California high-speed rail CEO steps down amid travel expenses scandal

Here we are in the final days ahead of the midterm election. Ashley Zavala, host of our political show, California Politics 360, joins me now live. And this summer, the legislature gave counties $34 million, Ashley, to speed up processing elections. So how exactly is that money being used? Yeah, that's a question we're posing this week on the show in a special report. We sent out a survey to all 58 counties in California to figure out how exactly they used that money and how much they got. This money was really meant to provide for more staffing, better equipment. Other technical needs that these counties might have to speed up the count again because California lawmakers and the governor were frustrated by the pace of this past election and in previous elections. So this week on the show, we give a breakdown of which counties got the most money again, how they're using it. And we're also posing the biggest question. Will it actually speed up the results? I'll let the report speak for itself this Sunday. Okay, looking forward to that. Also, you sat down with every candidate running for statewide office. Boy, that was not an easy task. New polls show that Javier Becerra has a wide lead in the race for governor. We just reported on that polling. So what specifics has he provided on how he would lead the state if, in fact, he's elected? We should note that we started that venture of trying to get every candidate on California Politics 360 back in July, like right after the June primary was wrapped up. That invitation was extended to the candidate for governor, Javier Becerra, the Democrat, really leading in those polls. We did get him in this final week leading up to the election. And really, that was the main focus of this interview. His team really only gave us about 10 minutes with him. So I wanted to drill down on the specifics. The specifics and the... The issues that he's going to actually face, not hypothetically, but will actually face this first year in office. Just off the top, I'll tell you that there are some taxes that are on the table for him. While he doesn't support Prop 40, for example, he does say that he will support and will try to push an income tax on the wealthiest residents in California. We get into other potential fees that drivers could pay, that major corporations could pay under a Governor Becerra. He also talks about some of his transparency efforts. You know, one big example is the high speed rail. I mean, he really signaled that he's going to shake up that project, that he believes in the California bullet train, that original vision, San Francisco to Los Angeles. But he really feels like it cannot happen with the people that are in place right now on this project. OK, well, speaking of that project, the CEO, Ian Chowdhury, just stepped down this week. So who is taking over in the interim and what concerns still remain that this new leader will have to figure out here? Yeah, with Ian Chowdhury stepping down, I mean, the Newsom administration really had Joe Steffenshaw waiting in the wings for this position, really an abrupt move. Joe Steffenshaw has been leading the California Department of Finance, the person that is, I mean. Intimately involved in proposing the state budget, helping the governor sort through all of the state's very complicated money situations across all departments. So this is someone who is an expert at financing, at accounting, that needs to be good with numbers, that needs to be able to get into details. And that's really what the Newsom administration and the High Speed Rail Authority Board signaled that they needed right now in this moment. They have full confidence in him, at least in the interim, because again... A Governor Becerra could come in or a Governor Steve Hilton could come in and decide to really completely, entirely scrap the leadership on this project. So for now, it'll be Joe Steffenshaw. Also, I mean, aside from Joe Steffenshaw taking this position and he starts on Tuesday, we do know the Inspector General of the High Speed Rail is tasked with an investigation right now, still related to the former CEO, Ian Chaudhry. His relationship with KPMG, which has been serving as a legal consulting firm on this project and just some of the money associated with KPMG, the contracts that were approved for KPMG. And aside from that, he's also got other audits and investigations in the works. He has not said what exactly, but those are supposed to come out in a matter of months. So we will see potentially more information coming out about this project that could be upsetting to voters. Yeah. All right. Really appreciate it. A huge project and already so much money, money spent. Really appreciate it. Thank you. And you can catch the full episode of California Politics 360 on Sunday nights at 1130 right here on KTVU Fox 2.