Hi All. It’s politics as usual in the Bay Area. Here is an article from the Contra Costa Times on Tue, Feb. 05, 2002. It is rather long, but well worth reading. Maybe with a little luck that asteroid may hit the Bay Area in 2019 and put an end to all of this stupidity. Take Care…Don the disgusted one

Bridge work begins, questions remain
By Lisa Vorderbrueggen and Thomas Peele
CONTRA COSTA TIMES

When a Caltrans official opened bids last month for the new eastern span of the Bay Bridge, he glanced at the dollar figures and then brought a hand up to his forehead as his eyes rolled.

The low bid came in 30 percent over estimates. His expression seemed to ask, "What else can go wrong?"

So much already has.

It took the United States less time to answer President Kennedy's challenge to put a man on the moon -- eight years, one month, 26 days -- than it took Caltrans to sink a single test piling for the new bridge after the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake: 10 years, 11 months, 29 days.

A Times investigation of the delays reveals a pivotal turn in 1998, when San Francisco Mayor Willie L. Brown Jr. and others promoting the city's development of former Navy property on Yerba Buena Island attacked the new bridge's design and alignment.

Those assaults carried on for two years and cost taxpayers hundreds of millions of dollars in supplemental studies and inflationary costs. They ended only after White House intervention.

• Bridge