Category: Friends with Benefits

  • High-cost Rail — Part 167 An insider view of the waste

    Just when you think you know a lot about how poorly designed and managed the high-cost rail project is from 166 prior posts, someone with insider knowledge steps up to add to the long tale of woe. I’ve plucked this directly from an X post and it rings so loudly of truth that I will just paste it all here:

    Since my account is somewhat anonymous, I’m going to disclose where some of the California high-speed rail money gets wasted. 99% of you don’t realize where giant chunks of the money are disappearing to. 

    The California high-speed rail authority literally owns thousands of parcels of land that are in various stages continued litigation, tenant improvements, eviction, and constant maintenance.  For example, there are many homes and apartment complexes in the planned path that have been purchased years ahead of construction. Removing those tenants is a slow and expensive process. (let’s ignore the extra stress on housing that all of these destroyed properties are causing). In some cases, these are low rent apartments with a lengthy eviction process.  

    During that process, the State of California is the landlord and has to maintain the property to code the same as any other landlord.  This means repairs, adding smoke detectors, fixing roofs, vegetation management, landscaping, paying off tenants to leave early, boarding up windows, constant trash cleanups, towing vehicles etc. 

    But the High Speed Rail Authority doesn’t just have to maintain these properties at normal cost.  Every single bit of that work has to be done at California prevailing wage rates.  The work can only be done through qualified contractors that have passed through a long series of idiotic mazes to qualify to perform the work. 

    An average rate per hour (charge rate) for a worker to perform any service on these properties is approximately $200 an hour for labor only.  The cost go up for specialized work, like electricians, plumbers, or machine operators.  

    Properties that are literally worthless are being maintained at huge expense just so the next round of homeless transients can break into the property and cause more damage.  For reasons I can’t explain, the process to finally demo and remove the structures takes years.  I’m only mentioning the tip of the iceberg regarding my firsthand knowledge. 

    Completely separate from those outlandish costs are the inflation caused by the construction.  The prevailing word on the street is that nothing is getting done. The truth is that a lot is getting done and none of it efficiently.

    The amount of concrete being poured daily and monthly to build gigantic overpasses for both the rail and roadways is not understood.  In these work areas, every concrete mixing company is fully scheduled out and cannot offer building materials for other basic services, such as building a house, often times for weeks when the average lead time for many of these services used to be one day.   And that’s just the schedule, never mind the huge cost increases from straining the supply chain and labor pool.  The amount of concrete and steel that has gone into the structures so far is massive. Dozens and dozens of new water wells have been dug just for dust control.

    Thousands upon thousands of acres of highly productive tree fruits and nuts have been torn up and shredded.  Utility scale solar fields have been uprooted and sometimes relocated at extravagant costs. 

    Every type of business you can imagine has gone through either a closure, relocation, or a long-term tenant agreement with the Rail Authority.  In some cases, it’s just a buyout where the business closes its doors forever. The owners get something; all of the workers get nothing. 

    Don’t get me started on how thick the layers of bureaucracy are for these minute tasks that occur on all of these properties.  The inefficiency is far beyond your wildest dreams.  In many cases, this is not related to fraud in any way it’s just absolute ignorance, red tape, and failed leadership.  

    I can go much deeper into specific examples, but I think that gives some of you an idea of what’s actually happening in California.  If the rail is ever usable, some portions of the structures will be decades old and already in disrepair.

    That’s the conclusion of the anonymous post on X. You would not be wrong to ask why no mainstream media has reported on these financial sink holes. Or why no elected politician or wannabe governor from the dominant party in the state talks about any of this.

  • The Many Flavors of California Fraud

    You have to take notes to keep track of all the flavors of fraud being uncovered in California. Not that you would read about even half of it in the SF Comicle or other establishment press. The drumbeat is loud elsewhere, and today’s drum majorettes are highlighting the “wildlife butterfly bridge” in LA to help mountain lions cross 101 in Agoura Hills. Scoped at $50 million in 2022, it’s now at $114M and counting since it’s not finished. Considering its short span (210 feet), it might rival high-cost rail or the state capitol annex on a percentage basis.

    It turns out the $31 billion with a “b” EDD fraud is just the tip of the fraud iceberg. There’s the homeless-industrial complex fraud, the drug treatment center fraud, Medicaid fraud, autism fraud, hospice fraud, Proposition signature gathering fraud, the community college financial aid fraud, the commercial driver’s license fraud, the non-profit fraud and the cap-and-trade sleight of hand.

    I’m sure there are more flavors, so we will just use this post as the “fraud bucket” to be continually filled. When you hear we need this bond measure or that tax rate increase or that new fee, remember how leaky the bucket is.

