>From first glance it looks as though Da' Mayor Willie Brown and a few others may be getting set-up to take the fall for a wider bunch including many of the usual suspects, even some Bonesmen, imagine that.
There are 4 stories in today's Oakland Tribune. For all you Bay Area Activists. This is a real can of worms and could help for reform and positive change. The corruption is amazing. And it just doesn't happen there.
Peace,
Om
K
-----
http://www.oaklandtribune.com/Stories/0,1413,82~32553~,00.html
Oakland Tribune
Bullet Train to Nowhere
Critics say politics and back-room deals cast serious doubt on whether a proposed $37 billion high-speed rail system will ever be built
By Sean Holstege
STAFF WRITER
Sunday, August 22, 2004 - THE MARBLED CONFERENCE HALL buzzed with that potent mix of money, power and anticipation.
It was May 11, 10:40 a.m. Willie Brown was late to his own meeting, well under way in the 24th floor boardroom of an international law firm's downtown San Francisco office.
Around the U-shaped, polished wood table assembled heavyweights in the rail engineering and construction world, including the CEO of Parsons Brinkerhoff, one of the country's biggest transportation firms. They came to the private meeting to throw money and political clout behind a proposed $37 billion bullet train network. Big deals were afoot.
As the dozen or so guests waited, they schmoozed for 40 minutes with three top officials from the California High Speed Rail Authority, the public agency planning the 700-mile rail network, ultimately stretching from San Diego to San Francisco, Oakland and Sacramento.
Without asking for it directly, Rail Authority chiefs told industry leaders -- including those with authority contracts -- that the rail agency needed money and political backing to carry on.
Brown took his place at the head of the table. His resume as powerful San Francisco mayor and Assembly speaker well known to everyone in the room, Brown now markets his influence in the private sector. He looked over the group and explained that he and former state lawmakers Richard Katz and Terry Goggin wanted a fee of $1 million.
In return, they would steer a favorable budget into law by lobbying all the key state politicians. Then they'd launch a campaign to convince California voters to pass a $10 billion rail bond.
The author of California's political reforms and good-government watchdogs said -- absent any overt coercion -- such fund-raisers are legal, but raise doubts about appearance and propriety.
"How can the public be confident that decisions would be based on merit and not undue influence?" asked Andy Draheim of Common Cause, a government watchdog group.
That's exactly how several industry sources took it. In describing the meeting and events surrounding it, they portrayed a below-the-radar state agency run amok with a history of back-room dealing, conflicts of interest and secretive money-gathering. One called the meeting a "classic shakedown" -- and not the first.
Industry sources spoke on condition of anonymity because their employers prohibit media interviews. In the close-knit world of transportation engineering, sources fear their firms would be blackballed or they would earn career-ending reputations by talking openly.
They say the Rail Authority's cavalier tactics raise serious doubts about whether the Golden State can ever build a "bullet train" network, which could relieve Californians of congested in-state air travel.
Three days after the San Francisco gathering, Brown, Goggin and Katz wrote a follow-up memo to invited donors, detailing the first and only meeting of Friends of California High Speed Rail.
'Substantial retainer'
The memo, obtained by ANG Newspapers, confirms a picture that emerges from interviews with more than half of the participants and dozens of transportation sources familiar with high-speed rail.
"Over the next 60 days we propose to concentrate our considerable political resources and campaign experience," the memo states. "This will require a substantial initial consultant retainer for our fees and expenses of $400,000."
Another $600,000 was needed to start the bond campaign, the memo said. Overall, Brown would get half of the $1 million, while Katz and Goggin would split the rest.
Public agencies, including BART and AC Transit, often ask consultants and vendors for big political checks, officials at each agency, and others, say.
"If you say, 'Give me a campaign contribution and I'll give you contracts,' that's a bribe. If you say, 'You won't get a contract unless the bond passes,' that's OK. That's just normal politics -- getting contributions from those that benefit," said Robert Stern, a UCLA professor who helped write California's Political Reform Act. He found no transgressions in the Brown letter.
Top Rail Authority officials say concerns about influence-peddling are misplaced, because the appointed governing board will be almost entirely replaced before it votes on contracts.
