Discussion:
California farmers furious over delayed payments for land seized [By democrats...] in high-speed rail push
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Leroy N. Soetoro
2019-06-16 19:19:38 UTC
Permalink
https://www.foxnews.com/politics/california-farmers-furious-payments-high-
speed-rail

Farmers up and down California’s Central Valley are up in arms over the
state seizing their land to build its long-awaited high-speed railway and
then failing to pay the hundreds of thousands of dollars owed them for
years.

Thanks to an order of possession by the Superior Court, California can
take private land through eminent domain for the troubled bullet train
project. While landowners are expected to eventually be reimbursed for the
property – and for expenses like lost farming production, irrigation
replacement projects and road construction – many farmers in California’s
agricultural heartland say state officials have offered them a myriad of
excuses as to why they haven’t yet doled out the cash.

“I am out a quarter-million bucks on infrastructure, and they haven’t paid
a dime for a year,” John Diepersloot, a fruit farmer who cleared a large
parcel of his peach orchard to make way for the train, told The Los
Angeles Times. “I don’t have that kind of money.”

What’s even more frustrating for California’s farmers are the constantly
changing plans for the train, the multiple delays in construction, the
seemingly skeleton-staffed California High-Speed Rail Authority and the
difficulty in getting concrete answers.

“The property owners are very frustrated that the high-speed rail
authority don’t seem to know what they actually need,” said Mark Wasser, a
Sacramento-based attorney representing more than 70 farmers and businesses
affected by the project. “We have farmers who the authority has come back
four times to change where they want to take.”

Rail authority officials acknowledge they have not yet paid numerous
landowners, but so far have not given a reason for the delay.

California sues over $1 billion in federal funds for high-speed rail
projectVideo
“We understand the concerns of private property owners affected during the
acquisition of their property by the California High-Speed Rail Authority
and construction of the High-Speed Rail system,” Don Odell, the
authority’s chief of real property, said in a statement to Fox News. “We
strive to work closely with affected property owners to minimize the
impact the project has on them and to the ensure that they receive fair
market value, consistent with state law, for their land and other expenses
they incur due to the construction of the high-speed rail system.”

California’s high-speed rail project has been bogged down with delays,
shifting plans and questions over the cost and funding almost since its
inception.

The projected $79 billion project is years behind schedule with the latest
estimate for completion set for 2033. Bullet train planners have been
under increasing pressure to make progress on the system that many believe
had no plausible way of living up to its goal of getting riders across the
state in three hours or less.

Earlier this year, California Gov. Gavin Newsom announced he is putting
the plan for a rail line between Los Angeles and San Francisco on hold in
favor of a much-shorter line between the cities of Bakersfield and Merced
– a move that had Republican lawmakers in the Golden State calling for a
referendum vote on the project.

In his State of the State address in February, Newsom argued against the
frequent complaint that the Merced-Bakersfield line would be a “train to
nowhere,” and said that a high-speed railway would “form the backbone of a
reinvigorated Central Valley economy.”

Trump, Newsom spar over funding for California's high-speed rail
projectVideo
“The people of the Central Valley endure the worst air pollution in
America as well as some of the longest commutes,” Newsom said. “And they
have suffered too many years of neglect from policymakers here in
Sacramento. They deserve better.” He added: “We can align our economic and
workforce development strategies, anchored by high-speed rail, and pair
them with tools like opportunity zones, to form the backbone of a
reinvigorated Central Valley economy.”

President Trump was quick to label the entire high-speed rail project a
“disaster” and call for Sacramento to return the funds given to the state
by the federal government.

“California has been forced to cancel the massive bullet train project
after having spent and wasted many billions of dollars,” Trump tweeted in
February. “They owe the Federal Government three and a half billion
dollars. We want that money back now. Whole project is a ‘green’
disaster!”

In March, the head of the state’s rail authority fired back at Trump’s
effort to block more federal dollars from going to the California project.

At that point, the Federal Railroad Administration had given California
$2.5 billion to construct a Los Angeles-to-San Francisco link, with
another $929 million pledged. But federal authorities – and the president
– claimed the terms of the federal grant had not been met and threatened
to withhold any future payments while demanding repayment for the funds
already doled out to California.

Fox News' Barnini Chakraborty contributed to this report.
--
No collusion - Special Counsel Robert Swan Mueller III, March 2019.

Donald J. Trump, 304 electoral votes to 227, defeated compulsive liar in
denial Hillary Rodham Clinton on December 19th, 2016. The clown car
parade of the democrat party ran out of gas and got run over by a Trump
truck.

Congratulations President Trump. Thank you for cleaning up the disaster
of the Obama presidency.

The Obama-led Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS)
approved Uranium One in fall 2010. With a little luck, we'll see
compulsive liar Hillary Clinton in jail before she dies.

Under Barack Obama's leadership, the United States of America became the
The World According To Garp.

Obama increased total debt from $10 trillion to $20 trillion in the eight
years he was in office, and sold out heterosexuals for Hollywood queer
liberal democrat donors.
BTR1701
2019-06-16 21:12:54 UTC
Permalink
Farmers up and down California's Central Valley are up in arms over the
state seizing their land to build its long-awaited high-speed railway and
then failing to pay the hundreds of thousands of dollars owed them for
years.
Thanks to an order of possession by the Superior Court, California can
take private land through eminent domain for the troubled bullet train
project. While landowners are expected to eventually be reimbursed for the
property-- and for expenses like lost farming production, irrigation
replacement projects and road construction-- many farmers in California's
agricultural heartland say state officials have offered them a myriad of
excuses as to why they haven't yet doled out the cash.
"I am out a quarter-million bucks on infrastructure, and they haven't paid
a dime for a year," John Diepersloot, a fruit farmer who cleared a large
parcel of his peach orchard to make way for the train, told The Los
Angeles Times. "I don't have that kind of money."
So wait... not only do they seize your property from you, but they make
*you* do the construction/land clearing, too? And then they fail to pay,
of course.

Wow. Those leftists bureaucrats really have some stones on them, don't
they?

I wonder what they do if someone says, "Fine, you took the land. I can't
do anything about that, but I'm far too busy to work for you on your
train project, so clear the land yourself."
"We understand the concerns of private property owners affected during the
acquisition of their property by the California High-Speed Rail Authority
and construction of the High-Speed Rail system," Don Odell, the
authority's chief of real property, said in a statement to Fox News. "We
strive to work closely with affected property owners to minimize the
impact the project has on them and to the ensure that they receive fair
market value, consistent with state law, for their land and other expenses
they incur due to the construction of the high-speed rail system."
I don't think Mr. Odell actually understands the meaning of the word
'ensure'.

And dontcha love when a bureaucrat says he "understands your concerns"?
In bureaucratese that means he doesn't really care and nothing's
actually going to change.

Also, it's hilarious how this guy is still calling it a 'high-speed rail
system', when it's no longer anything of the kind. (If it ever was.)
Instead of a high-speed train from L.A. to San Francisco, it's now a
normal-speed rail system from Bakersfield to Merced.

How that's legal is anyone's guess. The voters approved money for a
train to go from L.A. to San Francisco, not Bakersfield to Merced, so
it's seems like using money approved for one purpose for something
entirely different would be illegal. But hey, it's California where the
government routinely does whatever the fuck it wants with no regard for
the law.

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