With just weeks to go before Minnesota's March 1 precinct caucuses--where delegates for the endorsement process spring--activists got one last opportunity last Monday night to hear a debate between the Republican candidates running for Minnesota’s only open congressional seat. The Uptake live streamed it and has posted a full transcript here.
One issue that's particular to the district? Plans for high speed rail from the south metro to Rochester. The first plan, recently shelved, was for a publicly funded Zip Rail. Beginning in 2014, supporters of a private rail project started chattering about the possibility; plans were finally announced for a line built by the North American High Speed Rail Group's "Velos" elevated train late last winter.
Standing in the way of this shiny thing? The people who live in between stops (most of the line) and concerns that the short line between a middle-sized metro area and a smaller metropolitan area might not be the most viable place for billions of transportation investments, regardless of who's footing the bill.
Bluestem has been among the critics--though we're supportive of other, more robust HSR projects.
The Republican congressional candidates might learn more about the issue tomorrow night. There will be a meeting about the projects featuring MnDOT Commissioner Charlie Zelle on Tuesday, February 16, from 5:30 p.m. to 7:30 p.m. at the Cannon Falls' Urland Lutheran Church
Via The Uptake, here's the clip of the moment, followed by a transcript and fact-check.
Transcript and fact check:
MOD: Any other? Seeing no other rebut cards we will go on to the next question. This goes to John. Same rules apply. Ah since this is a critical issue in the ah in the district here, I’ll read the full question. Governor Dayton and Olmsted County favor a high-speed Zip rail passenger train between the Twin Cities and Rochester. This train could, if it is at grade level, cut CD2 in two and cause horrendous hardship to the residents in its path. And if it is an elevated bed, the cost will more than double, even triple.
According to proponents, this project is to be funded by private investors – would you believe communist China – ah, that’s part of the question – and no state or local public funds are to be used. However, the FRA will be involved, and if any federal funds are in play, the horrors of eminent domain may apply.
FACT CHECK
That's not really a question but a statement that the candidates are to respond. To our knowledge, we have not seen support for the project from Governor Mark Dayton. We also found a couple of premises about eminent domain to be incorrect.
The Federal Railroad Administration does not determine whether a private railroad has the authority to use eminent domain to acquire property; rather, this determination is under the jurisdiction of the Surface Transportation Board.
The use of eminent domain by a private railroad is not dependent on use of public funds for a project. The question of eminent domain was raised at the final meeting of MnDOT's Zip Rail Technical Advisory Committee. On page 4 of the minutes:
As a private entity, what is their process for land acquisition?
We do not know that yet. They can have eminent domain authority if they become a private railroad but they would have to get that authority from the Surface Transportation Board (STB).
The use of eminent domain by a private railroad is also allowed under Minnesota state statute. According to a League of Minnesota Cities Information Memo on Railroads and Cities:
Railroad corporations have the power to acquire land by purchase or eminent domain. This applies to any land that is needed for roadways, spur and side tracks, rights-of-way, depot grounds, yards, grounds for gravel pits, machine shops, warehouses, elevators, depots, station houses, and all other structures necessary for the use and operation of the road.
The League of Minnesota Cities' memo cites Minnesota state statute 222.27 Power to Acquire Property:
Every foreign and domestic railroad corporation shall have power to acquire, by purchase or condemnation, all necessary roadways, spur and side tracks, rights-of-way, depot grounds, yards, grounds for gravel pits, machine shops, warehouses, elevators, depots, station houses, and all other structures necessary or convenient for the use, operation, or enjoyment of the road, and may make with any other railroad company, such arrangements for the use of any portion of its tracks and roadbeds as it may deem necessary.
According to the North American High Speed Rail Group's business plan for the "Velos" private train, side real estate developments along the line will pay for the train, rather than ticket sales. In short, residents along the line face the distinct possibility that a private corporation with absolutely no track record can force them to sell their land along MnDOT right-of-ways, so that the corporation can use it to underwrite speculative real estate developments.
Remember: the rail group's strategic communications director told the City Pages:
It is the North American High Speed Rail Group's interest to plan, design, build and operate this passenger rail corridor through a private funding approach. In this way a full range of economic development opportunities that complement the passenger rail service can be included in a new financial model. When combined, the economics of a project like this are integrated and amplified in a new business model focused on a larger development landscape.
We'd wondered how Social Wendy would acquire property for that vision if the family farmers now occupying the land weren't willing to quit that imaginary landscape. Perhaps this is why Nora Felton raised these points in her letter to the editor of the Red Wing Republican Leader, ‘Zombie’ Zip Rail project has not stopped its march:
Please know NAHSR has now received permits to do survey work within the right-of-way Highway 52. Information from the Zip Rail Community Advisory Committee discussion reveals that MnDOT does not own all of that right of way. For some parts (Krom stated about 1,000 parcels), the state only has easements.
So, dear readers, if your private property is adjacent to Highway 52, check your property deed. . . .
One suspects that there will be points where the tracks rise above land outside the right of way. Bluestem would think that possibility that that land can be subject to condemnation (eminent domain)--even more than Chinese investors or the use of federal funds--would send the opponents of the project to their barns for pitchforks and torches.
The transcript continues:
MOD cont'd: Ah will you oppose this project, and what can you do to keep the federal funds out of this project? John, one minute.
