Legislation Would Conceal California High-Speed Rail Records from Public

The Globe reported last week that Senator Tony Strickland (R–Huntington Beach) introduced Senate Bill 885, the Restoring Accountability Act, to restore accountability, transparency, and oversight to California’s regulatory process by returning final authority over major regulations to the California State Legislature.

What a concept – it shouldn’t have to be legislated. But it does because last year, lawmakers passed several anti-transparency laws:

• Shields members of the Research Advisory Panel of California, an independent panel to encourage further research into the nature and effects of cannabis and hallucinogenic drugs, a controlled substance study review group, from the Bagley-Keene Open Meeting Act, and allow the group to meet in private (AB 1103);
• SB 707 allows local officials and other public groups to continue attending public meetings remotely via Zoom or teleconference, keeping up a policy during the COVID-19 flu shutdown;
• SB 495 requires insurers to report more information to the state but prevent it from being available to the public.

“Californians deserve to know who is responsible when major regulations raise costs, eliminate jobs, or disrupt entire industries,” said Senator Strickland. “For too long, unaccountable boards and commissions have held too much power, allowing elected officials to dodge making tough votes, while imposing sweeping regulations with massive economic consequences for working families.”

On the flip side of Sen. Strickland’s transparency bill, is a bill to restrict public access to information about the High-Speed Rail Project, by Assemblywoman Lori Wilson (D-Suisun City).

Wilson is notorious for her kooky legislation stating that a parent could lose custody for not “affirming” or agreeing to a child’s claims about gender identity. Fortunately her Assembly Bill 957 was vetoed by Governor Gavin Newsom. “Affirming a child’s identity about gender is in their best interest,” Assemblywoman Wilson said in a hearing. Wilson also notes that if you the parent reject your child’s chosen gender, “you are rejecting that child.”

But she’s back.

Wilson, author of AB 1608 insists, “We want maximum transparency and accountability,” but her bill includes language to prohibit the inspector general from making a report public if it determines the report would “reveal weaknesses that could be exploited by individuals.”

Assemblywoman Wilson is proposing to prevent watchdog journalists from exposing government fraud, waste and abuse.

Wilson’s bill is just the latest in a number of legislative attempts to shield records and agencies from the public. The Legislature has kept the Capitol renovations under lock and key, despite the state’s transparency and public records laws, and the media’s many public records requests – all denied.

Making matters even less transparent, CalMatters reported that “the legislation appears to have the blessing of Gov. Gavin Newsom, whose administration released a nearly identical budget trailer bill — a vehicle for the governor and legislative leaders to adopt major reforms swiftly with minimal public input — on Monday. The language for both proposals came from the inspector general’s office, said H.D. Palmer, spokesperson of the state Department of Finance.”

Originally estimated to cost $33 billion in 2008 with a San Francisco to Los Angeles line to open by 2028, the California high speed rail system ballooned to over $1oo billion. And Gov. Newsom also approved another $20 billion for High-Speed Rail in September.

Lawmakers pushed a dubious 2012 revised business plan, in which the cost of the project was magically reduced to $68 billion from $98.6 billion, and an estimated partial completion somewhere in the late 2030’s.

Last year, the California High Speed Rail Authority (CHRSA) actually confirmed that the system still needed $100 billion to link up San Francisco and Los Angeles, so the $130 Billion current estimate can’t be accurate.

Even while Jerry Brown was still governor, the true cost of High Speed Rail was whispered to be closer to $350 billion… if it ever is actually fully built out.

Most recently, Gov. Newsom announced “we’ve taken another critical step in the track-laying stage…” short of actually laying any track.

No tracks, no trains, and $130 billion spent on what?

“The train that’s being built between Los Angeles and San Francisco is the worst managed project I think I’ve ever seen,” Trump said last year. “It’s the worst managed project I think I’ve ever seen, and I’ve seen some of the worst. I read that every person who would ride the train could instead take a limousine back and forth, and you’d have hundreds of billions of dollars left over. It is the worst overrun that there has ever been in the history of our country.”

When questioned on Trump’s comments, the high speed rail authority responded on X, pointing out their progress – defending the indefensible.

“Ignore the noise. We’re busy building,” read the post. “As we enter the track-laying phase, 171 miles are under active construction & we’ve already:  COMPLETED 50 major structures  COMPLETED 60 miles of guideway  COMPLETED full enviro clearance from SF to LA  CREATED 14,600 jobs.”

“We can’t go back. We just have to accept the responsibility of where we are, and that’s exactly what we are doing, said Arthur Sohikian, the High Speed Rail’s executive director.

Governor Gavin Newsom also deflected, pointing to the “thousands of jobs” the project has provided in the Central Valley. It’s curious how there are thousands of jobs, but there is no track, and we still don’t have a train, 17 years after the 2008 bond was passed.

And now the High Speed Rail would be able to hide any report if it would “reveal weaknesses that could be exploited by individuals.”

This Globe reporter has covered California’s High Speed train-to-nowhere since 2008, when Proposition 1A was originally passed by voters. Only 4 years into the boondoggle, in 2012 I reported:

As California politicians show more desperation to build any part of the California High-Speed Rail system in order to get their hands on $3.5 billion in federal stimulus money, the plan is looking more like a whack-a-mole game. But every hole that is plugged, every detail that is softened or tweaked, and every cost estimate that is changed causes a bigger problem. The cover-up is worse than the original crime.

Once the “high speed” route was changed from San Francisco to Los Angeles to Bakersfield to Madera, we renamed the train system “The Conjugal Express” after the two prisons on either end of the route.

Adding to the high speed rail dumpster fire, Ian Choudri, CEO of the California High-Speed Rail Authority, was just arrested earlier this month following an alleged domestic violence event between his fiancee and daughter, hours after appearing beside Gov. Gavin Newsom at a rail event in Kern County. Choudri is on voluntary leave after his arrest.