For those of you that missed it, yesterday the California Public Utilities Commission approved the at-grade crossing and station for the Expo Line at Farmdale Avenue by Dorsey High School. What follows is a summary of stories on the project and after the jump is the reaction of Fix Expo's Damien Goodmon. Here's a quick preview, Goodmon doesn't believe yesterday's decision was the "Last Battle of Farmdale."
- CPUC Official Statement (CPUC)
- Actual Video of the Approval (Transit Coalition Boards)
- Have Your Safety Concerns Been Addressed? (LA_Now)
- CPUC Approves At-Grade Crossing for Farmdale (Curbed)
- Breakdown of the Proposed Decision (Friends for Expo)
- State Commission Approves At-Grade Crossing (LAist)
- Renderings of Farmdale Station (Build Expo)
Goodmon writes to his followers:
As expected, the CPUC reversed themselves and approved the street-level crossing at Farmdale at yesterday's CPUC meeting: http://www.latimes.com/news/
Bernard Parks stated in his newsletter that came out last night,
that the CPUC's decision ends all legal challenges and the railroad
crossing will be installed across Farmdale this weekend. Bernie's
understanding of CPUC law is no better than his understanding of
campaign finance or MTA ethics law. You will remember that his illegal
fundraising from MTA contractors for his failed Supervisorial campaign,
which we first exposed (http://tinyurl.com/parks-mta-
The
reality is that every CPUC decision can be appealed to the California
Court of Appeals, and our legal team is at work on that as I type.
After it became apparent last winter that the CPUC had no intention on
sticking to their initial decision that REJECTED an at-grade crossing (http://tinyurl.com/pucrejects
we began focusing our efforts on an appeal. The great news is that the
CPUC decision is so wrought with factual inaccuracies, literally and
quite blatantly misinterpreting the record, that our appellete rights
are pretty strong. Aside from having a crossing previously ruled unsafe
suddenly ruled safe after hundreds of thousands of taxpayers dollars
went toward lobbying the CPUC, the decision claims has such gems as that
"there are no issues in dispute." I can't make this stuff up.
So today, we actually celebrate the opportunity to get out of the
CPUC court, where the Commissioners essentially do what the politicians
tell them to do, and into a real court where judges black robes are far
more likely to give us a fair hearing.
FACT: THERE WILL BE NO CROSSING INSTALLATION AT FARMDALE THIS WEEKEND
Also
regarding construction, much will be going on at Farmdale in
preparation of a variety of things unrelated to the railroad crossing.
The first of which will be installation of a new sewer line, which is
expected to begin on Monday and last at a minimum of two weeks.
NEXT MEETING
We're currently locking down a venue for
our next community meeting. We hope to send out a formal newsletter
tomorrow or Sunday with the date and location of the meeting so we can
bring people up to speed and explain our next steps.