"Any competitive bid at the High Speed Rail Authority will be based on merit, as it always has been," authority board member Rod Diridon said.
"The people who benefit from high-speed rail should organize themselves, because otherwise it may very well remain unaccomplished," Rail Authority Chairman Joseph Petrillo said.
Petrillo, Diridon and Rail Authority Executive Director Mehdi Morshed "were very careful not to cross a line that might exist," said one industry player who attended the May 11 meeting.
Questions of influence
But Common Cause's Draheim said the public should naturally ask "if future decisions on public policy will be unduly influenced by the position these officials put themselves in."
Morshed and Diridon said they felt no such qualms, because, they said, it was Willie Brown's meeting.
Petrillo, whose law firm hosted it, apparently was less comfortable. Not long before Brown arrived Petrillo told the group "I shouldn't be here," and he recused himself. Diridon and Morshed remained.
No contributions were reportedly made, and a follow-up telephone conference call was canceled. No public records for the political group are on file with the Secretary of State's office, and Brown, Goggin and Katz are not registered lobbyists.
Brown and Goggin did not return calls to their law firms made over several weeks.
Sources familiar with their request for money called it premature amid persistent doubts that California's dream of a European-style rail system will bear fruit.
Funding for the Rail Authority was -- and remains -- uncertain. A lengthy environmental study is under review and significant challenges are expected.
The Legislature passed a bill, which Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger signed, delaying a November bond vote by two years. Later he trimmed the rail agency's budget and his reform advisers recommended scrapping the Rail Authority entirely.
Its plans assume America's first bullet train will carry 68 million passengers a year, enough to cover costs and debt, with spare money to finance an expansion beyond the first San Francisco-to-Los Angeles track.
No bullet train system in the world, nor any large U.S. transit system, is self-sufficient, let alone profitable.
But believers say tactics, not merits, threaten to kill bullet train prospects in California.
âThey are going to screw high-speed rail all up if they keep playing around like this. Itâs already radioactive,â one industry leader said. Union Pacific lobbyist Wayne Horiuchi skipped the Willie Brown fund-raiser and others by rail commissioner Rod Diridon.
One, at Diridonâs South Bay home, raised re-election campaign money for Gov. Gray Davis one day after Davis signed the $10 billion rail bond bill.
Davis challenger Bill Simon showed up with the media, raising allegations of payback.
Diridon said the fund-raiser had been planned weeks beforehand and the timing was âan unfortunate coincidence.â
âPay-to-playâ
âRod Diridon called me personally and wanted me to contribute to Gray Davis,â said Horiuchi, who declined the offer because âwe didnât want to get into the political sensitivity of pay-to-play.â
Said another rail industry source: âRod Diridon is a one-trick-pony. All he knows is shaking people down.â
âI canât control that (perception),âsaid Diridon, adding the Rail Authority is âgun-shy of pay-to-play accusations.â
But several rail sources said they felt compelled to donate to scholarship dinners at the Mineta Transportation Institute, which pays Diridon $138,834annually to be executive director. Engineers, consultants and rail firms fear losing favor at the High Speed Rail Authority if they donât support the foundation at the government-funded San Jose State University think tank, some said.
âNo one has ever discussed it with me, and if they were honorable and seriously concerned, they should. Iâm not going to turn down scholarships because I recently became a member of the High Speed Rail Authority, â Diridon said. âUnnamed sources donât have much credibility with me.â
Diridon said heâs been at the Mineta Institute since 1992 and has invited the same donors to the scholarship dinner for years. Davis appointed him to the High Speed Rail Authority in2001.
Diridon said two firms with Rail Authority contracts âFrench rail company Systra and political consultants Townsend Raimundo Besler & Usher ânever gave money to the Mineta Institute. Other firms have donated and never received Rail Authority contracts, he said.
But the instituteâs brochures list Bechtel Corp. and Parsons Brinkerhoff Quade & Douglas as big donors in 2002 and 2003.
Both firms are part of the Rail Authorityâs Project Implementation Team, which is paid $10million a year to steer the project from plans to construction. Tax law exempts the foundation from disclosing contributors, but an institute brochure listing sponsors reads like a whoâs who of high-speed rail wannabes. It includes at least seven attendees of Willie Brownâs May 11 meeting and at least two no-shows.
