Jerry Brown Passes Buck on Troubled New Bay Bridge

"Who is responsible for the Bay Bridge?" I asked California Gov. Jerry Brown at a San Francisco Chronicle editorial board meeting in May.

Before Brown's 2010 election victory, which made him the boss of all Caltrans, Brown was the mayor of Oakland whose political posturing helped delay the retrofit of the eastern span of the Bay Bridge, made necessary after the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake knocked down a chunk of the span. It took 24 years and $5 billion more than the original budget for the state to complete the $6.4 billion span. Before the new span even opened, the retrofit needed a retrofit.

When pressed, the governor acknowledged he, too, is responsible. He added: "Life isn't perfect. ... Or as I once said, 's--- happens.'"

The engineers again were in the hot seat Tuesday when state Senate Transportation and Housing Committee Chairman Mark DeSaulnier presided over a hearing on the bungled Bay Bridge construction.

In addition to the Caltrans officials, there should have been a few Bay Area politicians on that panel, too. After the 1994 Northridge quake, GOP Gov. Pete Wilson and Los Angeles politicians brokered a deal that got needed bridge repairs done in 66 days.

Not so for the Bay Bridge. There was no sense of urgency among then-San Francisco Mayor Willie Brown or his colleagues in Oakland, Berkeley and Emeryville. They were so busy advocating bike paths, public-transit studies and a tony design that they allowed nine years to pass before a design was approved. The engineers were stuck with the thankless job of making it work -- and pronto, because they understood they had to beat the next...

They're still reeling over bad press. Last year, 32 of 96 key anchor rods cracked when tightened. Steel was left to stew in water. Professionals who voiced concerns -- about, say, cracks in welds -- claim they were punished. These errors are not the work of politicians.

I can't say the engineers dazzled on Tuesday. Caltrans suits repeatedly asserted that the new bridge is safe. State Transportation Agency Secretary Brian Kelly testified the new span is safer than the old structure "by at least a factor of two."

"It should be safe. And it should be a lot safer than the old bridge," DeSaulnier railed. "By a factor of two? That's still less than what we paid for."

DeSaulnier held the hearing to ask officials about a report his committee commissioned by former investigative reporter Roland De Wolk. (De Wolk is a friend of mine, but I had started writing on this fiasco long before DeSaulnier hired him.)

The De Wolk report named nine professionals who reported problems to higher-ups, for which they believed they were "gagged and banished."

Project head Tony Anziano told De Wolk that he transferred one by-the-book engineer because it's a mistake to go to war with a contractor. "It will cost you time; it will cost more money; and it will not resolve the problems that you are arguing about, ultimately." Given that the retrofit span already needs a retrofit, however, it would seem the whistle-blowers should have been rewarded, not marginalized.

There are other issues -- such as the Caltrans official who retired and then went to work for a quality assurance firm that won the Bay Bridge contract. His firm replaced a competitor who reported "hundreds of cracks" in deck welds, despite specifications that there be none.

The governor likes to portray himself as a tightwad who wants to get good value for taxpayer dollars. Yet Brown has been remarkably uncurious about the bad decisions that led to cost overruns. Regular commuters pay an extra $1,000 a year in higher tolls to pay for bridge work; Brown seems to be Zen with that. He just wishes the press would accept that post-construction glitches are part of nature.

The engineers are responsible? It so happens Neel Kashkari, Brown's Republican opponent in the November election, has two degrees in engineering. "The delays, the cost overruns, the fact that people were dissuaded or ignored," Kashkari told me, "all of those things speak to a culture of mismanagement."

Though the signature design made the 2.2-mile span more complicated than your average bridge, its glitch-rich rollout does not bode well for California's $68 billion high-speed rail project, which Brown hopes will seal his legacy as a visionary.

Kashkari calls high-speed rail the "crazy train" and wants to stop it: "Can you imagine the complexities, the cost overruns, the mismanagement if they actually try to build a 400-mile train?"

Whenever left wing politicians like the Brown brothers get their hands into any project, they get money under the table and put their chronies into power to divide up more money.

“In addition to the Caltrans officials, there should have been a few Bay Area politicians on that panel, too. After the 1994 Northridge quake, GOP Gov. Pete Wilson and Los Angeles politicians brokered a deal that got needed bridge repairs done in 66 days.

