anaheim mayor kurt pringle was appointed to the border by governor schwarzenegger. he took over as chairman one year ago and has helped us usher in a new phase, winning the largest share of federal act funds in the country, hiring a new ceo, and moving the plan to implementation. he is a former speaker of the california state assembly and had been the mayor of anaheim since 2002, which to the south of where we are today, is where the rail system will terminate. mayor pringle. [applause] >> thank you. i did notice willie brown showed up when i came to the podium. [laughter] mr. mayor, it is so nice to be in your city. as you are getting ready to break ground on this project, i, too, and looking for to breaking ground on a major transit center. major new some, i do not believe that that is the only similarity we share. we are both committed to delivering a high speed rail system to california. this breaking of brown them in great -- demonstrates the breaking of that system. in anaheim, we will break ground next here on our regional intermodal train that center. this t

anaheim mayor kurt pringle, thank you. i think you know how much we enjoyed working with you. the mayor has put everything in perspective for us, including the role of willie brown, the approximate time of his arrival. [laughter] we are so proud of our major. he understands what we need in this community and has taken us to where we are today. when the secretary talked about me calling him regularly, that is because that phone call follows a regular call that i received from john burton. how is it coming? and this is a priority for us. let me talk about secretary lahood. he has been a colleague to many of us in the congress for a little while. when he became the secretary of transportation, it was no surprise to us he shared a representation of illinois with the president, served as a great leader on the transportation and infrastructure committee. we knew full well his knowledge of the issues, the possibility and opportunity for the future. he knew about infrastructure in transportation being job creators, improving the quality of life, the air we breathed, lowering the amoun