One no-show was LTK Engineering Services, which is represented in Northern California by former Sacramento transit director Tom Matoff. He said Willie Brownâs $1 million requestâ $100,000 per donor âwas out of his league, but he buys $2,000 tickets every year to the Mineta Institute fund-raiser.
Although he said heâs never felt pressured, he added, âWe want to be viewed, like everybody else, as a friend of the project.â
He said thereâs no clear connection between contributions and work, but his firm doesnât leave it to chance.
âItâs the way itâs done, and everybody does it,â Matoff said.
Critics of the High Speed Rail Authorityâs work have long suspected Diridon had an overlapping role between the Mineta Institute and the rail board. Last year the institute sponsored a discussion of the bullet train proposal at the Commonwealth Club of California. Diridon was the featured speaker.
Diridon also introduced himself at the Willie Brown fund-raisers representing the Mineta Institute.
âOver the past two years the lines of distinction between the authority and institute have been blurred,â wrote Ken Gosting, executive director of Transportation Involves Everyone, in a letter to Diridon.
Similar questions of overlapping interest and hidden political influence also hover over a community campaign thatâs sprouted in Merced.
Lee Boese Jr., an orthodontist, chairs the Merced group, whose literature advocates high-speed rail somewhere in Merced County. The area is a key battleground because thatâs where the route would split into the Bay Area â one of the planâs hottest controversies.
Boese says bullet trains will boost the Central Valleyâs tepid economy and help clean its smog-heavy air.
The Merced County High-Speed Rail Committee, has 24 active members from all walks of life, Boese said. A spring fundraiser raised $25,000, and all donations were tax-deductible, Boese and group literature said.
Questionable filing But the groupâs filing with the Secretary of Stateâs office describe it as a 501(c)4 nonprofit, a charitable civic organization.
Tax laws allow such groups to conduct âunlimitedâ political lobbying without disclosing contributors, according to IRS advisories.
The IRS also says that contributions to civic charities are not tax-deductible.
The money, Boese said, pays for the help of Sacramento political consultant Elaine Trevino, who lobbies local governments and organizations.
Trevino is not a registered lobbyist. Neither she nor Boese explained the discrepancy in the where the route would split into the Bay Area â one of the planâs hottest controversies.
Boese says bullet trains will boost the Central Valleyâs tepid economy and help clean its smog-heavy air.
The Merced County High-Speed Rail Committee has 24 active members from all walks of life, Boese said. A spring fund-raiser raised $25,000, and all donations were tax-deductible, Boese and group literature said.
Questionable filing
But the groupâs filing with the Secretary of Stateâs office describe it as a 501(c)4 nonprofit, a charitable civic organization.
Tax laws allow such groups to conduct âunlimitedâ political lobbying without disclosing contributors, according to IRS advisories.
The IRS also says that contributions to civic charities are not tax -deductible.
The money, Boese said, pays for the help of Sacramento political consultant Elaine Trevino, who lobbies local governments and organizations.
Trevino is not a registered lobbyist. Neither she nor Boese explained the discrepancy in the organizationâs filing and its pitch for tax-free contributions. Nor did they explain why the group didnât organize as a simple political organization.
Boese and Trevino attended the Willie Brown meeting, representing themselves as Merced real estate interests. Several members of the group have business interests in the Los Banos area, one of the preferred sites for a station.
âI thought it was totally inappropriate for real estate people to be involved at this stage, when they are deciding the route,â one witness said.
Gosting, who wants to see bullet trains zooming down California tracks someday, said that vision is destroyed if the Rail Authority and its allies such as the Merced group continue down the current track.
âYou end up with something that benefits land speculators and promotes sprawl, that decreases ag land instead of protects it,â he said. âWe end up with a debacle. We spend billions and billions of dollars for something that wonât work.â
Â2004 by MediaNews Group, Inc. and ANG Newspapers
To UNsubscribe to Conspiracy Theory Research List[CTRL] send email: SIGNOFF CTRL [to:] [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Om 2">
