Gov. Brown’s strategy to prop up CA bullet train falters

By Chris Reed | Cal Watchdog

Last week’s decision from a state appeals court to issue a summary judgment denying the Brown administration’s unusual request to block a second trial in which Kings County and other plaintiffs challenge California’s high-speed rail project bodes terribly for the governor’s overall legal strategy.

That strategy builds on the novel theory that the need to get started on a big public-works project has such overriding importance that it trumps the normal necessity of ensuring such projects comply with state law.

The second trial, now expected to proceed this summer before Sacramento Superior Court Judge Michael Kenny, will focus on whether the project’s present plan complies with Proposition 1A, the 2008 bond measure providing it with $9.95 billion in seed money — in particular the guarantee that the train get from downtown Los Angeles to downtown San Francisco in no more than two hours and 40 minutes. Kings County’s attorneys say that’s impossible with the present plan to have actual high-speed rail cars only going from northern Los Angeles County to Fresno.

at Cal Watchdog.