Crossposted at the California High Speed Rail Blog

In a move they’ve been telegraphing for weeks, a group of wealthy NIMBYs have convinced the cities of Menlo Park and Atherton to join forces with the Planning and Conservation League, the California Rail Foundation (which has all of 3 members) and “lawsuit-happy activist” David Schonbrunn of TRANSDEF and sue to block high speed rail. Their claim is that the EIR/EIS that was adopted last month by the California High Speed Rail Authority violates the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) – but what is really going on is that a small coterie of long-time HSR deniers are greenwashing themselves and using the courts to stop one of the most important projects in state history.

Menlo Park and Atherton’s objections are perhaps the most absurd. Driven by a handful of wealthy landowners, including Morris Brown and Martin Engel, their argument is that HSR would harm the aesthetics of their wealthy enclave:

The proposed route of the project runs down the heart of Menlo Park and Atherton on a narrow corridor occupied by CalTrain. The necessity of 4 tracks, where there are currently only 2 as well as needing the high 15 foot berm for the rail bed to accommodate grade crossings is of concern to both communities. With a minimum of 100 feet of width needed , as well as overhead catenaries for the electrical power to power the train, the impact in both communities is severe.

This is a comical, classic NIMBY objection. They’re arguing that clean, sustainable mass transit, which California so desperately needs, should be stopped because it might not look pretty in two of the state’s wealthiest communities?! That they’re making an environmental argument is even more ridiculous. Currently Caltrain is powered by diesel trains and has a high rate of accidents caused by cars and people wandering onto the tracks. HSR would solve both problems by electrifying the tracks and physically separating them from the surrounding landscape, eliminating air pollution and making the entire corridor much safer.

Morris and Engel are inherently opposed to this project, and have spent months trying to dredge up any thin reed they can find to kill HSR. They never have proposed alternatives to how California can deal with the energy and climate crisis, and seem to prefer the failed status quo. And why not? They’ve got their land already, who cares about the masses?!

NIMBYism is one thing. The involvement of the PCL and TRANSDEF, two groups that have done good work in the past on containing sprawl, in this lawsuit is another. It’s a profound disappointment to see them engaged in an effort to kill the HSR project. Surely they realize that a lawsuit filed three months out from the election jeopardizes the passage of Proposition 1. They don’t have an alternative political strategy either on this, either for passing the HSR bonds or for dealing with our state’s transportation issues.

Their reason for suing involves the choice of Pacheco Pass to connect the Bay Area to the Central Valley instead of the Altamont Pass. As this blog has repeatedly argued, both alignments had their good points and their bad points – but neither was clearly superior to the other. The most important thing for those who truly want to see HSR built in California is that we make a choice and stick with it. The California High Speed Rail Authority chose Pacheco, and so these Altamont supporters are choosing to sue.

The arguments against Pacheco are weak and by no means enough to suggest HSR should not be built. We dealt with the sprawl issue on Sunday but more detail is warranted. Much of the Pacheco Pass region cannot be built upon for topographical or legal reasons. A station at Los Banos has been permanently canceled. Gilroy has an urban growth boundary that could be stronger, but it exists. Moreover, HSR as a station-oriented system would primarily encourage growth near the station itself, not in far-flung exurban areas. Finally, these critics have consistently ignored or dismissed the reasons why sprawl is in mortal danger – without cheap oil and cheap credit, sprawl is simply not possible.

More to the point, sprawl is a problem whether we build HSR or not. So why hold HSR hostage to an issue that we have to solve no matter what? This really is a case of the perfect being the enemy of the good. HSR would mitigate against sprawl, would reduce carbon emissions, save on oil consumption, and promote mass transit riding habits. Why on earth would two organizations who are usually supportive of mass transit try to kill HSR?

The Altamont option isn’t perfect either. It would require a new rail bridge across the bay, which would bring environmental problems of its own. The cities of Fremont and Pleasanton promised to sue if it were built, while the cities along the Pacheco route are supportive. On the whole there is no clear and compelling case to choose Altamont over Pacheco – and besides, if we really want HSR to be built, we need to rally around the project and ensure it passes, not drag this out forever. It’s like Hillary vs. Obama all over again.

The deeper problem is that these groups have no sense of urgency. Al Gore and Van Jones have both explained the need for environmentalists and conservationists to come up with solutions NOW if we are to blunt the momentum of the “drill now, drill everywhere” crowd. We cannot build the public momentum for mass transit solutions if environmental groups spend their time in opposition, It is time to start showing Californians that high speed rail is a better deal for them than relying on wallet-busting oil prices, a failing airline industry, or carbon-spewing methods of travel.