John Howe: Certainly I would not support the project and I’ll do everything in my power to make sure that federal funds aren’t available for that project. Y’know one of the things that you hear from ah people that ah like government solutions to y’know problems is ah we’re gonna get federal dollars for that. Well you maybe get federal dollars for the creation, but not for the operation, for the continued operation. And y’know. I mean to say this off the top here but y’know if you look at the land acquisition or what it would take to build a Zip Rail or high-speed rail, you could probably provide bus service for a few hundred years just ah just in what the acquisition cost is gonna be. So I don’t think there’s a demonstrated need here ah again it’s a y’know it’s a solution in search of a problem and ah I would not support it.
MOD: Jason.
Jason Lewis: Y’know I fought really hard against the AWA Goodhue Wind Power Farm with my column in the Star Tribune, on my radio program, and thanks to the people down here, who actually did the hard work, we stopped that for now. The same is true here. I mean what’s 4.2 billion among friends, right? (laughter) That’s supposedly the cost not to mention the E5 visas where we hand out green cards like candy to anybody who throws in some money, and there’s been a number of scandals there.
FACT CHECK
Lewis hasn't kept abreast of the funding schemes floated by the private rail corporation.While the initial business plan for the North American High Speed Rail's "Velos" line included raising capital using EB-5 visas, this scheme was abandoned late last year.
He might be on to something about the "sketch" nature of that part of the scheme. The green card for rich folks pot o' money is gone, but before it disappeared, Bluestem found that the Liberty Minnesota Regional Center, owned by two individuals who were then top executives with the rail company, was taking inquiries via its website about an "EdCampus" project in Chaska from potential investor-immigrants.
Additional research and a reader's tip led us to discover that the EdCampus project was no longer active in Chaska, and the City of Chaska had moved on to approve a different concept and different developer for the site.Funding for a bus transit hub for the site had also been shifted to other projects when the EdCampus failed to move forward.
In early October we reported in What's up with EB-5 visa center's current project? EdCampus seems dead for years, that we contacted the City of Chaska's planning department, we learned that the developers for the EdCampus project--still actively being offered on the visa center's website--had not communicated with the city for many years.
By early December, the webpage for the visa center had disappeared, as we reported in Go, Daddy, hot new high speed rail technology?.
It's too bad Lewis wasn't informed about those developments, since they underscore his more general suspicions about the EB-5 program.
Lewis continues:
Jason Lewis: Part of the problem is, when it comes to transportation at the federal level, is we’ve adopted this mass transit account in the Highway Trust Fund. And that’s where your federal gas tax dollars are going, being siphoned off for these rail projects. And that’s why we keep they keep saying “We’ve gotta raise taxes” but we don’t build roads.
FACT CHECK
Since the developers of the private train claim that they won't be using federal funds, Lewis' call to direct all High Trust Fund money to roads expands the question into federal funding for transit in general. Would eliminating funding for transit projects--desirable or not--plug the hole in the budget? Such plans have been floated in Washington. In Republican bills would cut mass transit from transportation fund, Scripps Howard Foundation multi-media fellow reported last year:
First established in the 1950s, the trust fund was designed to be a self-sustaining source of federal money for transportation projects. It was based on the premise of user fees: People who need highways (drivers) pay a federal gas tax that would finance their roads.
But in recent years, the gas tax has become an inadequate source of money for several reasons. Among them, people are driving more fuel-efficient vehicles that don’t need as much gas, and Congress hasn’t raised the gas tax to keep up with inflation.
Today, about 20 percent of the $50 billion spent annually by the Highway Trust Fund goes toward mass transit, with more than half of that money going toward urban mass transit, maintenance and repair work. . . .
The bills on their own don’t provide a long-term fix for the Highway Trust Fund, which tallies an estimated deficit of $16 billion each year and is scheduled to expire May 31 [2015]. Eliminating the mass transit account would reduce that deficit by about $10 billion annually.
Lewis is trading in hyperbole when he asserts "we don’t build roads." And even without the mass transit account (if removing it were desirable), the fund would be inadequate to fund highway projects at their current level without going into the red.
Back to the debate:
MOD: Darlene.
Darlene Miller: I would definitely ah oppose this Zip line. Again it’s a government oversight, a government deciding what we should do in this community rather than letting the people of the state or the county or the communities decide what’s best for them. Instead of putting that money into a Zip rail, what about our bridges and our roads. And our other infrastructure that needs to be improved. We need to get government to stop deciding in D.C. what needs to happen here.
MOD: Gene, 30 seconds.
Gene Rechtzigel: Ah we need to go ahead with the superhighway system, not a Zip Rail. We need to double the lanes on 494, 694. We need to have a ah superhighway system going from major city to major city across this country. And we better do it quick because time is money, and the people’s money is ah going basically nowhere. And going ah in the negative when you have to sit and sit in ah freeways that aren’t even moving.
MOD: David.
David Gerson: Transportation is inherently local and we need to get the federal government out of transportation, and there’s a conservative bill out there that does just that. It’s called the Transportation Empowerment Act. What it does is it lowers gasoline taxes from 19.3 cents to 2.9 cents over time, and transfers responsibility back to the states where it belongs. We need to get behind these true conservative solutions and move back to local control and ensure that we follow the Tenth Amendment.
MOD: Pam, 30 seconds.
Pam Myrhra: Thank you. Gas taxes are collected on people who drive cars and trucks. And those taxes, those revenues, should be used to build roads and bridges. Not transit.
In short, all of the candidates are against using public funding for high speed rail, but only Lewis tries to address another part of the "question"--those "Chinese investors," some of whom would be trading an investment for a visa. The statement to which they respond does upon examination raise questions about eminent domain.
Images: Heckova morning commute with that zombie train via Global Cool (above) and a Zip Rail Zombie specific cartoon, via CCARL email.
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