L.A. Senator clarifies Valley 'tumbleweeds' comment on high-speed rail
Source: Fresno Bee
Sen. Kevin DeLeón, the soon-to-be leader of the California Senate, raised eyebrows throughout the San Joaquin Valley recently with disparaging-sounding remarks about the state's controversial high-speed rail project.
In the June 21 piece by Los Angeles Times writer George Skelton (and published Friday in The Bee), DeLeón -- a Democrat from Los Angeles -- said that "it's illogical" to begin construction of the bullet-train network in the Valley because "nobody lives out there in the tumbleweeds."
"I don't think it makes sense to lay down track in the middle of nowhere," DeLeón was quoted as saying. The column added that DeLeón "supports the concept of high-speed rail, but with the caveat that track-laying begin in the Los Angeles and San Francisco areas."
The six counties of the central and southern San Joaquin Valley, from Merced in the north to Kern in the south, are home to more than 2.8 million people. Unemployment rates across the region run from a low of 9.5% in Madera County up to 12.5% in Merced County, compared to 8.2% in Los Angeles County.
Read more: http://www.fresnobee.com/2014/07/02/4007991/la-senator-clarifies-valley-tumbleweeds.html?sp=/99/217/&ihp=1
Democratic California Senate leader?
poor choice.
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NYC_SKP
(68,644 posts)He doesn't even deserve to be a senator, much less senate leader.
DRoseDARs
(6,810 posts)Quantum tunneling? Asshole.
delrem
(9,688 posts)we are led by those we elect.
So, first priority is obviously that we perennially and tirelessly work to ensure that the electoral mechanisms are TRUE.
Second, a culture that has enough self-awareness to understand the value of #1, above, will assuredly promote honest wannabe politicians.
reddread
(6,896 posts)I wish to be represented. I dont need to be led.
delrem
(9,688 posts)reddread
(6,896 posts)They lead illegal invasions and by necessity fail to secure justice for all.
If thats leading, dont expect me to follow.
delrem
(9,688 posts)That's *your* point, right?
What they actually *do*, in office, is to LEAD, in exactly the way that your term "represent" implies.
You can't back out now. Sorry if that fact inconveniences you.
you are speaking in hypotheticals.
I refer to contemporary history.
faith based politics is no different than faith based politics.
delrem
(9,688 posts)The "fact" in question is that *I said* that we are led by those we elect.
*YOU* took issue.
Now COME ON!
I'm gonna put you on ignore if you can't do better than this.
reddread
(6,896 posts)I owe you nothing.
delrem
(9,688 posts)
MisterP
(23,730 posts)a build out from SF and LA would indeed start connecting the more heavily-traveled routes (LA from north, east, and south, SF-Sacramento), though it'd be slower and costlier than the Central Valley (which segment was probably built); HSR isn't a replacement for commuter rail or airplanes, it's its own mode, midway in speed between the two of them: so you have some full-service runs that go to Bakersfield or Gilroy or Covina or make two San Diego stops--and then a lot that just go downtown LA-downtown SF: local service connects all these little suburbs and exhausted exurbs to the centers, while express service almost entirely replaces air travel (for up to like 600 miles)
the Central Valley route gives more bang for the buck than a Costal-Range alignment giving the finger to Fresno to shave off a few minutes for the megalopitanians (is that a word?)
unlike some cocktail-napkin sketch that we're told to ditch everything for, we have French, German, and Japanese precedents to theorize upon (so no Billings-to-Denver routes)
Igel
(35,319 posts)And got the same kind of response from the people who live there for his retrograde comments.
