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Goldman Sachs, the NCRA and Humboldt Bay
Author: bit
Date: 06-16-2008 - 14:45
http://www.northcoastjournal.com/issues/2008/05/29/nice-be-nice/
"The Goldman Sachs deal is a more solid bet: in the first place because it comes from a private party, and in the second because it is so airy. Its main service to the Bay District at this point is the service that a binky provides to a 10-month-old — assurance that the shadows in the hall in the big, scary world are nothing but illusion, and everything is as they imagine it to be. The deal, apparently, is that the Goldman Sachs people will set out to pitch Humboldt Bay shipping and the North Coast Railroad Authority’s decrepit line to investors, and will then put up for auction a “concession” consisting of the assets of these two public entities. In return, Goldman Sachs gets a cut of the action. It envisions that the 10-years-dead railroad and Humboldt Bay’s never-existed container facility will be up and running in three years’ time, according to those agencies’ official yet entirely imaginary timelines. But the deal, as it stands, contains no benchmarks, no escape clauses.
Nevertheless, this is a game-changer. To date, the scandal of the railroad/port dreamers has been their utter failure to look facts in the face — to develop any sort of coherent answer to what you and I might think of as key questions. What does it cost to rebuild 300 miles of washed-out railroad running through the most unstable terrain in the lower 48? Where will the money come from? How will it be recouped? What happens when the railroad washes out again, as it has just about every year throughout its history? How will environmental opposition be overcome? How will opposition from Marin County be overcome? Why would anyone pay extra money to ship Asian goods into Humboldt County, offload them onto Mr. Toad’s Wild Ride, and wait a couple of days for them to (possibly) arrive in the Bay Area, location of one of the greatest natural harbors on Earth? These questions have been answered with shrugged shoulders, despite the fact that mountains of local public policy depend upon them.
This is just incompetence, the lowest form of scandal. What you’re going to get now is a creature with a different coat. Out of the hands of buffoons and into the hands of sharpies. The questions above still need to be answered. Looking into my crystal ball, I foresee that someone, somewhere is going to get royally screwed. Smart money is on the public."
"The Goldman Sachs deal is a more solid bet: in the first place because it comes from a private party, and in the second because it is so airy. Its main service to the Bay District at this point is the service that a binky provides to a 10-month-old — assurance that the shadows in the hall in the big, scary world are nothing but illusion, and everything is as they imagine it to be. The deal, apparently, is that the Goldman Sachs people will set out to pitch Humboldt Bay shipping and the North Coast Railroad Authority’s decrepit line to investors, and will then put up for auction a “concession” consisting of the assets of these two public entities. In return, Goldman Sachs gets a cut of the action. It envisions that the 10-years-dead railroad and Humboldt Bay’s never-existed container facility will be up and running in three years’ time, according to those agencies’ official yet entirely imaginary timelines. But the deal, as it stands, contains no benchmarks, no escape clauses.
Nevertheless, this is a game-changer. To date, the scandal of the railroad/port dreamers has been their utter failure to look facts in the face — to develop any sort of coherent answer to what you and I might think of as key questions. What does it cost to rebuild 300 miles of washed-out railroad running through the most unstable terrain in the lower 48? Where will the money come from? How will it be recouped? What happens when the railroad washes out again, as it has just about every year throughout its history? How will environmental opposition be overcome? How will opposition from Marin County be overcome? Why would anyone pay extra money to ship Asian goods into Humboldt County, offload them onto Mr. Toad’s Wild Ride, and wait a couple of days for them to (possibly) arrive in the Bay Area, location of one of the greatest natural harbors on Earth? These questions have been answered with shrugged shoulders, despite the fact that mountains of local public policy depend upon them.
This is just incompetence, the lowest form of scandal. What you’re going to get now is a creature with a different coat. Out of the hands of buffoons and into the hands of sharpies. The questions above still need to be answered. Looking into my crystal ball, I foresee that someone, somewhere is going to get royally screwed. Smart money is on the public."
Goldman Sachs, the NCRA and Humboldt Bay