As Jerry Brown prepares to leave office after his second eight-year stint as Governor of California, he’s leaving his chosen successor Gavin Newsom a strong legacy, including a state with renewed economic and fiscal health and a Democratic super-majority in both chambers of the state legislature.

But there is at least one thing Brown’s leaving behind that will likely be a major headache for Newsom: a much-delayed and extremely expensive high-speed rail project that has bled public support as rapidly as dollars. Veteran California journalist Dan Walters succinctly describes the problem:

The messiest bit of unfinished business Govenor Jerry Brown will bequeath to successor Gavin Newsom is one of the outgoing governor’s pet projects, a north-south bullet train project. One could even say it’s a hot mess, given the revelations of a new audit of the multi-billion-dollar project’s first phase. That initial segment — 100-plus miles of track in the mostly flat, sparsely populated San Joaquin Valley, from Chowchilla to an orchard near Shafter, north of Bakersfield — was supposed to be the easiest to design and build. State Auditor Elaine Howle told the Legislature that the High-Speed Rail Authority’s “flawed decision making regarding the start of high-speed rail system construction in the Central Valley and its ongoing poor contract management for a wide range of high-value contracts have contributed to billions of dollars in cost overruns for completing the system.”

The San Joaquin segment was supposed to be finished by 2022, and the whole enchilada by 2029. But it’s not looking good, and if that first deadline is missed, the state could be exposed to the clawback of up to 3.5 billion in federal funds awarded the project in 2010 as part of the Obama administration’s economic stimulus program. And the project is already looking at an estimated total cost (expected to continue to go higher) of 77 billion dollars.

Read Full Story