OC Political

This just came across the wire from the office of Assemblywoman Diane Harkey:

Local Governments Getting on Board to Support Harkey’s Lemon Law

SACRAMENTO – Joining with the Orange County Board of Supervisors and other local jurisdictions, the Orange City Council has voted unanimously to support AB 1455, the High Speed Rail Lemon Law, authored by Assemblywoman Diane Harkey (R-Dana Point) to repeal $9 billion in available state debt funding for the project. As cities and counties learn more about the project’s bleak financial picture and enormous potential cost to their own governments, they are taking a second look at what constitutes a legitimate use of taxpayer dollars.

“In spite of the huge tax-payer funded marketing budget for this complex project, the people and their elected officials are searching for the facts and discovering that they were sold a lemon. Already cash strapped and weary of the wasteful financial decisions being made in Sacramento, local governments are now learning they will have to pay a share of the project – even if it never serves their constituents. I encourage everyone to review the facts, not the spin, and send a message to Sacramento to halt this ill-conceived, costly and unnecessary project,” Harkey stated.

AB 1455 is gathering statewide support.  Already Rancho Santa Margarita, Mission Viejo, San Juan Capistrano, Orange, Kings County, Shasta County, and Orange County are “on board” and the bill is being reviewed by other county and local governments statewide. AB 1455, the High Speed Rail Lemon Law, will be appearing on several more county and city council agendas over the next few weeks.

“We are working overtime to get the message out. Three years ago, I and a few residents in the Palo Alto/Peninsula area stood alone questioning the feasibility of this project.  With the benefit of time and increasing legislative review and press exposure,  more and more Californians are supporting our effort to discontinue funding. We will continue to build a statewide coalition to bring attention to the misinformation and true cost of a project that could double our state’s debt, and carve up productive farmland in the Central Valley,” Harkey stated.

Local governments are not the only skeptics of the $117 billion first phase of a project, originally sold to the voters at 1/3 of the cost and requiring “no state operating subsidy.” A recent poll from the Public Policy Institute of California has confirmed that 53 % of likely voters oppose the project, and the more they know the less they like.  This polling echoes the December 2011 Field Poll in which voters would reject the original high-speed rail bond by a two to one margin. In addition, 85% of voters that returned a survey in Assemblywoman Harkey’s district would repeal the bond.

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