  • County: Follow the Money, if you can

    The Washington Post is not one of the six newspapers I subscribe to nor is it available on the racks like the Daily Post or the FT (that is available at Safeway). Therefore, I do not have the WaPo article that goes along with this graphic, but as we used to say when proving a math problem was completed to the point of being obvious: res ipsa loquitur.

    It’s mostly a legal term, but translates to “the thing speaks for itself”:

    The only equation that is more out of balance than the San Mateo County line item is the State of California equivalent. We know from the Merc’s reporting today that:

    Ousting Sheriff Corpus cost at least $4.8 million –but San Mateo County won’t reveal the full legal bill

    Taxpayers foot at least $4.8 million for election, investigations and hearing costs

    While a lot of money, that’s a drop in the bucket overall. Where is the money going? Keep this in mind as you ponder the Transit tax that is in the pipeline.

  • Mahan: From San Jose to Sacramento?

    Even with Gov. “Kneepads” Newsom termed out of Sacramento and travelling the world to lay the groundwork for a presidential run, the race for governor has been a total yawn so far. Katie “Get out of my f*^%king shot” Porter is toast. As Randy Wong said today on the John Phillips Show (12-3pm 810am KSFO), “people either don’t know who Tom Steyer is or really don’t like him” regardless of how many expensive commercials he runs during Warriors games. The rest are pretty much ho-hum at best. The saddest is Tony Thurmond, state superindendent of public instruction, which would be the biggest example of the Peter Principle in history.

    But the news this morning that San Jose major Matt Mahan’s wife gave him to go ahead to jump into the race, as he relayed in an interview with Ashley Zavala of KCRA Sacramento, has invigorated the race to the June 2nd primary. Per the SF Standard:

    But Mahan does have some aces to play: He has won the ardor of some of California’s technology crowd, including Y Combinator leader Garry Tan and entrepreneur Jesse Tinsley. That cohort alone could provide the millions needed to propel him to Sacramento. He has also carved out a moderate, party-bucking lane on homelessness and criminal justice (e.g. a big Prop 36 supporter) that a large swath of voters might find appealing, as Democrats continue their soul-searching after the 2024 election. And in a political environment where bucking the status quo is in vogue, Mahan has been quick to criticize the state’s leadership, which could excite both disaffected voters and well-heeled donors.

    As mayor, Mahan has pushed for stricter rules on unsheltered homelessness, is an advocate for interim shelter sites, and often rails against state regulations he says stymie housing production. He is considered an ally to business interests, and, like San Francisco’s mayor, has largely stayed out of national political conversations. He has instead argued that his energy should be spent on combating local issues. His term in San Jose runs until 2028, after he handily won reelection in 2024.

    A reasonable person could ask, “why would you want the job?” when the next governor will inherit budget deficits as far as the eye can see–or passed it, if (when) the stock market hits its next speed bump. The emerging story is the public service unions and the health care unions with their “billionaire tax” vs. the “center-lane” candidate who can line up enough millions to level the advertising playing field. And if Mahan loses, he still has a job for two more years. Popcorn anyone?

  • Transportation Monies: $187.1M

    I wanted to dig a little deeper into the DJ story about $200M going for road upgrades this past week. Whenever I see this sort of number being trumpeted as a standalone factoid, I get curious about the entirety of the picture. On the surface it sounds like a lot of money, but there are about 750,000 people on the county. The DMV doesn’t make it easy to figure out how many licensed drivers there are in the county, but 70% isn’t a bad guess. Call it 525K. The actual budget number from the TA press release last June was $187.1M for a per driver capita expenditure of $356 per fiscal year. Given the cost of any noticeable road improvement, $187.1M won’t go far.

    Not that I want more taxes like Measures A and W that fill this fund or higher gas taxes, but just the Broadway grade separation is $500-600M and climbing by the year. And the TA’s funding included bicycle and pedestrian improvements as well. As a state, we don’t fare well on national rankings:

    California’s road condition rankings vary by study but generally place it poorly, often in the bottom 10 to 15 states, with reports citing significant percentages of roads in poor condition, ranking low in pavement quality for urban/rural interstates and arterials

    It didn’t used to be this way. When I got here in 1981, the roads were awesome compared to New England roads. As they should be. What went wrong? The state is certainly spending a ton of money on something–the tale of the tape is

    California’s state budget has significantly increased under Governor Newsom, growing from around $200 billion in 2019 to proposed levels near $350 billion for 2026-27.

    Bringing some salaries at places like the TA back to earth and making the EV drivers to pay their “fair share” would be a good start. Let’s hope the next governor can rein in the top line spending while reallocating more to infrastructure like roads, reservoirs otherwise things will only get worse out on the asphalt.

  • Smaller state districts? Sure, why not?

    Even a blind squirrel finds a nut once in a while and so it was this week with the SF Comicle Open Forum column. Under the title State needs to expand Legislature, some SF attorney made the case that we need smaller Assembly and State Senate districts leading to more elected members. I seldom think we need more politicians, but he makes an interesting point.

