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Say, remember my post on how I was not supporting the state proposition 1A calling for High Speed Rail because the route did not come through Oakland as I worked to have done when I represented then-Mayor Elihu Harris?   Well, I waa able to partcipate in a debate on the matter at The Commonwealth Club's SF Debate program Tuesday night, and where the prop started out with more yes votes than no votes.  But after my insistance that it was not the right plan and that there were CalTrain plans that were rejected for no good reason , the initiative lost 10 to 7 with a number of undecided observers. The basic problem is that the plan is the plaything of politics -- whoever cries the loudest gets the route and that trumps a system that rightly serves the state in way where poor communities are represented. But what bothered me was the claim by a supporter involved in the project that Oakland's Ron Dellums and staff had done nothing to argue for Oakland. What the hell were...

California High Speed Rail Authority Bypasses Oakland After My Work to Avoid This California High Speed Rail , an issue I birddogged for Elihu Harris when he was Mayor of Oakland, is still alive and kicking. One of my major objectives was making sure Oakland was not bypassed in the formation of the route; something I also warned Oakland Mayor Jerry Brown about when he took office in late 1998. At the time I encouraged Mayor Harris to hand off the issue to Jerry Brown, which led to the pair arriving at a "Mayor's meeting" to advocate for Oakland's inclusion in the route system. In 1997, I successfully pushed for this article to be developed and ran in the SF Chronicle, to get the "Oakland View" in the public eye. At the time, Mayor Harris didn't believe the system would ever be funded, and so viewed it as a lost cause. But I argued that we could not afford to take a chance on that outcome and that at least Oakland should be considered. Mayor Harr...