April 10, 1997
Jonathan L. Carter, Chairman
Northern New England
Passenger Rail Authority
208 Sanford Road - Rte. 109
Wells, ME 04090
Dear Jonathan:
I appreciate your quick response to our motion. We understand that you and the current members of the NNEPRA Board did not directly participate in any of the negotiations between Guilford, Amtrak and the State of Maine. However, throughout those negotiations, which have now spanned five years, your representative, Mike Murray, and/or your counsel, Nat Rosenblatt, participated in every meeting, received copies of all draft agreements and supporting memoranda and contributed to every discussion at the negotiating table. Those discussions were firmly grounded in the mutual understanding that our final agreement would reflect the requirements of the applicable statute, which requires Amtrak to pay Guilford for incremental costs associated with the presence of the service on our rail line. Mike and Nat were a part of that understanding. They were at the table on July 27, 1995 when the final sticking points of our agreement with Amtrak were resolved. They were copied on the internal Amtrak memorandum which acknowledged that agreement. In short, the State, including NNEPRA, has been an informed and active participant at all stages of these proceedings.
Your enumerated concerns are strictly economic and have nothing to do with the applicable law. We will address them through the STB process rather than in this letter. However, I must voice my own disappointment and the disappointment of our company over the behavior of NNEPRA and the State of Maine. Through the many years that Guilford has worked and invested in Maine, we have come to believe that the State and its people possess not just a strong work ethic but above all a sense of responsibility and honor. In other words, their word was good enough and a handshake was a bond to be lived up to. Throughout the negotiations your staff worked with Amtrak and us to create detailed language, formulas and dollar figures reflecting our agreements on the treatment of maintenance costs and indemnification. They did that after lengthy discussions regarding the concept of what constituted incremental cost as required by the statute. On July 27, 1995, Maine, Amtrak and Guilford made an agreement. Today we appear to be the only party at the table willing to honor our commitment. While we have come to expect such behavior from Amtrak, we are disappointed by the course chosen by NNEPRA and the State of Maine. Rather than require Amtrak to honor its commitments, as expressed in the 1995 Agreement, NNEPRA has now aligned itself with Amtrak for the purpose of avoiding our negotiated terms in favor of Amtrak's new "requirements", not because they reflect the requirements of the law (they do not), but because NNEPRA now apparently sees the opportunity to shift maintenance and liability costs away from Amtrak/NNEPRA and on to Guilford. NNEPRA has never been financially capable of meeting those substantial financial obligations. NNEPRA was established as a shell to protect the State of Maine from what the State recognized as the very real and substantial financial responsibilities that accompanied both the decision to accept federal money and the actual operation of a passenger service. It is now clear that NNEPRA is no longer content to act as just a shield for the State, but has decided to act as a shill for Amtrak in its campaign to improperly shift those liabilities to Guilford. This may also serve to explain our longstanding question of why, since its inception in 1995, NNEPRA has never once asked, nor responded to our suggestions, that we meet with the NNEPRA Board to discuss the service.
That having been said, I must also take exception with your position that by seeking to have the STB impose the 1995 Agreement that we are somehow trying to slow down the process of bringing passenger service back to Maine. I can only surmise that this assertion is based on a lack of familiarity with both the content of our motion and the history of negotiations between 1992 and 1996. Throughout this five year process I can only remember one instance when our company took more than two weeks to provide Amtrak and State of Maine with requested drafts or memos. Such matters were routinely handled within a day or two. In contrast, I can remember many times when Amtrak's response time could be measured in months, if they responded at all. At no time have we sought to delay the process of seeking an agreement; to the contrary, we sought to expedite it. It is now six months since your Board voted to ask Amtrak to submit items in dispute to the Surface Transportation Board and they have yet to make any substantive filings. In contrast, our company submitted its detailed motion within days of Amtrak's opening this proceeding. Our motion would advance the initiation of passenger service by at least a year. To accuse us of creating delay is, quite frankly, laughable.
Our motion is not about "turning the clock back to July 1995". It is about writing and honoring an agreement that reflects the requirements of the law. We did that, and while it may sound old fashioned, my staff and I continue to believe that when you look
someone in the eye, shake hands and say we have an agreement, then we have an agreement.
Finally, Amtrak's President, the Government Accounting Office and many others have stated publicly and testified before Congress to the effect that Amtrak does not have sufficient resources to operate it's existing system through the rest of this year. It is a fact that they are borrowing from a line of credit to meet their payroll obligations. Congress has just appointed a "Blue Ribbon Committee" to determine if the organization can even survive and, if so, in what form. If NNEPRA's goal is the long term restoration of passenger service to Maine, Amtrak's own testimony raises serious questions about the company's ability to meet its short-term, much less its long-term obligations to Maine. We stand ready to work with you and provide you with the service you desire in accordance with the requirements of the law.
Sincerely,
F. Colin Pease
Executive Vice President
cc: Governor Angus S. King, Jr.
cc: Commissioner John G. Melrose