Sen. Kevin DeLeón, the soon-to-be leader of the California Senate, raised eyebrows throughout the San Joaquin Valley recently with disparaging-sounding remarks about the state’s controversial high-speed rail project.
“I don’t think it makes sense to lay down track in the middle of nowhere,” DeLeón was quoted as saying. The column added that DeLeón “supports the concept of high-speed rail, but with the caveat that track-laying begin in the Los Angeles and San Francisco areas.”
His Valley colleagues in the Senate, meanwhile, say they’re inclined to cut him some slack — and work to make sure he understands that there is more to the region than tumbleweeds.
“Folks say stuff every once in a while they’d like to take back,” said Sen. Andy Vidak, R-Hanford. “I totally understand that … But he’s going to have to get an education now, that’s for sure.”
“I know he’s sorry it came out that way and didn’t intend to insult the Valley,” Dan Reeves, DeLeón’s chief of staff, wrote in an email response to inquiries from The Bee.
http://www.fresnobee.com/2014/07/02/4007991/la-senator-clarifies-valley-tumbleweeds.html