Morocco's high speed rail is great
Built for $15 million per mile vs. $200 million in California with no end in sight.
For months, it appeared that Pleasanton Mayor Jack Balch would run unopposed for a second term until the final week to file.
Then termed-out Councilwoman Julie Testa jumped into the race.
Balch had been laying the foundation for his re-election for months, while Testa had been notably mum. They find themselves on opposite sides of many issues so residents will have a clear choice come November.
Off-year elections typically don’t draw the turnout of the presidential elections, although with the governor’s race between Democrat Xavier Becerra and Republican Steve Hilton and a big spending 14th Congressional race (for Eric Swalwell’s vacated seat) between state Sen. Alisha Wahab and BART Director and former Dublin mayor Melissa Hernandez filling air waves and mailboxes more folks might cast the mail-in ballots that will go to the addresses of every voter on the rolls.
That’s a wait-see and Pleasanton voters will have choices for other seats. The District 3 council seat will match former school trustee Jamie Yee with Reena Gupta. The open District 1 seat where incumbent Jeff Nibert decided not to stand for re-election has drawn former councilwoman Kathy Narum into the race. She’s been serving on the Zone 7 water board, winning election to her own term in June 2024 after being appointed to fill Olivia Sanwong’s seat when she resigned to move to the East Bay Regional Park Board. Narum was termed out in Pleasanton after serving serving eight years in office. Should she win the council seat, she said she will resign from Zone 7.
She will face former congressional candidate Vin Kruttiventi.
More critical news for California’s absurd high-speed rail project. The agency’s inspector general reported that it will run out of money in December 2027 without a fresh influx of capital. That’s assumes the Legislature continues to pour $1 billion per year into the project from climate-based cap-and-trade funds and there’s money available in that account. There’s a reasonable legal case challenging whether the train is an appropriate use of those funds, but that has not been mounted.
The original bond measure included the provision that it was supposed to operate without any public subsidy and be built with private and federal investment after the state’s initial $9.95 billion in bonds that voters approved in 2008.
Want to take a vote about whether the project should continue?
Consider the columns by Joe Matthews in the San Francisco Chronicle that CalMatters Dan Walters picked up his piece. Matthews rode Morocco’s high-speed rail and could not help but compare $4 trillion California economy with the North African country at $182 billion.
Morocco, with partnerships with the French national rail and an international engineering firm, built its line for $15 million per mile, Matthews reported. At the current estimates, California will exceed $200 million per mile. California trains were supposed to be operating in 2020 at a cost of less than $35 billion. Now the first stage, between Bakersfield and Merced is priced at $35 billion and slated to open in 2033 …dream on.
Walters’ column is available at calmatters.org
