The HSR25-89 Track and Systems Construction Contract (TSCC), valued at $3.5 billion, was announced in November 2025, eventually attracting two bidders:
The proposal from Kiewit was analyzed and scored as it should have been. But CHSP were summarily disqualified instead. The reason? One member of CHCP's proposed personnel lacked a valid California Professional Engineer license! The fact that the individual was recognized internationally as a Chartered Engineer (CEng) was deemed irrelevant.
This deficiency could have easily been remedied by CHSP or waived by the Authority as being immaterial. The Authority refused to waive the requirement (even though it had issued three identical waivers for other key personnel roles one month earlier). Nor did CHSRA give CHCP sufficient time to rectify the situation (e.g., by hiring someone with the appropriate credentials). The protest filed by CHSP was dismissed one business day before the contract was awarded to Kiewit.
As a result of these shenanigans, the Board of Directors had to contend with having a "single bidder" for a $3.5 billion contract, which effectively became a single-source procurement. One can only wonder how much additional cost was thrown on the taxpayers' shoulders as a result of the Authority's abysmal "stewardship" of public assets.
Indeed, many Board members expressed profound unease about this - before unanimously awarding the contract to Kiewit anyway.
In my forever-expanding treasure trove of documents pertaining to the HSR25-89 contract, the following two succintly capture the gist of the issue:
The preceding links are to the original, unaltered files. The ones below are for "critical editions" annotated in red by yours truly:
For the multimedia-inclined, I have also provided the following: