February 25,2019-
Are you dead, man?
Nobody has fought harder than farmer Doug Verboon, Kings County Supervisor, against the coming of high speed rail to the farm fields of the Central Valley.
In 2017 Verboon, watching the initial construction of several new rail overpasses in Kings County, told a local TV station”It’s not the American way. You shouldn’t kick people off their property, and you shouldn’t make them move because you got a project coming through that you don’t have a plan to finish,” said Verboon.
Joining with other farmers, Kings County itself has been to fighting the controversial rail project in court and countless other ways for almost a decade with multiple lawsuits – four of them still pending.
Now with California Governor Newsom’s bombshell announcement a few weeks ago that he would no longer pursue a high speed train that connects LA to San Francisco but instead work to finish only the Central Valley segment – you couldn’t blame Mr. Verboon if he felt vindicated – able to tell you ‘ I told your so.’
Newspaper accounts proclaim high speed rail is dead.
Verboon has mixed feelings.“If I could have my way I would want them to put the ground back they way it used to be” says the veteran politician. But he says “a more “common sense view is that we need to finish the project in Kings County and not be left with a mothballed, half-built corridor” that does not connect.
That would be “a rail line that goes nowhere and is no good for anyone.”
He worries we could see blight along with unfinished infrastructure, homeless people and abandoned cars parked under half-done overpasses to nowhere.
Further Verboon is concerned that all the property owners still waiting for their money in Kings County be paid – not be left with neither their property or compensation. It would have been ”all be for nothing.”
In a second bombshell announcement President Trump vowed to take back $1 billon from the project, further clouding what happens next – is there enough money to build what is underway or will the whole project collapse, unfinished?
A February 19 statement from the Federal Railroad Administration suggests they want the $2.5 billion already spent back as well from what they call the “now defunct project”. Trump calls it a “green disaster.”
So suddenly what happens in Kings County and the rest of the Valley route becomes more complicated than ‘I told you so.’ There are consequences.
Bombshell #3
That’s why it amounted to another bombshell a few weeks ago when Supervisor Verboon announced to his Kings Council of Governments colleagues that the county was close to settling their differences with the California High Speed Rail Authority – telling the group of local officials that ”Progress is being made after eight years and it appears an agreement can be reached.”
“The settlement is in the hands of the attorneys now and its looking positive” Verboon told this reporter.
Despite the county’s long term vehement opposition to the train, the situation on the ground has changed, it appears, and there is no interest now in letting HSR go off the tracks. Perhaps that is why a settlement at this time make sense to Kings County.
Anger has been the dominant sentiment in this farm county with retiring chair of the HSR Authority Dan Richard telling his board Feb 19 that when he first chaired a meeting of the board 9 years ago there were 70 people who filled out requests to comment cards – waiting in line to vent. At Feb 2019 HSR board meeting there were just 2 who wanted to speak.
“We’ve at least reduced the anger level somewhat” quipped Richard.
He also cited a visit to King County some year back where “I got “fruit and vegetables from Kings County “but “they were aimed at me” he joked.
The process leading to the settlement discussions appear to have predated the Newsom announcement and may be more related to the close relationship Verboon and now former CHSRA chair Dan Richard had with regular phone conversations that may have led both sides to consider hanging up their six-guns.
Now with Dan Richard gone Verboon is left with no one to talk to.He does not know Richard‘s replacement, Lenny Mendonca. Verboon says he lacks confidence in Newsom and calls what is happening with HSR as a result of the new Governor’s mixed messages “total disorganization.”
However “Newsom has reached out recently to us through our Sheriff “he adds.
For the past decade Kings County has worked to make The Train’s life difficult for them dating back to not allowing HSR permission to survey Kings County ROW to do seismic testing, to working to block requests to dig dirt to build overpasses, to filing legal action with the PUC regards overpass designs. This later issue may be settled in the current negotiations, says Verboon.
For the past decade there has been an active effort to stop the project, defund the project, delay the project, impede the project in a mile-by-mile assault through all the 26 mile route in Kings County. Mr Verboon may not agree withe characterization but if delay and chaos was the goal, it seems to accomplished that.
Now Kings County’s perspective may change.
Kings County has filed a complaint over the design of several key overpasses holding up construction for the past year claiming the designs were unsafe for the large farm equipment that would go over them.
In this matter, a brief by HSR attorney Donald Odell said the county’s opposition against all federal funding or support for the project is what this is all about – not safety- and that the county strategy is simply to delay and obstruct any progress to move it forward. He states the county appeal, filed April 11, 2018, comes from an “openly hostile opponent” of the project who has over recent years filed multiple legal actions to challenge it.
Odell continues that this vehement opposition has led to the “recusal of the entire bench of the Kings County Superior Court from all Authority cases filed in the county.”
“This mass recusal required the Judicial Council to appoint Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge Edward Ross to the bench, this on a two-day per month schedule, to the Authority’s condemnation cases in Kings County, causing significant delays to the Authority’s condemnation actions and in turn, the project itself.”
To acquire the property they need to build the rail, HSR has to go through the court to settle the legality of acquisition of many parcels, any mitigation and the matter of price.
A recent LA Times article points to how litigation has slowed approvals and drove up costs as LA area judges had to travel to Hanford.
“When I was asked to handle these railroad cases, I was told it may take a year,” Judge Ross said during a recent hearing before a mostly empty courtroom. “Now I think it may take a lifetime. OK, no problem.”
