It would give the inspector general the purchase authority and job classifications he says he needs to hold the High-Speed Rail Authority accountable.
Page F3From§Eachthe midnight edition — 3 October 2026
California rail watchdog finds consultants' nightclub tab, is denied the power to find the next one
Purchase authority. Job classifications. That is the whole of it — the whole of what California's high-speed rail inspector general asked for, mind you; not subpoenas, not penalties, not one power to punish anybody, simply the authority to buy what an audit needs and to hire the grades of staff who perform one. The request sat in Sacramento through the summer. Then September: the inspector general found the Authority had violated state contract rules. Escape room visits. Nightclub outings, for consultants. You are thinking the finding settles the pending request ... and on the third of October the request was vetoed. Vetoed — not amended, not trimmed, not returned with a note; refused entire. Nothing was broken here. A proposal arriving in two severable parts invites two answers, and a man entitled to give two answers gave them both. The price: a watchdog with the finding, and no means to staff the desk that found it.
The shepherd feeds the dog thin. At night, the gate stands open.
“They tell you the rail budget climbs because big projects cost big money, and then the inspector general opens the books and finds escape rooms and nightclub outings for the consultants. The one office that caught it asked for purchasing power and job slots — buy the tools, hire the auditors — and the governor said no while signing the part critics called the anti-transparency bill. That is not oversight failing, that is oversight getting its hands tied in daylight, and you are paying for the train and the club tab both.”
“This is a purchasing and job-classification measure, that is human resources, that is not transparency — did I say transparency? That does not sound like me. The governor signed the oversight bill, by the way. He signed a part of it. The inspector general still files reports, nobody is stopping anybody from filing reports, and frankly an escape room is a team-building expense, which is exactly the kind of thing a report would cover, which he can still write.”
Earlier in this story
- ICE shoots man, charges him with assaulting the shooter, keeps access to school bus stops this week. By Sal · the supper edition, 2 October 2026
- ICE shoots man, charges him with assaulting the officer who shot him, removes the bullet eleven days later. By Sal · the early bird edition, 2 October 2026
The receipts
· Newsom may veto bill giving California high-speed rail watchdog more power, sources say from the morgue, 18 Aug 2026
· Will Gov. Newsom veto the high-speed rail oversight bill that his own watchdog calls essential? from the morgue, 8 Sep 2026
· California high-speed rail is paying for nightclub outings for consultants from the morgue, 16 Sep 2026
This page is a back-issue: the story as it ran, receipts as they were. The current edition is at the front. The byline is a pen name for a column drafted by a machine and checked by the editor: how this is made.