The Peninsula Corridor Joint Powers Board on June 1 approved a funding plan for the Peninsula Corridor Electrification Project, which would see non-diesel Caltrains zooming along under powered electric cables, and possibly pave the way for high-speed rail.

But the plan faces some stumbling blocks, as far as the town of Atherton is concerned.

The Electrification Plan depends on $600 million in money from Proposition 1A, which California voters approved in November 2008 to fund the high-speed rail project. The Joint Powers Board cut a deal with the High-Speed Rail Authority to take the $600 million in Proposition 1A money in return for partial ownership of the Peninsula rail corridor, along which the high-speed rail is to run, if it is built.

But, according to attorney Mike Brady, that deal is illegal. Brady and attorney Stuart Flashman have already filed a suit in Sacramento County Superior Court, on behalf of Atherton, Kings County, two citizens groups and five individuals, challenging the constitutionality of the JPB/HSR plan.

“Proposition 1A has many rigid protections in it for how the money is to be spent,” Brady said on Wednesday. “They have not been complying with Proposition 1A.”

The proposition authorized a $9.95 billion bond issuance to build the high-speed rail system from Anaheim to San Francisco.

As planning proceeded, the HSR Authority started having trouble meeting some of Proposition 1A’s requirements, including having all the money for the entire project in hand, and it was suggested that the project be broken up into regional parts — including the electrification of the Caltrain tracks on the Peninsula.

Brady said that the state legislature, in 2016, passed AB 1889, to give more flexibility to the HSR Authority in how it used the bond-measure funds.

Which is where the legal issues arise: “1A is voter-approved,” Brady said. “An ordinary statute such as AB 1889 cannot change a voter-approved initiative.”

The court has set a management conference for the case for June 15, said Brady, at which time a hearing date would be scheduled.

Meanwhile, planning and meetings between Caltrain and Atherton staffs are continuing. Stacy Cocke, principal planner with the Caltrain Planning / Caltrain Modernization Program, said Monday that a work order is to be issued to Balfour Beatty Inc. on June 19 “that will enable us to start the physical work, tree removals, purchase of long lead items” and other needs for the project, which if it happens is likely to take three to four years of construction.

On Monday, Cocke said she thought 29 trees would have to be removed in Atherton, but Atherton Community Services Director Mike Kashiwagi told the town’s rail committee on Tuesday that he thought that number was down to 26, following a meeting he had that morning.

Atherton City Manager George Rodericks said Wednesday thatthe town “is not in favor of removing the trees.”

Caltrain can remove trees that are in its legal right of way; but if it wants to remove trees not in its right of way — such as some in Holbrook-Palmer Park — then it must apply to the town for permits, and if allowed, must replace each tree with three new ones.

“And not twigs,” Rodericks said.

The town has asked that Caltrain use center poles for hanging the power cables, instead of poles on either side of the tracks, which would possibly require more removal or pruning of trees.

Cocke explained that each pole must be 10 feet from the tracks. In the case of center poles, that would mean more than 20 feet between the northbound and southbound tracks, including the width of the poles themselves.

The exact number of center poles or side-to-side poles has yet to be determined for Atherton. “We’re still in preliminary design stage,” said Cocke. “We’re at about 35 percent out of a 100 percent design.”

If high-speed rail does come to Atherton, it will mean several other key changes along the tracks, most of which would be paid for the the HSR Authority. Quad gates (four-way traffic-stopping arms) would be installed at the Watkins Avenue crossing, and a system of fencing and pathways would be built at Atherton Station, to keep people from moving across the tracks when two trains are stopped there, or passing through.

Brady sounded a warning about that.

“They’d have to close the crossings every three minutes — they plan 10 trains an hour southbound and 10 trains an hour northbound. Can you imagine what that would do to traffic in the area?”

The only solution to that, Brady said, would be grade separations, where the street is tunneled under the tracks, or bridged over them.

“They don’t have the money to do that,” Brady said.