First off, Dan Zukowski has some very informative articles about Amtrak. It’s particularly funny listening to Mineta say that the Bush administration wants to support Amtrak. After they proposed $0 for it in their most recent budget proposal, saying that bankrupting Amtrak would be a good thing. Hmm. Doublespeek seems to be in vogue these days.
I’ve watched about half of this week’s 4-hour hearing about Amtrak governance. One very interesting thing about it is that the Amtrak board, which fired David Gunn, may not have had a quorom for months, or even years, including the meeting where they fired Gunn.
Secretary of Transportation Mineta, who holds a seat on the Amtrak Board, appears to have never actually attended an Amtrak Board meeting.
I wonder what will come out next about all this…
Believe me- the lame AMTRAK board would have been NO better, made NO more sense, or done ANYTHING better had Mr. Mineta choosen to attend any of its meetings. He just never got around to doing the AMTRAK appropriations budget this year… “Budget – what budget ?”