There is a new song being sung after the most recent court ruling: “It’s My Time to Gloat”. Meanwhile
the opposing side is singing an old song: “It’s my party and I’ll cry if I want
to.”
The board remains steadfast with blind determination; pushing politics to maintain the quickest pace
to exhaust the legislated allocation of $2.5billion and shoveling the cost of
the antique behemoth onto the suffering public. “Business as usual” was the quote used as the
comment regarding the latest episode from the ongoing HSRA court battle as published in
the Fresno Bee September 3.
While a majority of the project opponents claim it is a
“boondoggle”, this author; closely following the proposed project since 1993,
refers to it as merely a political process having little to do with transportation.
New financial figures haven’t been flowing as liberally as
they were a year ago. During the summer
of 2012 the proposed HSR project boasted expenditures of nearly
$800million. It is currently unknown by
this author how much the figure has increased at the summer of 2013. With the cost of the first 20+ mile segment
basic infrastructure at $1.5 billion, it can be assumed the running tally for
money spent to the consultant now approaches $1billion spent? It gets the politically connected and his wife nice
Christmas cards.
