Madera High Speed Rail Proposals:
California High Speed Rail Authority Board Meeting Scheduled:
Thursday, February 4, 2010
San Diego, CA
Click here to go to the California High Speed Rail website to get a copy of the
Board meeting Agenda.
Letters of opposition For route A-3:
Madera County Farm Bureau - January 4, 2010
Madera County Farm Bureau - December 3, 2009
CWD - Red Top - Chowchilla City Joint Powers Authority
San Joaquin Raptor / Wildlife Rescue Center / Protect Our Water
Resolutions:
Local Paper Articles / Letters
Madera Tribune - Letters from our readers:
Monday, December 28, 2009
By: Jim Cavallero
This letter is in response to the article in the Madera Tribune (Friday 12/18) regarding the High Speed Rail meeting. It was interesting to see and hear from farmers and residents that live in the proposed area for the A-3 route. Many were not aware of this route until a few weeks ago. I didn't find out about this A-3 route until the week before from Julia Berry, executive secretary, Madera Farm Bureau. I then mentioned it at the December 8th meeting of the Madera Irrigation District. Everyone was just as surprised as I was regarding this proposed train route. Speaking with the MID General Manager Lance Johnson and Chief Engineer Dick Tzou, neither of them had any knowledge of meetings from the rail authority nor from the county or city officials in regards to the purposed rail route. In fact, Johnson said that he has a monthly meeting with city and county officials and nothing was ever said.
While looking at some of the literature that was printed by the authority it said that route A-3 was supported by the community. Further investigation showed that the Madera County Board of Supervisors voted 4 -1 to back the A-3 as the preferred route with A-2 as their second choice. Only Supervisor Bigelow voted NO. I spoke to Mr. Bigelow at the meeting and he stated that he wrote a letter to the High Speed Rail Authority. The letter indicated that he was against the A-3 route and asked the other board members to sign on and none would. I also spoke with Supervisor Max Rodriguez who said that he was fully against the A-3 route. In fact, he said that he thought that the A-2, which parallels Hwy 99, was the best route since it was already a transportation route. He added that this area was blighted and some of the properties in this area had already been purchased to be redeveloped.
What were the Board of Supervisors thinking, or were they? Mr. Bigelow said that he was going to try and put this high speed rail issue regarding the A-3 route on the agenda for the January 5, 2010 board meeting. If he couldn’t he still encouraged all those wanting to speak to come and speak during the public forum at the beginning of the meeting.
This is the time to get involved in this huge issue and to let the Board of Supervisors and the High Speed Rail Authority hear our voices. You might think that this cross country slice of the rail line won’t bother you, but it will in many ways. Think about how you travel in and about the county. What about the MUSD buses and how they will be impacted picking up your children to take them to and from school? What about the public safety. How will this affect fire, police and ambulance travel when minutes count? Right now the roads in Madera County travel north and south. The avenues run east and west, the High Speed Rail Authority said that they would have under/over passes every mile or two. Do any of you really believe this? I sure don’t.
I personally think this High Speed Rail idea is silly, but the reality is that its coming. Let’s be sensible and use the existing transportation routes which are A-2 or A-4, instead of dissecting the county.
Remember that several of these supervisors’ are coming up for re-election, if they fail to stop the A-3 route then I hope that we don’t re-elect them to represent us in the future.
Jim Cavallero is a member of the Madera Irrigation District Board of Directors.