Not so for the Bay Bridge. There was no sense of urgency among then-San Francisco Mayor Willie Brown or his colleagues in Oakland, Berkeley and Emeryville. They were so busy advocating bike paths, public-transit studies and a tony design that they allowed nine years to pass before a design was approved. The engineers were stuck with the thankless job of making it work — and pronto, because they understood they had to beat the next big one...”

This is just another example of the two critical ways we need to look at anything liberals are involved in:

1. Cui Bono or who benefits when bs surrounds and coversup shroud their overt or covert actions with anything with libs in control of..

2. Follow the money after #1.

The Left's Dark Money Managers: Meet Philip Gara LaMarche
Townhall.com ^ | July 23, 2014 | Michelle Malkin / FR Posted by Kaslin

Philip Gara LaMarche is a secretive political operative who funnels billions of dollars from undisclosed donors to nonprofits and astroturf groups. But you won't hear unhinged Harry Reid railing Queegishly about him on the Senate floor. Why?

Here's why: LaMarche is a militant leftist philanthropist. He's a protected elite -- Columbia University grad, former ACLU leader and Human Rights Watch official -- with ready access to the White House. He and the left's other dark money managers preach transparency and openness, while plotting behind closed doors to secure power at every level of government.

LaMarche currently heads the shadowy Democracy Alliance (DA). In internal documents obtained and published this month by John Hinderaker of the Power Line blog, the group currently describes itself as the "center of gravity" for the progressive funding world.

DA enrolls wealthy liberal "members" who coordinate and finance a web of at least 132 left-wing groups. Though some of their members' and partners' identities have been exposed, DA takes great care to promise a cloak of donor secrecy "to provide a comfortable environment for our partners to collectively make a real impact."

While they bash Wall Street publicly, DA leaders have quietly recruited venture capitalists, bankers and hedge fund moguls -- along with union bosses and red-diaper trust fund babies -- to fund their takeover goals. Public school educators who belong to the American Federation of Teachers, headed by $500,000-plus yearly salaried President Randi Weingarten, should know that $230,000 of their hard-earned union dues go to DA, as Lachlan Markay of the Washington Free Beacon has reported.

While they bemoan "income inequality," DA brass have wined, dined and wooed 1-percenter plutocrats with swanky get- togethers featuring New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio, Kentucky Secretary of State and Democratic Senate candidate Alison Grimes, and popular "comediennes" Stephanie Miller and Lizz Winstead.

"Over the past nine years," the organization brags to potential contributors, DA has "aligned leaders in the progressive movement and political infrastructure" to "achieve victories at the ballot box and in policy fights." Their agenda spans "social justice," "climate change," "voting rights," gun control, illegal alien amnesty, campaign finance and sustained "strategic investment" to turn red states blue.

That's exactly what DA members Jared Polis and Tim Gill succeeded in doing in once-GOP-dominated Colorado in 2008.

LaMarche previously served as president and CEO of The Atlantic Philanthropies. As I first reported five years ago, that entity was offshore----a Bermuda-based political front stocked with acolytes of progressive billionaire George Soros. The "charity" run by LaMarche dumped some $40 million to help fund the astroturf Health Care for America Now group. As the tax disclaimer for HCAN discloses, "HCAN is related to Health Care for America Education Fund, a project of The Tides Center, a section 501(c)(3) public charity."

The Tides Center and its parent organization, the Tides Foundation, in turn have seeded some of the country's most radical activist groups of the left, including the communist-friendly United for Peace and Justice, the jihadist-friendly National Lawyers Guild and the grievance-mongering Council on American-Islamic Relations.

The faux populist HCAN, coordinated from 1825 K Street, provided invaluable ground and air support to reinforce Democratic messaging on Obamacare. LaMarche met with Valerie Jarrett for hours-long meetings on at least two disclosed occasions before the health care juggernaut's passage. By November 2009, he had visited the White House nine times.

I checked the most updated White House visitor logs (as incomplete and shoddy as they are). LaMarche has tripled his visits over the past five years. He is listed 23 times (21 under "Philip G. LaMarche" or "Philip LaMarche" and twice under "Gara LaMarche"). LaMarche also donated $18 million through The Atlantic Philanthropies to a Chicago charity headed by Valerie Jarrett.

Friend of Barack and Val. Bagman for Soros. Community organizer for progressive billionaires. Chances are, LaMarche and his operators have affected you, your statehouses, your businesses and your freedom, no matter where you live. Know your enemies.####

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