The last group involved in the suit is the California Rail Foundation, headed by Richard Tolmach. Their opposition sounds dire, but the CRF has all of three members. The much larger – and therefore more representative – California rail organizations have chosen not to join the suit, such as TRAC, or openly support high speed rail and Prop 1, such as RailPAC and the National Association of Railroad Passengers (TRAC’s decision on whether to endorse will be made later this month). Several chapters of the Sierra Club, including many in Southern California, are also supportive of high speed rail, suggesting something of the broad support HSR has around the environmental community.

So it’s deeply unfortunate that a small group of people upset that their favored route wasn’t picked, or upset that their wealthy communities will have safer and cleaner trains, are choosing to sue. They don’t represent the California environmental movement, they don’t represent the California transit movement, and as the election results in November will surely demonstrate, they don’t represent Californians period. Their frivolous lawsuit is a nuisance, but it won’t stop us from making the case to Californians that high speed rail is a good and necessary project.

I decided that I would write something this morning that didn’t include the word budget, so I think to myself, self, how about the prison crisis. How’s that going?

Well, you know how we lock up lots of people, warehouse them and ignore the rehabilitation thing until they are days away from release? Well, that’s still going on. You know what else is still going on? The California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCR…it’s almost laughable to include that R isn’t it?) just lost a few of its top officials to J. Clark Kelso, the prison czar appointed by the federal courts to overhaul our unconstitutional prison health care system. And these aren’t minor figures:

The top operations official in the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation has resigned to take a new job with the prison system’s medical care receiver.

Corrections undersecretary in charge of operations Dave Runnels, a 26-year department veteran, will be joined in his departure from the upper ranks of California prison management by Wendy Still, the agency’s leader on female inmate issues. Like Runnels, Still is headed over to the receiver’s office. (SacBee 8/6/028)

So, basically, the receiver is raiding the CDCR, and the CDCR staff all wants to go their because they now see that’s where the power is.  The CDCR is now a crippled institution, so the talent is just taking its natural course to where it can be best used.  It’s not about money, as apparently the receiver isn’t paying any better. It’s just about a totally impotent institution.

Meanwhile, the question that’s still outstanding is whether the CDCR is still relevant at all? Sure, they control day-to-day life at the prisons, but the receiver seems to have the authority to run right over them.

These are the wages of a failure of leadership. We have failed for too long to address the skyrocketing prison population and failed to address the embarrassingly high recidivism rate.  Other than Sen. Romero, few are willing to take on the issues of sentencing for fear of being labeled SoftOnCrime. The state is desperately crying out for a leader who can take control of our prison disaster. But, at this point it seems that we will leave it to the courts.  

This of course, leads us back to the budget and the possible effects of a raid on the general fund by the receiver. Damn, you just knew I couldn’t make it a post without talking budget…

Arnold Schwarzenegger didn’t just vow to keep taxes low, he ran an entire campaign in 2006 based on scaring people into believing that his opponent would raise taxes by $18 billion dollars.  None of it was true, but he hammered away at it.  In the one and only debate he chided Phil Angelides, saying “you love taxes” and other nonsense.  Dan Weintraub even remembered this spiel:

“They get into their car, they’re taxed. They go to the gas station, they’re taxed. They go for lunch, they’re taxed. This goes on all day long. Tax, tax, tax, tax, tax. Even when they go to bed, you can go to bed in fear that you are going to be taxed while you’re sleeping, that there is a sleeping tax.”

The admission of defeat, that there’s no way to balance this budget without revenue increases, is truly astonishing.  What’s more, the broad-based sales tax he’s proposing, the most regressive imaginable, really would tax Californians at virtually every point of the day.  He’s become a caricature (if he wasn’t one already).

The proposal amounts to an admission of failure. Running in 2003 as a novice politician after careers as a bodybuilder and actor, Schwarzenegger thought he could cut taxes, control spending and balance the budget, ending what he called “those crazy deficits.” But the fiscal and economic problem was more complicated than he knew, and the politics far more vexing.

Schwarzenegger did cut taxes. He campaigned on a pledge to roll back the vehicle license fee, or “car tax,” which his predecessor, Gray Davis, had tripled. And on Schwarzenegger’s first day in office, the new governor issued an executive order reducing the tax by two-thirds.

But controlling spending proved far more difficult, as, ironically, that first tax-cut order foretold. The car tax against which Schwarzenegger had railed, while controlled by the state, was actually a source of revenue for local governments. And so when Schwarzenegger reduced it, he also made good on a pledge to pay cities and counties what was then $4billion a year to make up for what they lost when he cut the car tax.

