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Eshoo draws a crowd for high-speed rail meet
• Some use the opportunity to demonstrate on health-care issues.

by Andrea Gemmet

A chance to question Rep. Anna Eshoo, D-Menlo Park, face-to-face drew hundreds of people to the Menlo Park City Council chambers on Wednesday evening, Aug. 26. A capacity crowd filled the building, with police officers assisting in turning away insistent gate-crashers. A couple hundred folding chairs were set up outside the chambers, and they filled up quickly. Police estimate that about 600 people attended.

While the event was billed as a panel on high-speed rail, organizers from MoveOn.org rallied members to attend the event and agitate for health care reform.

Those who came for a town hall meeting on health care, including sign-waving anti-reform protesters, single-payer advocates, and colorfully dressed Raging Grannies, left disappointed. Every question on health care was deferred, as Ms. Eshoo explained that she would hold two meetings next week on health care, including one set for Sept. 2 in Palo Alto at the Spangenberg auditorium.

Instead, the focus was strictly on high-speed rail, as Ms. Eshoo read the written questions submitted by attendees and got responses from a four-member panel of experts. She didn't hesitate to chide panel members for giving rambling or unclear answers, or prompt them to cut to the chase.

"This is the opportunity of a generation, the opportunity to set a course for future generations," Ms. Eshoo said. "We can embrace this opportunity and work together as a community to make this worthy of us."

Most of the questions were pointed, and expressed concern for the effect on property values and quality of life for residents living near the Caltrain corridor, once high-speed trains carrying passengers from San Francisco to Los Angeles hurtle through the Peninsula.

Ms. Eshoo, a Menlo Park resident, echoed some of her constituents concerns, saying that very few people live closer to the tracks than she does. Answers to key questions — what will it look like, and will the tracks be elevated or buried in a tunnel — are still unknown and will be worked out in the next 18 months, according to rail authority officials.

"I don't want to see a 40-foot wall, I want less noise. I want a plan that will improve our environment, not diminish it," Ms. Eshoo said.

Several people questioned the economics of the project, including a Palo Alto man who wanted to know what the state would have to cut in order to pay the interest on the billions of dollars in high-speed rail bonds.

"Are they going to fire teachers, fire police? Release convicted felons? How are they going to pay for it?"

Mike Scanlon, the executive director of Caltrain and Samtrans, and the California High Speed Rail Authority's executive director Mehdi Morshed attempted to soothe or dismiss people's fears. Authority engineer Dominic Spaethling and Bob Doty, the director of the Peninsula Rail Program, rounded out the panel.

Details about exactly how the Caltrain corridor will accommodate additional tracks for high-speed rail are still being determined, Mr. Scanlon said. "There aren't answers yet, but there will be," he said.

Mr. Morshed attempted to ease concerns about property along the tracks being seized by eminent domain.

"As far as we know, it will essentially be built within the Caltrain right of way. It might take some property, but we will do everything we can to avoid that," he said. "I'm not aware of any single home in the area (being) threatened through eminent domain."

Mr. Morshed promised that electrified Caltrain rails and high-speed trains would be much quieter that the current horn-blaring diesel trains that currently rattle along the tracks. Realizing that he was facing a skeptical crowd, he began prefacing his comments with the phrase, "this may be horse-(manure)."

While the people inside the chambers stayed fairly quiet and composed, those outside listening to loudspeakers were more vocal in their reactions.

Mr. Scanlon dismissed many concerns, saying they were the result of misinformation.

"(People worried) that there will be a 15-foot wall of concrete are just misinformed. I heard people say that a judge ruled against high-speed rail today, and that just isn't true. They found a couple of faults that are relatively minor, relatively correctible," Mr. Scanlon said.

However, Stuart Flashman, the attorney for the plaintiffs, including the towns of Atherton and Menlo Park, had a very different view of the lawsuit's significance. He told The Almanac that a Sacramento County Superior Court judge found four major areas of flaws in the environmental study of the project that will require the rail authority to rewrite the environmental impact report and rescind decisions based on it — including the decision to run trains along the Caltrain corridor.

HEALTH CARE MEET

Rep. Anna Eshoo, D-Menlo Park, says she will hold a face-to-face "town hall" meeting on health care issues on Wednesday, Sept. 2, at Gunn High School in Palo Alto. It will be held from 7 to 8:30 p.m. in Spangenberg Theatre, 780 Arastradero Road. Rep. Eshoo is a member of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, one of three House committees charged with drafting portions of a health care reform bill. For more information and to listen to her telephone town halls on health care, go to tinyurl.com/Eshoo2009.