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June 2016

WILL ALL ABOARD FLORIDA BE FUNDED BY CHINESE?

VERO NEWS - RAY MCNULTY

We all knew the game was rigged against us. What we didn’t know until last week, however, was that officials were prepared to go to the other side of the world to make sure All Aboard Florida won.

We didn’t know that the federal government was eager to partner with AAF to sell green cards – and permanent U.S. residencies – to foreign nationals willing to each invest at least $500,000 in the company’s high-speed, passenger-rail project.

THE FIGHT AGAINST AAF IS FAR FROM OVER

SUNSHINE STATE NEWS - BRENT HANLON

I recently read a column in Sunshine State News by Ed Dean, a statewide syndicated radio talk show host, in which he stated, “...since the announcement of the high-speed rail train project, All Aboard Florida (AAF) has been outflanked by its opponents when it comes to public relations (June 20, "AAF Gaining Steam, Opponents Losing It"). But on the legal front, AAF is winning the battle.”

CALIFORNIA HITS THE BRAKES ON HIGH-SPEED RAIL FIASCO

BLOOMBERG - VIRGINIA POSTREL 

California's high-speed rail project increasingly looks like an expensive social science experiment to test just how long interest groups can keep money flowing to a doomed endeavor before elected officials finally decide to cancel it. What combination of sweet-sounding scenarios, streamlined mockups, ever-changing and mind-numbing technical detail, and audacious spin will keep the dream alive?

EXPLOSION ROCKS NATURAL GAS PLANT IN MISSISSIPPI

ABC NEWS

A late-night explosion and fire broke out at a natural gas plant in southern Mississippi, but there were no injuries or fatalities reported, police said early Tuesday.

Pascagoula Police Capt. Shannon Broom said authorities received a report about the explosion at an Enterprise Products plant around 11:30 p.m. Monday night. He told The Associated Press that the company reported that while employees were at the site when the blast happened, everyone appeared to be safe.

FIERY TRAIN CRASH IN TEXAS AS TWO TRAINS COLLIDE HEAD-ON

NBC NEWS - ELI PANKEN

Three crew members were missing and one was injured after two trains crashed head-on Tuesday in a fiery crash in northern Texas.

The trains collided just before 8:30 a.m. local time (9:30 a.m. ET) east of Panhandle, Texas, along Highway 60, according to Panhandle City Hall officials.

Officials said the city was draining its water supply to fill fire trucks' tanks as it desperately tried to quell the flames.

FIVE DEAD AFTER AMTRAK TRAIN COLLIDES WITH MINIVAN IN COLORADO

Washington Post - Travis M. Andrews

At approximately 9:45 a.m. Sunday, an Amtrak train struck a minivan near Trinidad, Colo., killing three children and two adults.

Amtrak Train 3, the Southwest Chief passenger train, was traveling from Chicago to Los Angeles with 286 passengers on board when it collided with a 2005 Chrysler Town & Country minivan on Las Animas County Road 32. The minivan contained two adults and four children.

INCOMPLETE AAF CONSTRUCTION PLANS, ABSENCE OF RIGHT-OF-WAY PERMITS LIMIT MARTIN COUNTY ANALYSIS

Source: Martin County Times

From the Martin County Board of County Commissioners: The latest design plans received in April from All Aboard Florida (AAF), which were billed as “100 percent construction plans,” are still incomplete, preventing Martin County from being able to conduct a thorough review of those plans. As a result, the County, as stated in its June 23 letter to AAF, was still only able to provide general comments.

JUNE CARE FLORIDA UPDATE

 

Citizens Against Rail Expansion in Florida (CARE) continues to actively pursue all possible legal, political and public communication channels to stop the ill-conceived All Aboard Florida (AAF)/Brightline rail project that threatens the public safety and current way of life of communities throughout the Treasure Coast. 

CARE FLORIDA RESPONDS TO INDIAN RIVER COUNTY'S LAW CHALLENGE

On June 10, a state court ruled against Indian River County’s administrative law challenge to the Florida Development Finance Corporation (FDFC) Private Activity Bond (PAB) approval proceedings of August 2015.
 

RAIL EXPANSION PROJECTS SPARK TENSIONS IN CALIFORNIA

WWW.WSJ.COM - Laura Stevens and Erica E. Phillips

The fate of BNSF Railway Co.’s new terminal near the Port of Los Angeles is now in jeopardy even though it has been in development for 10 years at a cost of more than $50 million and would provide badly needed rail capacity.

TOUGH QUESTIONS BY POSEY ABOUT POSSIBLE CORRUPTION

Bob Solari, Vero Beach

Letter: Tough questions by Posey about possible AAF corruption

Congressman Bill Posey is to be commended for his continued efforts in the fight against All Aboard Florida. On May 10, he wrote Secretary of Transportation Anthony Foxx about the practices of the Lewis Berger Group Inc., evidently the same group that performed a ridership and revenue study for AAF.

Posey notes that the World Bank debarred the Louis Berger Group for "engaging in corrupt practices."

TRAIN DERAILMENT CAUSES MASSIVE FIRE IN OREGON

http://goo.gl/ZRCSZB - Artemis Moshtaghian

A train derailment along the Oregon and Washington border sparked a raging fire that sent massive black plumes of smoke in the air on Friday afternoon.

Eleven rail cars from a 96-car Union Pacific train carrying crude oil derailed, causing at least one train car to catch fire, Union Pacific representative Aaron Hunt said. No one was injured.