This beauty contest is going to make more noise than a Q & A with Carrie Prejean.
It has to. There's more at stake than a tiara.
The city that lands the High-Speed Rail Heavy Maintenance Facility gets at least $1 billion in yearly economic impact and 1,500 jobs.
Who will it be -- Bakersfield, Chowchilla, Fresno, Merced or some other San Joaquin Valley city?
"I really believe it's ours to lose," says Fresno County Supervisor Henry R. Perea.
I'd really like to believe him.
Fresno has the land, work force and transportation network to satisfy California's High-Speed Rail Authority.
But in the Valley's last great beauty contest, Merced won the University of California campus.
Fresno's consolation prize was the title of Miss Disorganized and Lacking Congeniality.
Already, there are warning signs that Fresno might not have its act together. Disagreements are brewing about how to pay for 154 acres of land for the facility, which would be built in southern Fresno County.
Elected officials are looking to tap the $1.7 billion Measure C transportation tax extension approved by voters in 2006. I don't blame them. With the county struggling to provide basic services, Measure C might be the main source.
The rub is, Measure C promised money to a lot of transportation projects -- including rail consolidation and rapid transit. Backers of these efforts don't want to share funding or move to the back of the line.
But this isn't a time to be inflexible and focused on turf protection. Fresno needs to galvanize and put together the best possible bid. We must learn from past mistakes and acknowledge the devastating cost of infighting.
Smart choices now will pay off later. The maintenance depot's economic punch eventually could fatten the Measure C account. Having this vital part of the high-speed rail system in Fresno certainly would diversify our economy and provide attractive jobs for engineers, mechanics and office workers.
I'm all for transparency and hearing from everyone. But the deadline for assembling Fresno's offer already is near (Jan. 15). It's imperative that stakeholders be innovative and quickly settle their differences.
Let's concentrate on what's possible -- and the rewards of success -- instead of picking ideas to pieces. The magnitude of the stakes is illuminated by the fact that city and county officials, for once, are working together -- with the county taking the lead on the bid.
Many hurdles, including environmental review, must be cleared to win this competition, which will be nearly as intense as the UC derby was in the mid-1990s.
Fresno might not win this time, either.
But we need to give it our best shot -- not shoot ourselves down.
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