A year and a half at least before the first contract may be let for California’s proposed first-in-the-nation state-long high speed rail, state Sen. Curren D. Price Jr. (D-Culver City) is worried about whether minority-owned enterprises will gain an appropriate proportion of the agreements that will be awarded.
Twenty-five percent seemed to be a consensus figure at a Town Hall meeting for minorities that Sen. Price convened on Friday afternoon for about 125 persons at the California Science Center in Exposition Park.
While the always-dapper Sen. Price was the out-front person, participants were told the Town Hall was jointly sponsored by the Legislative Black Caucus, which Sen. Price leads, the Latino Caucus and the Asian Pacific Islander Caucus. Did you know there is an Asian Pacific Islander Caucus?
On the podium, Sen. Price, the moderator, was flanked by a lineup of colleagues singly focused on seeing high speed rail come to life — except for the occasionally troubled Assemblyman Mike Davis. In the spirit of the day, he said that “my area of interest always has been diversity.”
Sen. Alan Lowenthal of Long Beach, Sen. Lou Correa of Orange County, Assemblymember Warren Furutani and Assemblymember Cathleen Galgiani didn’t mention diversity. They said they wanted to hear about how proportionately contracts are going to be doled out to, in a favorite phrase of the day, “minorities and women.” Since there are more women than men in this country, it was not obvious why the two were lumped.
While many will concur as to the nobility of Sen. Price’s motivation, here is betting that Bogart rises from the grave before Friday’s gauzy star-gazing bears sufficient fruit to satisfy a hungry ant.
They Definitely Believe
This was a two-hour festival for enthusiasts, off-limits to skeptics and cynics.
Probably not one soul in the jampacked room doubted that the promised 800 miles of high speed rail throughout California somehow will be constructed, say, well before Gov. Brown leaves office.
Even though high speed rail anywhere in America owns a hazier record than a weatherman confined to jail, the smartest people on the program never wavered in their cement-based faith.
This was not to be confused with a Tea Party-style Town Hall — the well-dressed crowd being largely men, minorities, attired in suits who appeared to be present for professional reasons.
Was the Verb Kidnapped?
Entitled “California High Speed Rail Project and Contracting Disparities and Opportunities,” it was coined, evidently, by a grammatical atheist who does not believe in verbs. A verb in the title would have clarified the precise motivation for the assembly.
It was one of those rare events where there was a flock of well-known state politicians willing to stand aside while four unadulterated advocates for high speed rail and four minorities pleading for a fair break declared themselves.
If you had heard the gentlemen deemed the quintessential maven explain the dense, bureaucratic-saddled forthcoming contracting process, you would have hoped your 5-year-old would live long enough to see the first rail laid down.
This is not a breath-holder. Or if it is, there may be a room full of dead people.
Platitudes were plentiful and specificity was not. The drawing board has not even been brought into the room yet because HSR, as insiders like to abbreviate high speed rail, ranges somewhere between a pipe dream and a maybe.
For ambiguity, the federal and state financing that will underpin this massive project is more vague than the future grandchildren of the 5-year-old we alluded to a moment ago.
The name central to the afternoon, the crown jewel, was Roelof van Ark.
He is a British sort of chap of global background, worldwide stature and superior achievements in more lands than some people have fingers. A South African who adroitly blends a patrician appearance with lunch-bucket accessibility, Mr. van Ark, an engineer, is nine months into his appointment as CEO of the supreme agency, the California High-Speed Rail Authority.
Counseling world-class patience to his political audience Mr. van Ark said that “this is a long-term vision, a long-term project.”
In the not-distant future, that description may be elected to the Understatement Hall of Fame.
(To be continued)
