Governor vetoes rail ‘accountability’ stick
With a stroke of his line-veto pen, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger Monday killed a budget provision that would have forced the California High-Speed Rail Authority to improve its business plan and strengthen its outreach efforts by Feb. 1 or have about a quarter of its annual budget withheld.
Schwarzenegger’s veto deals a blow to efforts by Sen. Joe Simitian, D-Palo Alto, and other state legislators to hold the rail authority accountable after a sequence of audits revealed a myriad of flaws in the agency’s revenue and ridership plans.
“The High-Speed Rail Authority desperately needs to rebuild its credibility and public support,” Simitian said. “A failure to require accountability measures only makes that task more difficult.”
View the full story (Palo Alto Online)