SB 34: Creature Crawls from Delta Lagoon

APRIL 29, 2011 By WAYNE LUSVARDI A bureaucratic creature has crawled from murky waters of the Sacramento Delta. What could be worse? The pork-laden $11 billion proposed California Water Bond, on the ballot in 2012, that does not include any new

Read More

Rail Authority "Ineffective"

Katy Grimes: When a lawmaker admits that an agency created from a bond measure that he supported and help get passed has grown ineffective and needs a serious makeover, it is evident that there is a problem. Democratic Sen. Alan Lowenthal

Read More

Free the Rail Ridership Committee!

APRIL 27, 2011 You’d think that an agency spending millions of dollars on public relations would know to discuss one of its most controversial issues in public, where outside experts and members of the public can steadily review any and

Read More

High-Speed Rail Crashes Into Legislature

APRIL 27, 2011 By KATY GRIMES The costs and the legislation for the California High-Speed Rail Authority keep speeding toward a train wreck. When the voters of California approved Proposition 1A in November 2008, they authorized $9.95 billion in general

Read More

Boondoggle Train Already Obsolete

APRIL 21, 2011 The debate over whether to build an 800-mile network of bullet trains crisscrossing the state at speeds approaching 220 miles per hour is one of the most contentious we have today. Its projected cost of $45 billion

Read More

CA’s Bond Rating Equals F-Minus Grade

APRIL 21, 2011 By WAYNE LUSVARDI Why is there such a large discrepancy between California State Treasurer Bill Lockyer’s assurances that the state is not broke and has plenty of money to pay off its bonds and the state’s effective

Read More

Green Catch-23 Hurts Hydro Power

APRIL 19, 2011 By WAYNE LUSVARDI If a Catch-22 is a choice between two equally undesirable alternatives, California’s mandate to purchase green power must be one more than a Catch-22 – it must be a Catch-23. This is because California’s

Read More

Sacto's Ongoing Redevelopment Disaster

APRIL 19, 2011 By RICHARD TRAINOR Since its inception in 1953, the Sacramento Housing and Redevelopment  Agency has been driven by scandals, sweetheart deals for connected developers, cockeyed projects and ineptitude. In 1991, this reporter wrote the official history of

Read More

Rebranding High Speed Rail

Katy Grimes: Another great idea from a few of California’s elected Democrats proposes a “blended system” integrating high speed rail with existing Caltrain service. Instead of saving California billions of dollars by chucking the plans for high speed rail right out

Read More

High-Speed Rail Rides Again

APRIL 12, 2011 By KATY GRIMES Another attempt to stop the unchecked spending on high-speed rail was killed in committee on Monday on a party-line vote. That happened despite research proving that taxpayers cannot sustain the inevitable subsidy the project

Read More