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Oakland Tribune
Truth may have come off the tracks
Rail Authority efforts leave some legislators questioning if proposed high-speed rail project is 'a fraud'
By Sean Holstege
STAFF WRITER
Sunday, August 22, 2004 -
Lawmakers say California High Speed Rail Authority work is not just sloppy, but misleading.
Sloppiness was evident: a business plan that never mentioned an Oakland track, a $20 million environmental plan describing a future BART station six months after it opened.
The route into the Bay Area is one of the biggest controversies in the plan for the 700-mile system. The Rail Authority dropped an Altamont Pass route in favor of two South Bay alternatives.
On Feb. 17, Rail Authority Executive Director Mehdi Morshed told the state Senate Transportation Committee that years ago French, German and Japanese rail experts had blessed the plan to run tracks through San Jose rather than over the Altamont Pass.
Morshed couldn't document the claim.
The Train Riders Association of California filed a public records request for all communications with the French, German and Japanese consultants. Morshed provided what he described as a full, unedited set of documents.
"None of the documents we were provided contained any information to support Mr. Morshed's statement," TRAC's Oakland lawyer Stuart Flashman wrote lawmakers.
In a rebuttal letter, Morshed reasserted the documents that led to the Altamont decision "were peer reviewed by German, French and Japanese experts," adding the reviews marked "general agreement."
But a month after Morshed's testimony, Rail Authority Deputy Director Dan Leavitt wrote a Japanese rail expert, asking for "a brief analysis" of the environmental study's conclusion that an Altamont Pass route would be "impractical."
On March 16, Leavitt wrote "the task should take no more than $10,000."
On April 23, the Japanese expert duly complied with a three-page report, finding "it is reasonable to eliminate the (Altamont) option." On May 10, came the bill. "Cost for the review task: $10,000," the Japanese expert wrote.
Morshed said the letters stemmed from a U.S. Environmental Protection Agency request. A Feb. 27 EPA letter copied to Morshed noted concern that the Altamont route "appears to have been prematurely eliminated." Morshed said his Senate appearance was all a misunderstanding.
"The question was 'Why didn't you study it?' and I said we did," Morshed said. He said he only intended to imply that foreign consultants reviewed the whole plan and "did not find fault with our assumptions," including the Altamont.
"How they construe that to be misleading, I don't know," he said.
But lawmakers on the committee had no doubts. "It sounds like Mehdi said he had a study that predated their decision and it informed their decision. Now it looks like they are making it up as they go along," said Sen. Tom McClintock, R-Thousand Oaks, who sat on the committee hearing.
"I am not surprised that phantom studies are being waved before the Legislature," McClintock added. "I think this entire project has been a fraud since the day it was proposed."
"I don't know how you could interpret it any other way," said Brian Perkins, transportation adviser to Sen. Jackie Speier, D-Hillsborough, who also sat on the committee.
More troubling to Perkins, who called Morshed's actions "not intellectually honest," was a document missing in his public records disclosure. Correspondence between Leavitt and the Japanese expert refers to an e-mail dated Feb. 17 -- the same day Morshed testified.
"It's like the missing 171/2 minutes," Perkins said, referring to the erased gap in the Oval Office tapes that helped force Richard Nixon from the presidency. "They apparently learned from Mr. Nixon that you burn the evidence."
French consultants, working under a High Speed Rail Authority contract, also had offered an opinion to the authority. They noted an Altamont route "would not be practical," and they peer-reviewed the agency's work in 2000 and found it "sound and reliable."
The Feb. 11 letter was written by engineers at SNCF, parent company to Systra Consulting. Systra is one of three firms picked for the "Project Implementation Team," which stands to make $10 million a year if California's rail bond passes.
Flashman said Morshed's team "got back what they wanted" from a firm with an incentive to deliver.
Veteran San Diego lawmaker James Mills, who quit the California High Speed Rail Authority board, is not surprised.
"One of the reasons I left is I couldn't get the truth out of Mehdi Morshed. Mehdi is one of those people who has a hidden agenda on everything," Mills said, "He would only tell the truth when it was convenient."
Mills described the entire project as "based on a fallacy" of wildly exaggerated ridership projections. It stems, he said, "from hiring a consulting firm (and) letting them know what you want them to say."
Morshed said Mills is "full of (it)," describing him as someone who used his position on the board to help California's intercity Amtrak service and undermine the bullet train.
But some Central Valley politicians involved in the rail issue side with Mills.
"Their story changes depending on their audience," Kings County Supervisor Alene Taylor said. "They have not been honest with the public. It's how they do business."
Contact Sean Holstege at [EMAIL PROTECTED] .
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