and businesses, and will leave us and our descendants a massive debt. With our state on the verge of bankruptcy we cannot afford the damage or the cost, especially when the promoters of this scheme like Anaheim Mayor Curt Pringle don’t even have a business plan.

Well, Pringle has his own private business plan, as usual – income from consulting contracts, no doubt. Just in case you don’t know what Curt Pringle does with his time, then you should read this, this and this post.

When will Fullerton citizens and business owners get our chance to provide input into this HSR boondoggle, when it’s too late? Probably never. Remember this is Fullerton where good manners dictate that you sit down and shut up.

April 12, 2010April 28, 2010Behind Closed Doors

Fullerton City Council Asleep at the HSR Switch?

by admin8 Comments

Jon Dumitru request public hearing on HSR! — Jon Dumitru requested hearing on HSR

I applaud the Orange City Council for taking the initiative here, to discuss State Assemblywoman Diane Harkey’s AB2121. Basically, Harkey’s idea is to pull the plug on the bond financing for the High Speed Rail (HSR) massive boondoggle. Our sources tell us Councilman Jon Dumitru has taken the lead on reviewing this issue.

Hell, the HSR isn’t even proposed to go through Orange, and their council is more concerned about the boondoggle than Fullerton’s is.The route, as proposed could cut a several mile long swath of destruction through Fullerton. And our council doesn’t seem able to even talk about it. Maybe because staff didn’t agendize it first.

When are the people of Fullerton going to start electing people that stick up for Fullerton? A concerted opposition by our council could help kill this fiasco now.

April 10, 2010April 28, 2010Behind Closed Doors

Was It Something We Said? HSR Board Blinks

by Mr. Peabody7 Comments

PringlePower — You are becoming very sleepy...

Responding to mounting criticism about taking a bunch of property along the proposed right-of-way for its multibillion dollar boondoggle, the California High Speed Rail Authority took a step back the other day and voted 6-1 to entertain a shared track option previously discarded when they thought nobody was paying attention. Read all about it in the LA Times.

Even lobbyist and fixer Curt Pringle, the termed-out Mayor of Anaheim, joined the majority. Is he perhaps starting to fear a Buena Park, Fullerton, and Anaheim backlash that might spoil all of his crafty electoral machinations for 2010?

Well, it’s a step in the right direction, but it still begs the question of bureaucratic and rolling stock cost vis-a-vis minimal travel time gains to downtown LA.

The lone “no” vote came from Quintin L. Kopp, the former Bay Area politician who also advocated for the controversial BART extension to the San Francisco Airport. Apparently Kopp thinks it’s too late to be smart – always a bad sign.

April 4, 2010April 28, 2010Behind Closed Doors

Another Day Another Dump on Pringle’s Main Chance Choo Choo

by Mr. Peabody5 Comments

This time it’s a story by the LA Times featuring former OCTA boss Art Leahy and others questioning the dedicated tracks, the impacts, and of course some of the basic operating assumptions of the California HSR.

Meantime we’re not holding our collective breath for the release of Curt Pringle’s “business plan” that seems to be at least 5 years late.

April 1, 2010April 28, 2010Dead heads

Another Gut Punch to Pringle’s HSR Boondoggle

by Mr. Peabody21 Comments

Just checked out this article at the new Voice of OC.

Read Pringle’s quotes and try not to barf. Of course he’s pimping this monster hard, after all, he plans to reap big dividends personally when his Mayorship in Anaheim comes to a slimy conclusion.

Here’s the money quote:

But Pringle said “when the whole system’s up and operating, we’ll have a tremendous operating income” to keep it going. He said specifics will be spelled out in future business plans.

In other words, he has no idea what the operating income is and he doesn’t want anybody to know that. If he can’t give us the facts now he’s just gambling with our money. But the House always wins. And Pringle is the House. Sweet. For him.

March 24, 2010April 28, 2010Behind Closed Doors

Let’s Talk About The Great High Speed Train Robbery

by Mr. Peabody43 Comments

thomastankengine-420x0 — They always approach with a warm smile...

Down in Anaheim Cynthia Ward (aka Colony Rabble) has been trying to raise the profile of the California High Speed Rail (CHSR) project that will inevitably cut a swath out of neighborhoods as it makes its way to Curt Pringle’s Platinum Triangle Ghost Town.

In Fullerton (except for us) I’ve heard nary a word.

It’s pretty evident that this massive boondoggle was promoted to bamboozle the State’s electorate into floating another 10 billion dollars of indebtedness and to divert it into the pockets of huge engineering and public works contractors. Conservatives used to call this income redistribution. Now some of them call it jobs, jobs, jobs.

Harry'sFriend — My good friend popular Mayor Curt Pringle has taught me this much...

It is telling that Repuglicans Curt Pringle and Harry Sidhu both back this massive waste, plus the unconscionable OCTA uber-subsidy for their ARTIC choo-choo stop, as does Anaheim’s own Precious Princess Lorri Galloway, a union puppet who can be expected to do anything necessary to promote expanded union membership.

But I digress, yet again. Damn. Sorry.

How come there has been almost no discussion about this monster project and its potential right-of-way through Fullerton? Buena Park has recently learned to its dismay that the HSR will either take out part of their station or dozens of newly built houses built as part of a TOD scheme. Does our City Council know something they’re not telling us?

godzilla-500x400 — No. We don't anticipate any big environemental issues.