Eight years ago, the California High-Speed Rail Authority estimated it would cost $332 million to acquire the route spanning the Central Valley’s orchards, vineyards, dairies and cities.
The process, however, has proven far more legally tangled. The 1,900 properties in the Central Valley are now budgeted at $1.5 billion, part of the reason the project is 13 years behind schedule and at $44 billion over budget.
There are fights about farm wells and trellises, the price of nut trees separate from the land and the emotional value of land held by families for more than a century.
Kings County is the epicenter of the disputes, where the drama plays out in Ross’ courtroom for just two days each month.
The proceedings offer a window into the project’s problems, which could dog it for years. The slow progress has pushed back construction for the Los Angeles-to-San Francisco system, caused delay claims by contractors and hardened the emotions of property owners.
Verboon says one of the lawsuits against HSR may be moot now that the Authority will not build a train system from SF To LA that promises to go 220mph.
Make something happen
If the philosophy was to confront and delay the project the new philosophy might be just the opposite – insure that “something happens on this corridor” that will benefit Kings County says Verboon.
Indeed this week the Kings Board of Supervisors adopted their annual key strategic points for 2019 and number-one on the list is high speed rail. The platform says in part –
Continue to work with the High Speed Rail Authority (HSRA) to construct and deploy all HSRA projects in Kings County. They are to be built to the highest safety standards in the transportation industry. Also, ensure all transportation modes work collectively to meet the needs of public transportation.
Support any bills that require financial accountability.
Continue to advocate for a High Speed Rail station and accompanying infrastructure on Lacey Boulevard and a maintenance facility within Kings County. This will not only support Kings County residents, but Tulare County as well as it is a short commute rather them going to Fresno or Bakersfield.
Kings County February 2019
In a nutshell Kings County now wants the rail line completed and deployed. The strategy prior was arguably a NIMBY strategy to keep it from happening in ‘my back yard’.What is changing it would appear is that Kings County realizes the the train corridor is already in their backyard with 480 parcels out of 769 already acquired by HSR. Progress is being made with the contractor Dragados’ precast plant that has completed casting girders for ten bridge structures and a completion date target for CP2-3 of May 2020.
Helping to speed one leg of CP2-3 route is a recent decision that the contractor does not need 59 parcels they thought they needed before. Some other good news was the delivery of the Highway 99 two-mile realignment in Fresno that was recently completed.High Speed Rail paid for two miles of freeway including interchanges.
HS Rail supporter and fellow Kings County farmer Brad Johns says he is glad the County is moving toward a settlement with the Authority but is not surprised. “Kings County has a bloody nose every time they go up against HS Rail” in court.
Attorneys get full employment
He also suggests everyone is tired of paying attorney fees, joking only half-way that” HSR attorney costs are probably higher than the construction costs.” The same for Kings County taxpayers and the local property owners who have followed advice to hold out as long as they can to delay HS rail’s property acquisition.
“Property owners have to foot their own bill and it has broken some farmers” says Johns, citing one who had $440 thousand attorney bill on on a $1 million land purchase.
Johns says because Kings County has in the past thwarted all cooperation with the rail Authority “when they spend money they buy stuff out of the county, often in the friendly environs of Fresno County.”
One irrigation district in Corcoran who decided to cooperate with HSR agreed to let them dig dirt for overpasses on their land ended up with a free recharge basin they can now use to comply with the new state groundwater program. Other districts “did not want to help the train” and refused HSR requests – forcing the contractor to go out of county to get dirt for the north part of the Kings route.
To sum up – settlement just might save everyone money.
What future?
So want happens now that the bookends of the rail project
(LA & SF) are off the table at least for now?
Verboon says he hopes the rail line “can be used for something” adding his idea would be for BNSF to agree to a trade for the line with their existing line. Then they can switch their freight trains to the new line – freeing the main BNSF line for Amtrak passenger trains who could then, speed up.
Brad Jones notes that BNSF runs about nine 100-car freight trains through Downtown Hanford every day slowing AMTRAK and their own trains and costing them big bucks.
”That’s why BNSF wants AMTRAK trains to move to the high speed line. ” By contrast, BNSF rival Union Pacific does not have passenger trains to slow their freight trains down.
North Valley communities from Merced to Tracy, Modesto and Stockton have much bigger commuter demand spillover from the Bay Area – residents who would love to take the train. HS Rail is currently helping to fund electrification of a line into the Bay Area, where the Bakersfield to Merced train could potentially link.
HS rail is all-electric expecting to be powered by solar to help fight climate change.
Many of the communities count on CalTrain, or the Ace Train to makes their commute into the Bay Area already and local sales tax, federal and state funds help make incremental improvements.With a station in Merced, authorities will have to decide how to continue the system into the Bay Area. They could improve the track currently used by the Altamont Corridor Express or dig a new tunnel beneath the Pacheco Pass.
Instead of a massive statewide project – local efforts to connect to one another may be more politically possible.
The San Joaquin JPA , who operate AMTRAK where Mr Verboon sits as a board member are making incremental improvements to mass transit from the North Valley into the Bay Area.
In Kings County there is also the potential link between the High Speed Rail line and the Cross Valley line with demand from NAS Lemoore to connect to Tulare County. HS Rail has purchased land where it has erected a batch plant they use. The spot is where the Cross Valley line meets the HS rail alignment near Lacey Blvd- east of Hanford and near Costco where a HS station is likely – enabling one station to use both rail lines.