Fresno’s High-Speed Rail chairman leaves board, Newsom adds 2 former staffers from Bay Area
AI-generated summary reviewed by our newsroom.
- Board chair Tom Richards, of Fresno, and Nancy Miller, of Sacramento, stepped down.
- Newsom appointed ‘trusted advisers’ Stephen Kawa and Jason Elliott to rail board.
- Richards says commitment to the Valley remains, but project must progress outward.
Gov. Gavin Newsom is replacing two California High-Speed Rail Authority board members from the Central Valley with two of his former staffers from the Bay Area, allies who might help persuade state lawmakers to let the authority build toward San Francisco as they lay tracks on the initial route through Fresno.
Newsom announced Friday that he’s chosen Stephen Kawa, of Cloverdale, and Jason Elliott, of San Francisco, to take the place of Fresno’s Tom Richards and Sacramento’s Nancy Miller, who were chair and vice chair of the board, respectively.
The governor’s office has described Kawa and Elliott as “trusted advisors” who have experience advancing major projects through “demanding political and fiscal landscapes.” Friday’s announcement touted their past work under politicians, including Newsom when he was mayor of San Francisco.
Their appointments come at a pivotal moment for a project first approved by California voters in 2008 and that has so far cost about $15 billion.
The rail authority says it’s now on pace to lay the train’s first tracks by December in the Central Valley, the region prioritized for construction and spending by state law. It’s also planning to approve a co-development agreement with the private sector this year, though investors are likely to want to use their money to build the more profitable routes toward Los Angeles and the Bay Area before construction is complete in the Central Valley.
That would require the approval of California’s Legislature, as would several other moves rail authority CEO Ian Choudri says are necessary to cut costs, tighten construction schedules and build out the originally-envisioned Los Angeles-to-San Francisco system.
As he thanked Richards and Miller for their service, Choudri also noted the project is transitioning from “major civil construction into track-laying and rail system delivery.”
“Their stewardship helped guide the Authority through a critical period of progress and positioned the program for the next phase of delivery and expansion,” Choudri said in a statement.
Ex-rail board chair from Fresno says project’s Valley commitment remains
The governor has the authority to appoint five of the nine members on the rail board. Miller did not respond Monday to The Fresno Bee’s request for comment, but Richards said he decided to step down.
He was first appointed to the board in 2010. The real estate investor said he has simultaneously run his business in Fresno.
“I don’t know that there’s ever a right time when you really dedicated to something, but it’s been 15 and a half years,” Richards said.
Though the new board members are both from the Bay Area, Richards said there is “no movement toward eliminating or reducing the commitment to the Central Valley.”
“That doesn’t mean you can’t work on other aspects of the project,” he said. “The key to this project is to connect the population centers of California through the Central Valley.”
Board member Henry Perea, also from Fresno, told The Bee “there’s no change” to the Valley commitment, but added that it’s time to start figuring out where the project will connect to from there.
“A big part of that is just going to be working with the private sector,” he said.
Perea credited Richards for leading the rail authority to hire Choudri in 2024 and for making decisions that saved more money than under past leaders.
“We’re using the money we receive in the best way possible,” Perea said. “I give kudos to Tom Richards for making sure that that happens.”
Newsom’s picks for rail board have worked for him in S.F., Sacramento
Newsom’s new appointments to the rail board, Kawa and Elliot, have worked for him in the past.
Newsom was mayor of San Francisco from 2004-2011. Kawa was his chief of staff and Elliott was his policy adviser for three years. Both went on to work in the administration of Edwin Lee, who succeeded Newsom in the San Francisco mayor’s office.
Elliot also worked as Newsom’s deputy chief of staff in the governor’s office from 2022-2024. He and Kawa both run political consulting firms, according to Newsom’s announcement.
A Politico story from 2023 included both of them in a list of the governor’s closest advisers.
This story was originally published May 12, 2026 at 6:01 AM with the headline "Fresno’s High-Speed Rail chairman leaves board, Newsom adds 2 former staffers from Bay Area."
