May 24,2014
Two of the three appeals court judges questioned a lower court ruling blocking the $8.6 billion in state bond funding for high speed rail this past week. The judges heard testimony from both sides but did not rule on the appeal of the Sacramento trial court. Still, their comments spoke volumes on the expected outcome.
Farmers from Kings County – backed by the county itself – have stymied efforts to move the project forward with several favorable rulings from trail court judge Michael Kenny. Now there is speculation that those decisions may be overturned when the 3rd District Court of Appeal rules in the next 90 days.
Governor Jerry Brown had urged the higher court to allow the big project to move forward.
Bloomberg reported the court proceedings Friday.
“The court doesn’t have any right to question an appropriation made by the Legislature,” Justice Ronald Robie said during a hearing in Sacramento, the state capital. “I think there is a serious separation-of-powers issue here.”
Judge Kenny had ruled last November that the controversial bullet train did not comply with Prop 1A – passed by the legislature and then the voters, and that the Authority had to start over to come up with a new funding plan.
Lawyers for the California High Speed Rail Authority argued that Judge Kenny’s ruling was incorrect since no bond money was being spent.
Another appeal court judge appeared to agree.
Justice Vance Raye today questioned the timing of efforts to halt the project before bonds are issued.
“The proper time to raise those objections is at the time that the money is going to be spent,” Raye said.
Another press account offered this.
The lawsuits filed by Kings County and landowners there are premature because the state is not yet seeking to spend any of the bond money and only the state Legislature can determine whether there was enough detail in the funding plan, Deputy Attorney General Ross Moody told a three-judge panel of the California 3rd District Court of Appeal.
“We can’t get this project off the ground. We’re stopped because of this misreading of Proposition 1A,” Moody said. “… We’re at the precipice of actually getting this project into the next phase and we are stopped, we’re being told to go back. We don’t think it’s a proper reading of the law.”
Lawmakers approved the first phase of the planned 800-mile rail line in 2012. That allowed the state to begin selling bonds for construction of the first 130-mile stretch and tap $3.3 billion in federal matching funds.
The panel seemed skeptical about overturning the Legislature’s approval.
A third report summarized what happened.
“Today, the California High-Speed Rail Authority’s plans for the first bullet-train in the US appeared to be back on track when it sought approval from an appeals court regarding the issuance of $8 billion worth of bonds to fund the ambitious project.”
Kings County Loses One In Their Own Backyard
Kings County has been ground-zero in stubborn opposition to the project. But also on Friday Kings County lost another lawsuit in their own superior court, a battle over access to county public right-of-way for soil testing. The county had blocked efforts for the past year for the CHSRA to do normally routine survey and geotechnical work within their jurisdiction. A visiting judge gave the state the right to take access May 23.
In preparation to build the route through Kings County the survey work will now begin in the next few weeks says a CHSRA spokesperson. The EIR on the route was certified by the CHSRA – running east of Hanford few weeks ago. Not that there won’t be more hurdles even if the appeal court rules favorably for the train in coming weeks. Last week the Bakersfield city council took steps to sue the Authority over the latest EIR citing dissatisfaction with the planned route it takes.