So what is happening in Fullerton? There is only one available route from BP to Anaheim, of course, and it will have to follow the BNSF/old UP rights-of-way. What will this mean to property owners and businesses in the way? What sort of traffic disruptions will this cause over the major north-south streets over the years? Aren’t we entitled to know?

At the January NUFF forum Shawn Nelson came out against the HSR; but what of the other councilmembers? Isn’t it time for a public hearing on this topic if, indeed anybody in City Hall is serious about transparency?

Shawn? Sharon? Pam? Dick? Don? Is there something you’d like to share with us? Why not agendize this issue. Now. Let’s have at it out in the open.

And maybe this should be a campaign issue for the fall. And maybe we need somebody on the OCTA like Nelson who is not going to just go along with Pringle.

P.S. For some fun watch this CNN video that is really little more than an infomercial for HSR: what a sweet deal for the tiny percentage of California’s 40 million people who just have to get between LA and SF in a hurry (they won’t, of course).

Try not to giggle at Pringle’s performance, if you can.

March 17, 2010April 28, 2010Harry Sidhu

Diane Harkey Tries To Drive Spike Through Heart of High Speed Rail Boondoggle

by The Desert Rat9 Comments

I’ve never heard much good about Diane Harkey, the State Assemblywoman from, um, down there somewhere.

But that changed dramatically when a Friend of mine and a devout High Speed Rail opponent sent me a link to a San Mateo County Times story that talks about Harkey’s attempt to kill the bond sale to raise $9.5 billion dollars and start putting it into the greasy palms of Curt Pringle and Harry Sidhu’s backroom buddies.

It seems Ms. Harkey thinks it’s a poor idea for the State to take on more debt given its current catatonic fiscal condition. And maybe she’s come to the realization that “jobs, jobs, jobs” at the cost of billions more indebtedness is not a conservative recipe for success. So she’s introducing legislation to stop the the floating o’ the bond (ambiguous St. Pat’s Day reference).

And I say good for her!

And I also say it’s time for Fullerton politicians and residents to figure out what the alignment impacts will have on Fullerton and how much that’ll cost us.

February 28, 2010February 28, 2010Behind Closed Doors

High Speed Rail Boondoggle Splashed With Cold Water

by Grover Cleveland15 Comments

According to a Sunday Los Angeles Times story, here, the high speed rail (HSR) project, every big-government lover’s answer to all our problems, is starting to receive more unwelcome scrutiny lately. Skyrocketing projected costs and ticket prices, federal subsidy guarantee requirements, incomprehensible ridership projections, and property takings that include, apparently, some part of Buena Park’s Metrolink Station or the adjacent residential development are causing folks to take a harder look at this fiasco in the making.

Things have gotten so bad that even lefty Long Beach State Senator Alan Lowenthal is upset.

HSR should be a source of great alarm to everyone in north Orange County, both in terms of its cost to the taxpayers, the damage that it will do to established communities, and also because so many clueless but ambitious politicians like Harry Sidhu and Lorri Galloway are using it as a mantra to solve unemployment woes in California, and in particular Orange County.

When and if this monstrosity is ever built, the jobs will go to giant out of town engineering firms. Most of the construction workers will be imported from the Inland Empire and Los Angeles County – just like they are on every public works project. The only local recipients of reliable employment benefit will be the lobbyists like Anaheim’s outgoing mayor, Curt Pringle and his ilk who are promoting this giant money sucking vortex in their own interest.

And just watch as the onerous environmental laws that the rest of us have to live by are waived for the politicos pet project.

February 9, 2010February 8, 2010Dead heads

Transportation Boondoggles Belie Sidhu’s Self-applied Stick-on Labels

by Joe Sipowicz3 Comments

“Tough-minded advocate for streamlined efficient government.”

That’s how 4th District Supervisor candidate Harry Sidhu describes himself in that dopey Fullerton News Tribune ad he bought last week. We also read that Sidhu claims to have “fought to eliminate excessive and wasteful government spending.”

No examples, of course, to support the statements; evidently we are expected to accept Harry’s word for it.

But let’s make a quick visit to Sidhu’s campaign webiste. Under the “Transportation” issue heading we discover stuff all dressed up to look like an accomplishment that in reality gives the lie to Harry’s claim to be anything but an irresponsible public spendthrift.

Turns out Sidhu is a big cheerleader for the California High Speed Rail scam, a boondoggle on which hundreds of millions have already been squandered in “studies,” and with a gargantuan $50 billion price tag that ridership will never pay for. And of course he beats the drum for the jaw-droppingly expensive ARTIC plan in Anaheim, presumably hoping that if you build the southern terminus of the HSR a choo choo will have to show up sooner or later. A trip to the ARTIC website “benefits” page makes things crystal clear: $180,000,000 (yes, Friends you read that right) for a make-work government jobs program – mostly paid for with Measure M funds that everybody in the County has to pay through sales tax. Hardly the behavior of a fiscal conservative, is it?

Our Friends in Anaheim tell us that Sidhu is all gung-ho for this titanic fiasco to grease his relationship with outgoing Mayor Curt Pringle, who is neck deep in the HSR rip-off and who is looking for a soft place to land.

Pringlepug — Pringle on his knees again...

Pringle, not coincidentally, is supporting Sidhu’s carpetbagging run for Supervisor (he supported Ackerwoman, too) and has been raising money for him. Symbiosis. And we get stuck holding the empty sack. Typical.

Sidhu is “tough-minded” about one thing: perpetually running for political office. On matters involving our tax dollars he’s about as tough as a mildewed marshmallow.