The North American High Speed Rail Group may never have operated any train more serious than a Lionel model, but they certain can make their talking points move fast.
Minnesota Public Radio's Elizabeth Baier reports in Mpls.-Rochester rail plans find no love in rural SE Minnesota:
. . .The privately held firm based in Bloomington says it has backing from undisclosed U.S. and Chinese investors and expects to raise $4.2 billion for the project. Once it receives a permit from MnDOT early next year, the North American High-Speed Rail group will have 120 days to complete its pre-development study.
"Right now, it's all still just an idea on paper and the group needs to study the project's viability and cost before moving forward," Meadley said. "It's not that we're trying to do things behind the scenes. We don't have any rights yet. So, there really isn't anything secret going on. We're trying to figure out how, we haven't even really started the process."
The proposals are entirely independent of each other but state and other officials are interested in having a private developer complete the project at no expense to the public, said MnDOT Chief of Staff Eric Davis. If the private proposal moves forward, it will have to do its own environmental review and public outreach, he added.
Data practice requests show plenty behind the scenes, including the North American High Speed Rail Group's attempt to to figure out how to avoid legal ramifications of sharing Tier 1 ZipRail data without cost to the private investor--or violating the terms of the federal grants that funded it.
Bluestem Prairie posted embedded documents about this attempt in our December 7, 2015 post, Transition: will products of publicly-funded Ziprail development end up in private hands?:
Emails and other documents obtained by a data practice request and forwarded to Bluestem Prairie flesh out the desire of the North American High Speed Rail Group to receive the benefit of that earlier spending, as well as the expertise of the consulting engineer paid by Olmsted County.
The discussion in March of how to "transition" work product from a publicly-funded project into private hands are visible particularly in three places. First, there's this broad outline of tactics to get around legal restrictions on private use of publicly funded work product:
Transition from a publicfunded Zip Rail to a privately-funded project
And then, in the next three pages of documents from the data practices material, there additional discussion, including consideration of how to fend off concerns about the project on the part of Representative Steve Drazkowski, R-Mazeppa, who had been contacted by constituents alarmed by the prospective of a high-speed train speeding across their counties (and no stops for them).
We particularly draw readers attention to this language:
:At this time, North American High Speed Rail Group (NAHSR), a Minnesota company is requesting the transfer of all rights and responsibilities related to the completion of the Tier 1 EIS feasibility study, the service development and business plan components. Additionally, if relevant and within the county’s rights and responsibilities, the right to go ahead with development upon successful completion of the appropriate federal, regional and state level authorizations and approvals including the Minnesota Department of Transportation.
"In order to successfully transition this important economic development project for Minnesota and the Southeastern region of Minnesota including: Olmsted, Goodhue, Dakota, Ramsey and Hennepin (the affected counties along the proposed corridor), the North American High Speed Rail Group requests the project management collaboration and continuity of the current Project Manager, Chuck Michael through 2015. This also allows for the significant relationships and knowledge created and cultivated at the city, county and regional levels to continue to be leveraged to the success of the project."
It's obvious that the rail group was asking for work product and project management that was paid by public dollars. Here are the three pages from which the text is drawn:
Summary of Zip Rail Data From Administrator Reports.6-8-1
Finally, there's the transition request itself:
Kudoes to the Dayton administration for not signing off on this "transition."
Air right-of-way to ordinary 120-day permit
Also likely to make a cat laugh? This passage in the MPR report:
Once it receives a permit from MnDOT early next year, the North American High-Speed Rail group will have 120 days to complete its pre-development study.
If the private group only needed a temporary right-of-way permit to begin its magic, then why attempt to "transition" possession of the publicly funded studies to themselves? Or ask for the air rights for two years for the project?
Another abandoned line: EB-5 visa investors
It's like suddenly deciding to leave the EB-5 visa money on the side of the trail, claiming that the process was too complicated--after setting up an EB-5 visa regional center and securing approval of it from the Department of Homeland Security. In August, Watchdog.org Minnesota's Tom Steward reported in New EB-5 visa center to help finance proposed high-speed rail line that between 10 and 20 percent of the funding for the project would come from the EB-5 visa investors:
A developer seeking billions for a proposed high-speed rail line between Rochester and the Twin Cities has federal approval to launch Liberty Minnesota Regional Center, an EB-5 immigrant investment center.
North American High Speed Rail group has been quietly negotiating with the Minnesota Department of Transportation to conduct a feasibility study and for exclusive rights to build an elevated line along the 84 mile Highway 52 corridor.
The Minnesota-based group plans to raise much of the estimated $4.2 billion — in private capital from foreign individuals and governments, including China — to finance the rail project. The EB-5 program provides permanent green cards to foreign investors who invest $500,000 to $1 million in businesses or economic development projects that create or preserve at least 10 jobs for U.S. workers.
EB-5 “immigrant investors” could comprise 10 percent to 20 percent of the financial backing for the controversial private rail proposal, which has stirred opposition among skeptical residents and communities along the route.
“EB-5 has never been ruled out as a potential source for this project. We are just preparing with a much larger part of our capital stack with private investment and supplementing as needed and where appropriate with EB -5,” Joe Sperber, NAHSR CEO and Liberty Minnesota owner, said in an email.
The Watchdog.org article noted that the only project on the Liberty Minnesota website was for the EdCampus in Chaska.
Bluestem discovered that the EdCampus project had not been viable for many years. We examined these issues first in Roch high speed rail line: Chaska ghost campus already in pipeline for EB-5 visa center financing. We learned from a Chaska-area reader that the Edcampus site was being developed for a different project and pursued that story, posting Roch high speed rail line: Ghost campus building site on market as Chaska Creek Business Park on August 17.
On October 7, we inquired again in What's up with EB-5 visa center's current project? EdCampus seems dead for years. A staff member of the Chaska planning department noted that the city had not heard from anyone involved in the EdCampus project for many years.
On November 25, we reported Funding the private bullet train: Liberty Minnesota Regional Center website suspended. By December 6, the suspension was over and the URL--still linked on MN DEED's EB-5 page--redirected to Go Daddy; we looked at this in Go, Daddy, hot new high speed rail technology?.
The Ides of March: foreshadowing the resistance
Whatever the twists and turns of the private rail group's public statements--and behind-the-scenes actions might have been, the resistance in Southeastern Minnesota is foreshadowed in one of Meadley's statements to the Rochester Post Bulletin in the March 17 article, A private builder for Zip Rail?:
Meadley said her group doesn't plan to spend time trying to convince communities to back their proposal. Rather, she said the conversation could be focused on the project's potential to transform the region and ideas for what could be done as part of it.
She added, "We're going to demonstrate that it's economically viable."
Heckova job Wendy.
Photo: The Lionel Blue Streak.
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