HSR Property Acquisition

Another HSR related story in the Fresno Bee 12/26/12.  The story talks about how eminent domain will be handled for the CA HSRA with a $34million contract to four law firms.  One located in the state of Virginia, one from Pismo Beach, one from Sacramento and the other in Oklahoma.

With an award of $34million the law firms should have enough motivation to obfuscate property owners in a similar manner that the EIR intimidates onlookers with its extraneous information.

California's HSR project has two distinct mindsets.  The dominating attitude of the State is revealed in the article: " Rail authority representatives believe they will be able to successfully negotiate with most of the affected property owners in the Valley and anticipate that relatively few will carry a contest all the way through to an eminent domain trial.

Attorneys say that is the norm nowadays when agencies seek to buy private land for public projects." 

The proposed HSR project is far from being a normal public project.  By hiring out of the area attorneys, is this a move by the HSRA to provides insight to the peculiar needs of the Valley's land owners?  With the strength of uniting, such as the Madera County Farm Bureau's claim to have a joined effort to be unwilling sellers, does this conflict with the remarks from the HSRA representatives that there will be no court litigation?  With additional court litigation, the State will have to pick up extra costs for unexpected court fees and first class air tickets back and forth to Virginia and Oklahoma.  As normal bureaucratic procedure goes, this will tally up to millions of unanticipated dollars beyond the $34million contract.  

There are so many unanswered questions regarding the HSR project's business plan, one has to ask how the project can move forward.  The litigation is growing and yet, so far, the HSRA has bounced back from all the  set backs that should have knocked this thing off the tracks.