TROUBLE WITH JERRY'S TOY TRAIN....AGAIN

by Bob Walsh

Tom Richards is, at least for now, the vice-chairman of the High Speed Rail project board. This is the group that is supposed to be getting the not-really-very-high-speed train built. Richards has been sufficiently insensitive as to admit that the recent audit has revealed some real flaws in their administration of the project. These flaws, which are many and manifest, brought Richards in front of a legislative committee.

The HSR Authority was brought into being by the voters in 2008. There were various financial and physical performance requirements actually written into the ballot proposition. The HSR Authority has screwed the pooch on all of them up until this point, but the courts have allowed them to continue as the project is not, in their opinion, completely down the shitter.....yet.

There are 56 people managing hundreds of contracts worth several billion dollars right now. Only three of them are full-time employees and their record keeping is spotty at best. They started building the first section of the train, to run between Buttcrack and South Buttcrack in the central valley, before they even had the right of way secured because they will loose $3.5 billion in federal money if they can't run trains between somewhere and somewhere else by a hard deadline, which they seem unlikely to meet. They keep changing specifications, which has ballooned costs by about 100%, to about $77 billion dollars. The legislature recommended the HSR Authority hire an inspector general and start kicking some ass and firing people who can't or won't do the job.

Incoming governor Gavin Newsom is NOT a fan of Jerry's Toy Train and would much rather spent the $77 billion to import a few hundred thousand undocumented democrats into California. He is already talking openly about undermining federal authority on the border to provide "humanitarian aid" to these undocumented democrats.