    California has fewer legislators per capita than any other state. The Assembly has 80 seats and the Senate 40, figures established in the 1879 Constitution and left unchanged even as the population grew from under 1 million to nearly 40 million.

    Today, a single state senator represents more people than live in South Dakota. Districts of this scale make competitive elections the exception rather than the rule. Reaching such a vast number of residents requires money, name recognition and organizational infrastructure that challengers rarely have. The mechanics of campaigning tilt toward incumbents and the dominant party. A UC Berkeley Institute of Governmental Studies poll in 2022 found that a majority of respondents believed the state was headed in the wrong direction. That same year, almost every legislator seeking reelection kept their seat.

    Geography adds a separate problem. When a district stretches across counties and communities, minority-party voters in suburban and exurban areas are often lost in electorates so large that their preferences barely register. We saw the consequences of this dynamic in 2024 when Republicans won nearly 41% of the Assembly vote but secured only 25% of the seats.

    The true irony of all this is that the Legislature foisted five tiny little city council districts on us at the local level. Back in 2021, with a push by a SoCal lawyer, we lost citywide council elections thus we each lost four of our five votes. Some people lost all five of their votes when no candidate stepped up to run. Similar micro-districting happened to school boards, water districts, et al. But not in Sacramento. Maybe it’s time, but the self-preservation force is strong for the status quo.

  • CSM: “Free college” and new housing

    I’ve been taking a class at CSM one day a week for the last six or seven semesters. It’s a beautiful campus with a lot of open space, top notch facilities and not a lot of students. I’m paying a modest tuition for a two-hour, non-degree class and happy to do so. For some degree-seeking students, tuition is “free”. Of course, it’s not free but rather taxpayer subsidized. The freebie has been given to about 5,000 students over the last three years and yet the campus often feels empty on a Tuesday afternoon except for the athletic facility. Now our state senator, Josh Becker, wants to double down on “free” per the DJ:

    Following the success of the San Mateo County Community College District’s Free College pilot, a bill making the initiative a permanent program will be introduced to the California Legislature in the new year.

    The district covers the costs that are waived for qualified students, which Moreno described as a necessary investment. For the 2025-26 school year, the Board of Trustees approved allocating $12.5 million for the Free College expenses.

    The freebies for select students doesn’t give me a lot of heartburn but calling it “free” does. The $12.5M per year comes from somewhere and everyone–students, administrators and taxpayers–should remember that. The next move up on the hill in San Mateo is a big change from a community college to one with on-campus housing. Per the DJ 

    Districtwide student housing at College of San Mateo is inching closer to becoming a reality after the community college district’s Board of Trustees approved a $61.85 million contract with developers who intend to break ground in the spring. 

    The proposed housing facility will provide 316 beds to first-generation, low-income and housing-insecure students attending any of the three colleges within the San Mateo County Community College District.

    As I said, there is a lot of land up there and that makes it possible to do this sort of project at about $200K per bed. The land is also not “free” – it has opportunity costs as well as infrastructure costs to accommodate the intensified usage. Let’s hope this major project is run on the up and up and doesn’t result in another big trial of anyone involved like what is going on down in RWC right now. It would also be nice if the county’s cities got a bit of a RHNA credit for the new housing. Everyone but the YIMBYs knows the RHNA numbers are way off and should be redone. Here’s one chance to do so.

  • Smelling smoke in Sacramento: Is there fire?

    I’m smelling smoke in Sacramento and wondering how big the fire might get. When the SF Comicle decides to do a full-page piece on a corruption indictment of a very senior Newsom ex-staffer you know they are getting in front of something that blew up on X just a day or two ago. The SacBee led four days ago, and the WSJ was on it two days ago when one Dana Williamson appeared in court, but the Comicle has a way of ignoring or burying these stories on A10. Before anyone’s TDS gets triggered the WSJ writes:

    A federal investigation involving prominent former aides to Democratic politicians could generate uncomfortable questions as California pols seek higher office. The feds allege a conspiracy among former aides to raid a campaign account by billing it for bogus services. Since the investigation began during the Biden administration, it won’t be easy for Democrats to dismiss it as Trump lawfare.

    Apparently the Feds first reached out to Williamson asking questions about the Gavinor but she told them she Knew Nothing. She now sees where that got her. The smell of smoke is strong because all the support Newsom gave Biden before his TV crack-up. It couldn’t be retribution.

    Williamson was Newsom’s chief of staff until last November when she alerted Newsom of the investigation. Her little team is accused of (and two have plead guilty to bank and wire fraud) skimming $10K a month out of a dormant Xavier Becerra campaign account totaling $180K. The would-be governor Becerra called it a “gut punch”. But wait, there’s more from the SacBee:

    The charges also accuse Williamson of filing false tax returns, claiming more than $1 million in business deductions for personal expenses, including trips to luxury resorts in Mexico, designer handbags, jewelry, home furniture, and travel on private jets. The indictment also alleges that Williamson provided government information to a company involved in litigation with the state and lied about it to the FBI.

