Killer Ruling on HSR Compliance
Court Rules
High-Speed Rail Not Compliant with Bond
Measure
Sacramento Superior Court Judge
Michael Kenny issued a ruling Friday that the Funding
Plan for the $8 billion High-Speed Rail project in
the Central Valley is legally defective because it
fails to meet the requirements of Proposition 1A, the
High-Speed Rail Bond measure. The landmark
case, Tos v.
California High-Speed Rail
Authority,
was filed by a farmer, a rural homeowner and Kings
County.
The Court agreed that the Authority’s Funding Plan
failed to validly certify that for the Merced to San
Fernando Valley segment of the project, all
environmental clearances had been completed and that
sufficient funding sources to complete the segment
had been identified. Further briefing was ordered to
determine the appropriate remedy.
Proposition 1A included an elaborate set of
requirements to protect taxpayers from having to pay
for a money-losing unfinished project. The ruling
could block the expenditure of high-speed rail bond
funds and bring the Authority's project to an abrupt
halt.
Attorney Stuart Flashman, who successfully argued the
case, said "When Californians narrowly approved
Proposition 1A in 2008, they were by no means writing
the Authority a blank check. There were numerous
requirements that had to be met before the bond funds
could be spent. The Authority will need to go back
and do things right. If the Governor and the
Authority don't like these requirements, they'd need
the the voters' approval to change them."
Lead counsel Michael Brady said "Prop 1A contains
such strict safeguards that the Authority may not be
able to comply at all, in which event the HSR project
may never go forward."
Click here
for the Court’s
ruling, along with all the briefing.
Dan Walters wrote a powerful piece
“Court case may derail California's
bullet train” explaining the significance of
the ruling.