Amendment AB-3034 Appears to be Dead
August 22nd, 2008
An article in the Fresno Bee states:
Sunday is the real deadline for enacting AB 3034, a bill aimed at improving the $9.9 billion high-speed rail bond on the Nov. 4 ballot. This is according to a memo sent this week from the High Speed Rail Authority staff to board members and rail supporters.
The last “deadline” set by the Secretary of State was Aug. 16, though lawmakers suspected there was wiggle room. Now, there is apparently no more flexibility.
The Secretary of State’s office “told us that August 24th (Sunday) is the true deadline for enacting AB 3034,” rail consultant Steve Schnaidt writes in the memo. “County election officials are finalizing the ballot layouts, translations, etc., that will be printed in their respective jurisdictions … They need to know what will be on the ballot and in the ballot pamphlets.”
With the on going budget crisis, there appears to be no way AB-3034 will beomce law in the next 3 days. The November 4th ballot will therefore have the original Prop 1 up for approval or rejection by the voters of California.
This is the bond measure on which the State Senate Transportation and Housing Committee issued the 35 page scathing report. AB-3034 was intended to cure some of those very serious problems.
The Governor was against the High Speed Rail project unless AB-3034 became law. Is he going to now support this bond measure that has none of his objections met? There is no provisoin in Prop 1 for the public/private partnerships he so dearly wanted and which were so strongly advocated by his financial advisor, David Crane.
How about the Sierra Club? Prop 1 will allow a station to be built at Los Banos. They were adamantly against the project until the possibility of a station there was removed.
Prop 1 must be defeated this November. VOTE NO ON PROP 1.
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