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High Speed Rail CEO Defends Project, Denies Cover-Up

Jeffrey Hess/KVPR
Rail Authority CEO Jeff morales

The CEO of California’s High Speed Rail Authority is defending the project after Assembly Republicans issued calls for an investigation into project management, following an explosive LA Times report.

The article alleges that the rail authority actively concealed information that ran counter to their projections about the project’s cost and engineering challenges.

Assembly member Jim Patterson says rail CEO Jeff Morales has not been up front about the project and should testify under oath before an Assembly committee.

“If I were in a circumstance where I were knew I was telling the truth and I knew the truth would (come) out. Then I would have my right hand on a Bible and I would say ‘I swear to tell the truth. So help me God’,” Patterson said.

The project, in Patterson’s view, has strayed so far from its original purpose that it is time for California voters to cast another vote. Especially since the High Speed Rail line is being built and funded with public money.

“What I am seeing is a government that is out of control with respect to this. And a rogue agency that is not telling the public the truth,” Patterson said.

Morales spoke at the site of the first construction in Madera County on Thursday and firmly denied that the rail authority is covering up anything.

He says that the agency has been transparent, making sworn testimony unnecessary.

“I am happy to talk to anybody anywhere. We don’t need to go to that extreme. We are very open and transparent about what we are doing and how we go about it,” Morales said.

The LA Times piece cited a confidential 2013 engineering report allegedly commissioned by the authority, which said the project would be much more expensive and challenging than previously projected. Assembly Republicans called for the report to be released. Morales says he has no knowledge of the report, but that the agency has been transparent.

“It’s just wrong. We have provided detailed reports to the legislative and to the public. The legislature has an independent peer review group, that the legislature appointed, that works with us, that looks at this. We have had the U.S Government Accountability Office spend a year looking at all of our processes. Including our cost estimates,” Morales said.

Additionally, the Times quoted industry experts that questioned if the tunnels needed for the line are even possible to build.

Morales was firm in his conviction that they can be built on time and on budget, citing other large and challenging tunnel projects taking place worldwide.

Jeffrey Hess is a reporter and Morning Edition news host for Valley Public Radio. Jeffrey was born and raised in a small town in rural southeast Ohio. After graduating from Otterbein University in Columbus, Ohio with a communications degree, Jeffrey embarked on a radio career. After brief stops at stations in Ohio and Texas, and not so brief stops in Florida and Mississippi, Jeffrey and his new wife Shivon are happy to be part Valley Public Radio.