DIANNE FEINSTEIN'S HUSBAND BAGS HIGH-SPEED RAIL CONSTRUCTION CONTR

[DET63]

Sen. Diane Feinstein’s husband Richard Blum won a construction contract for California’s high-speed rail project, reports the California Political Review.

Author Laer Pearce says Perini-Zachary-Parsons, a construction group partially owned by Blum’s investment firm, Blum Capital, and their investors, bagged the nearly billion dollar contract:
The Perini-Zachary-Parsons bid was the lowest received from the five consortia participating in the bidding process, but ‘low’ is a relative term. The firms bid $985,142,530 to build the wildly anticipated first section of high speed rail track that will tie the megopolis [sic] of Madera to the global finance center of Fresno. Do the division, and you find that the low bid came in at a mere $35 million per mile.

Link

 

[Bob Dylan]

I'm Shocked! Shocked! that an Insider got the Contract!" ..Meanwhile Life goes on All Around You.." and "The Beat Goes Onl!"

 

[Ryan]

I'm finding it utterly impossible to care about.

 

[George Harris]

Let's not forget that this 28 miles or so of railroad is not the whole thing. In this price is also a little over 3 miles of 6 lane freeway and a couple of interchanges. That is about 300 million. That is a good bit more per mile, by about a factor of 10 per mile than the railroad.

 

[AlanB]

That story is just so much noise, no doubt designed to turn people against HSR. The original paper that published that story later issued a retraction when they couldn't find any ongoing relationship between Feinsteins' husband and the firm given the contract.

Update (04.28.13): We can NOT determine if Richard Blum held a titled corporate position or was ever a member of Tutor Perini’s Board of Directors. After an LA Times writer left a comment here, we did further diligence and contacted the writer of the National Black Chamber of Commerce story linked above. He did not return an email, but we did speak with Mr. Weikel, the Times reporter who was able to tell us that Blum divested his considerable shares in TPC (an NYSE-traded firm) between 2005 and 2006. We can not determine if he still owns any shares in the company, and it appears from close examination of their 2011 Annual Report that he no longer has a formal relationship with them.

Update (05.05.13): UTSanDiego.com has confirmed the current non-relationship between Richard Blum and Tutor Perini today:Feinstein denies husband’s ties to rail bidder.

http://ocpoliticsblog.com/mr-difis-firm-benefits-from-hsr-bid-rules-change/

 

[Ryan]

Too bad most of the people up in arms about it won't bother to take note of the retraction.

Who needs facts when you can make up your own reality?

 

[jis]

It is also likely that many of those up in arms are predisposed to be so. So as far as they go, it wouldn't matter what they read or not. They are likely to filter out anything that does not align with their theory of life.