California’s top bullet train consultant is suspended amid a state ethics review - surprise, surprise, there's rampant corruption in the bullet train project.

More like a bullet to the state's financial health.

The top consultant on the California bullet train has been put on suspension after a state watchdog agency began reviewing his approval of a multimillion-dollar contract for a company in which he had heavily invested, The Times has learned.

Roy Hill, deputy chief operating officer for the California High-Speed Rail Authority and a senior executive at the lead consulting firm WSP, signed a $51-million change order for the construction team led by the Spanish firm Dragados. It happened in the same year he may have owned more than $100,000 of stock in Jacobs Engineering, which is part of the Dragados team, records show.

“This calls into question just how deep and just how corrupt this project has become,” State Assemblyman Jim Patterson (R) said. “My office has heard from former High-Speed Rail Authority employees and even former contractors who are disgusted by what they believe is corrupt behavior. Unfortunately, the High-Speed Rail Authority doesn’t do the right thing until they’re caught red-handed.”

Dragados and its subsidiary Flatiron won the contract to build 65 miles of rail bed, viaducts and bridges in Kings County for a bid of $1.2 billion in December 2014. The work has encountered substantial delays since then.

The change order was signed Dec. 20, 2017, by Hill, along with chief engineer Scott Jarvis and then-acting Chief Executive Thomas Fellenz. It compensated the Dragados team for delays involving delivery of land, permits, utility relocations and other factors through Aug. 31, 2017. It left open the possibility of further delay claims from that point.

This comes out of the LA Times, which I won't link to due to the constant series of marketing windows it opens in front of you while you're trying to read the article.