    All sorts of money has been sloshing around Sacramento for a long time. High-cost rail is billions over budget. Lost EDD money totalled $31 billion and Williamson is also accused of filing a fraudulent PPP claim. Non-profits and NGOs get grant money all the time for all sorts of things. The Newsom tab to solve homelessness is somewhere between $24 and $37 billion. And Williamson worked as director of public affairs for PG&E from 2006 to 2011. I bought extra popcorn today.

  • Political Theater: 50 ways to leave your voter

    The whole sheriff removal soap opera might have to take a back seat to this week’s installment of political theater.  The Guv signed the bill that puts Proposition 50 on the ballot November 4th.  The Gavymandering bill to redistrict congressional seats across the state was signed Thursday and yesterday (Saturday) the first of many mail pieces about Prop 50 was in my mailbox!  The opposition is quick and apparently well-funded.

    ProtectFairElections.org says it is paid for by Right Path California.  I’ve never heard of them, but I hear the father of the independent districting commission, Charles Munger, and Ahhnold Schwarzenegger are jumping in big time.  We are in for an interesting two months.  But it will be expensive entertainment costing taxpayers $250 million.  With apologies to Paul Simon, 50 ways to leave your voter got stuck in my head.

    “The problem is all inside your head,” she said to me
    The answer is easy if you take it logically”
    I’d like to help you in your struggle to be free
    There must be 50 ways to leave your voter
    She said, “It’s really not my habit to intrude
    Furthermore, I hope my meaning won’t be lost or misconstrued”
    But I’ll repeat myself at the risk of being crude
    There must be 50 ways to leave your voter
    50 ways to leave your voter
    You just slip out the back, Jack
    Make a new plan, Stan
    You don’t need to be coy, Roy
    Just get yourself free
    Hop on the bus, Gus
    You don’t need to discuss much
    Just drop off the key, Lee
    And get yourself free
    Gavymandering flyer

  • Sheriff saga moves into the open: Secrets released

    The July 3rd edition of the Daily Post was all Corpus all the time with not one, two, or three, but four different articles plumbing the records that finally moved into public view.  And there was no editorial in that issue.  We covered the origins of the soap opera here back in November and the badges aspect here.  Why the sheriff's lawyers filed documents without their standard secrecy veil is a mystery to me after all this time, but details abound.  The first bit of news that I have not seen anywhere to date explains how Corpus is paying for all this legal work.  The answer is we are paying.  Per the Post:

    The County pays for Corpus' attorneys.  State law requires that if requested, an elected official such as the sheriff, can request to be represented by attorneys other than the county counsel.

    Talk about Friends with Benefits.  Even if she loses the whole case, will the County see a dime of what has to be a huge bill separate from what is rung up on their (meaning our) side?  That sounds like a state law in need of a rewrite.  A separate article titled "Records reveal more details about alleged affair" has an Undersheriff describing a professional conference he went to with Corpus and Aenlle where they were absent and missed appointments during the day.  It also lists some damning text messages and quotes another officer whose parents live across the street from Corpus in San Bruno who saw Aenlle there and said he tried to duck him.

    But the fourth killer article is about the sheriff's alleged slurs about Jews, lesbians, and her predecessor Carlos Bolanos.  She is alleged to have called Half Moon Bay Capt. Rebecca Albin a "jew b****".  I'm not sure why the Post feels the need for asterisks there when they quote her alleged description of Bolanos as a "coconut" according to Detective Morgan–  "brown on the outside, white on the inside."  Who knew there was a Latino version of Oreo, but she is also accused of calling him the N-word back in November?  Make up your mind.  But the absolute kicker is the allegation that she referred

    to a Millbrae council woman as a "fuzz bumper" on three occasions, text messages show.

    That's a new slur for a lesbian that I've never heard before.  I checked Urban Dictionary and it's there.  Recall that before running for county sheriff, Corpus' assignment was to oversee the small Millbrae-based force that Millbrae had outsourced to the County.  It's hard to imagine the level of hubris to keep all this going at massive taxpayer expense.

    CC records released

    Yesterday I picked up a copy of the little free paper Peninsula News that is offered in Woodside, RWC, etc by the Merc.  Their editorial titled "Corpus review lacks fairness, transparency" in the July 4th edition probably went to print before they saw the "secret records" get filed and found.  The Merc got way too far out over their skis and they now look foolish.  We'll see if we see a mea culpa from the Merc.

    Update 8/31/25:  Bringing God into the picture!

    Sheriff cries

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