Inspector General challenges high-speed rail reimbursementsiew:
Consultants paid for private plane flights, luxury rideshares, cigar rooms and other questionable expenditures
The Independent never had left any doubt about where it stands and whose viewpoint it reflects over its 50-plus year history.
It weekly newspaper operates as an arm of founder and Publisher Joan Seppala. For much of that time, it benefitted from the steady hand of the late Janet Armantrout in the editor’s chair. You knew that certain stories about downtown, the arts and theaters would carry Joan’s spin. For others, such as Las Positas College that I wrote articles about as a freelancer, they printed anything I sent to them. We were aligned in the goal of seeing the college flourish.
Of late, the Independent has dipped to new lows. Joan, Jean King and their allies have mastered the skill legally laundering campaign contributions through a single committee that backed its chosen candidates. That allowed them to avoid the stringent individual campaign contribution limits that don’t apply to political committees. That approach hasn’t worked for a few campaigns because they’ve been unable to recruit candidates to do their bidding.
Through it all the debate about the downtown parcel that was once targeted for a 2,000-seat theater with redevelopment funds had continued. Gov. Jerry Brown ended redevelopment law early in his second stint. That change still carried the mandate for affordable housing. Through court challenges, ballot challenges and funding challenges, the plan for the non-profit Eden Housing to build work force housing finally broke ground this summer.
That has not buried the issue.
Something called the “Community Coalition” has emerged with a website and a competing plan that it claims is better. What’s strange, even by The Independent’s “standards” is no member of the coalition is identified. It’s an anonymous group.
Not surprisingly, Mayor John Marchand has attacked the group and the paper in letters that—to their credit—they’ve published. The paper typically has been good about publishing opposing views.
The mayor’s stringent objections haven’t resulted in any transparency to use the word that’s so in vogue these days. Here’s hoping that readers use some discernment and wonder just who is the coalition?
If the situation got serious and someone went after the paper for libel (they would have to be a citizen not a public figure), then a judge could demand that the paper produce the source or rule that it simply is making it up.
The latest news out of the California high-speed rail project further builds the case that it should be abandoned to the scrap heap of bad ideas sold to voters. Remember, voters passed the project in 2008 on the promise that it would cost about $33 billion and the state’s $9.8 billion would be seed money to attract private investment. It was to operate without public subsidy. The project was sold to the Obama Administration in 2012 as a shovel ready. As I write this in 2026, no rail has been laid, the first phase runs from nowhere (Bakersfield) to nowhere (Merced) and the cost has soared beyond the initial cost for just the first phase and now is estimated at as much as $133 billion. The earliest operating date is now 2033, 13 years later than the entire system was supposed to be serving riders from San Francisco to Los Angeles in three hours.
Now an Inspector General’s report documented that nearly 60% of travel expenses by four consulting groups violated state regulations. They billed $2 million over two fiscal years and the inspector examined about $1.15 million in expenses, finding nearly $600,000 were in violation of state rules. These included private plane flights, cigar rooms, an escape room and rideshare trips to gyms.
Just another example of how miserably the mess has been managed, but neither governor Brown nor Newsom has been willing to finally kill it.
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