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<\/a><\/p>\nNewsom brought Kawa on as his chief of staff<\/a> in 2003 when he was mayor of San Francisco. Politico in 2024<\/a> described Jason Elliott as the governor\u2019s \u201cclosest and longest-serving adviser.\u201d<\/p>\n Deputy Communications Director Anthony Martinez, with Newsom\u2019s office, said the two have extensive experience in major projects. Martinez described Kawa and Elliott as \u201ctrusted advisers and innovative leaders who combined bring over 50 years of experience navigating large-scale projects through demanding political and fiscal landscapes.\u201d<\/p>\n Richards Helped Create 16,000 HSR Jobs: Costa<\/p>\n High-Speed Rail CEO Ian Choudri said the program is transitioning \u201cfrom major civil construction into track laying and rail system delivery.\u201d He thanked Richards and Miller for their service.<\/p>\n \u201cTheir stewardship helped guide the Authority through a critical period of progress and positioned the program for the next phase of delivery and expansion,\u201d Choudri said in a statement Friday.<\/p>\n Rep. Jim Costa, D-Fresno, is a leading high-speed rail advocate. He said that Richards\u2019 \u201ccritical role\u201d helped advance one of the region\u2019s \u201cmost transformational infrastructure projects.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cTom Richards provided the tenacious leadership to help create more than 16,000 jobs, strengthen local economies, and advance the next level of high-speed passenger rail service for California,\u201d Costa said in a statement.<\/p>\n Merced Station Relocation, HSR Private Investment<\/p>\n Former Fresno County Supervisor Henry Perea, who sits on the authority board, credited Richards with hiring Choudri and helping the agency turn a financial corner.<\/p>\n \u201cThere\u2019s no question that it was under his guidance that we initiated a very aggressive recruitment and secured our current CEO as a new leader who brought an entirely new vision to high-speed rail, and that just didn\u2019t happen by accident,\u201d Perea said.<\/p>\n Perea said the project has begun attracting private investors and in June, discussions will begin about those investments.<\/p>\n He said between Choudri and Richards, they\u2019ve helped bring costs down. One discussion involved relocating the Merced station from the downtown area to an area closer to UC Merced, potentially saving $1 billion, Perea said.<\/p>\n Under Choudri, the authority allocated $500 million to begin buying its own materials to lay track rather than relying on contractors who would buy at a premium.<\/p>\n \u201cA lot of this happened because of the vision that Tom (Richards) and Ian (Choudri) were able to put together,\u201d Perea said.<\/p>\n $231 Billion to Run Train from San Francisco to LA<\/p>\n The announcement comes as the authority\u2019s latest cost projections peg completion costs of a San Francisco to Los Angeles route at $231 billion, a stark departure from the original $33 billion estimate presented to voters in 2008.<\/p>\n At the same time, Assembly Bill 1608 would give the Office of the Inspector General the power to keep spending audits confidential.<\/p>\n A vocal critic of the project, Assemblymember Alexandra Macedo, R-Tulare, said the bill is about \u201cprotecting the governor and the High-Speed Rail Authority from embarrassment.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cBy sharing confidential audits only with committee chairs while excluding vice chairs, the majority party is making oversight a partisan privilege,\u201d Macedo said in a statement. \u201cPreventing the misuse and abuse of taxpayer dollars should be a bipartisan mission.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A sudden change at the High-Speed Rail Authority board means the end of prominent Fresno developer Tom Richards\u2019…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":310851,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[31],"tags":[112,114,113],"class_list":["post-310850","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-fresno","tag-fresno","tag-fresno-headlines","tag-fresno-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/310850","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=310850"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/310850\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/310851"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=310850"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=310850"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=310850"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}