The state, however, did not have that money to spare, and the payments to cities and counties added to the deficit Schwarzenegger had vowed to eliminate. That obligation to local government has since grown to $6 billion – not coincidentally the same amount that would be raised by the sales tax increase Schwarzenegger now supports.

The VLF was the original sin here, but not the only one.  The problem is structural and the VLF would have only delayed the inevitable.  The truth is that the state is only built for success, never for a downturn like we’re currently having.  And so this results in gimmicks like slashing state employee salaries and putting them in the middle of a budget spat, or borrowing more and more to pass the deficit on to our children and grandchildren.

(The latest on the wage cuts, by the way, is that the governor is demanding that his order be followed, which John Chiang will refuse, leading to a likely lawsuit.  Chiang really is a hero in all of this, and he’s filling a leadership vacuum.  Marcus Breton has a nice profile today.)

Schwarzenegger has never concerned himself with the business of governing – he preferred slogans to policy.  And with the policy going to crap, the slogans sound more hollow – especially the one that goes “tax, tax, tax, tax, tax.”

More and Better Democrats.  We in the netroots are the most vigorous champions of candidates who truly represent their districts, candidates who challenge the status quo and demand tangible changes in our government.  If we had the power to create the quintessential strong Democrat, we’d be hard put to make up someone more authentic, intelligent, and schooled in the needs of his community than Manuel Perez.  

Crossposted at dKos.  Flip it.

The California 80th Assembly District is currently represented by termed out Republican Bonnie Garcia.  Manuel Perez won a tough primary by a significant margin, and now faces a former police chief, Republican Gary Jeandron.  This is one of the targeted races for both parties, as Republicans need to keep it, and Democrats know we can take it.  Perez represents one of our best hopes for a 2/3 majority. He also represents the people powered movement in Democratic politics.  Perez has been working for his community all his life, as a diligent student, a teacher, a promontore, a healthcare researcher, a healthcare provider, a school reform champion, an environmental advocate, a Schools Not Jails advocate, and a labor advocate.  The education, healthcare, and labor communities overwhelmingly support him, not because he filled out the questionnaires correctly, but because he can write them himself.

The best biography on Perez was written by David Dayen at Calitics shortly after he met him at the beginning of this campaign:

Manuel Pérez’ parents were immigrants who met in the fields while chasing the crops they picked for work.  His mother worked 26 years in the fields, despite raising a family.  His father became a veteraño (a veteran of the migrant fields) and worked for the city of Indio on water issues.  Growing up in Coachella and Calexico, Manuel worked in the fields himself over the summers when he wasn’t in school.  His parents understood the importance of education, teaching the values of “service and sacrifice and social justice,” and pushing him to advance as far as he could go.  At an early age, he saw a community of gangs and drugs where his best friend was killed in a drive-by shooting.

He became the only person in his family to go on to higher education, getting his bachelor’s degree at UC-Riverside (and becoming an organizer on campus).  He had the opportunity to get a master’s degree in Social Policy at Harvard, and took it.  Instead of leaving his community behind, he returned to it, organizing field campaigns throughout the state for candidates and issues like Schools Not Jails.  This is someone who hasn’t waited around for higher office to make a difference in his community; he’s rolled up his sleeves and dived in.  As a director for the Borego Community Health Foundation, he’s created one of the first diabetes resource center in the desert region and has delivered health services to underserved regions.  As a researcher for the California Institute for Rural Studies, he put together a groundbreaking study on women’s reproductive health issues in Imperial County, where women have little opportunities and resources to manage their own health.  With Promotores, he’s part of a group of community-based leaders devoted to teaching  about health issues and making sure people in the community get the facts about programs at their disposal.  As a schoolteacher he started his school’s first ever Chicano Studies program designed to allow students to learn history from their perspective.  With the Eastern Coachella Valley Social Change Collaborative, he identified farm workers living in the area and trained them to be community leaders themselves.  Believe it or not, he’s only 34.

OK, at this point he’s 35.  But still.   Since then, Perez was given the Harvard Graduate School of Education Alumni of Color Achievement Award.

This is an exciting campaign, not because we expect to win, but because Perez will be a legislator we can believe in.  He takes nothing for granted, and expects us to hold him accountable, to hold all elected officials accountable, every day, on all issues.   Like Obama, he wants to build a movement that works past November 4th, and brings the average citizen back into the picture in government.  Here’s Perez on the day of the primary: