CCHSRA Remembers Cherylyn Smith

There are many individuals whom the Citizens for California High-Speed Rail Accountability (CCHSRA) have met along the way in the fight for accountability of the California High-Speed Rail project. Over the years, we have become a tight-knit family.

Cherylyn Smith speaks at the June 9, 2015 California High-Speed Rail Authority board meeting.

We first met our friend Cherylyn Smith outside a California High-Speed Rail Authority (CHSRA) board meeting in Fresno, California in May 2012. She did not have property in the pathway, but was a very concerned citizen. She was actually leaving the meeting with another concerned individual, but went back in after making our acquaintance.

Cherylyn wanted to know more and wanted to help out the cause. We became fast friends and spoke about issues that impacted those who felt they had no voice and/or were fearful to use theirs. She was never afraid to use her voice to help others on any issue.

Over the past half decade, Cherylyn traveled up and down the Central Valley and California to learn more and educate others about the detrimental environmental impacts of the high-speed rail project. She spoke passionately at legislative hearings and board meetings in Sacramento as well as at the marathon rail board Los Angeles meeting in June 2015. She attended meetings in Bakersfield, Fresno and the South Valley including those for the air board, city and county. She was also active in many other causes and traveled the state for those as well. Cherylyn was also proof positive that issues impacting others were not partisan in nature.

Cherylyn Smith…wife, mom, grandmother, sister, daughter, daughter-in-law, granddaughter of farmers, friend, activist, teacher, journalist, radio host and a very deeply concerned citizen. Her passion for environmental issues and giving a voice to those unable to represent themselves was admirable. If everyone had just an ounce of the passion she had in fighting for what is right, the world would be problem-free.

We honor our dear, wonderful, smart, passionate and caring friend Cherylyn who left us too soon to go to Heaven on Wednesday, January 17, 2018.

Our CCHSRA family will never forget how much she cared and our thoughts and prayers are with her family at this time.

Rest in Peace, Cherylyn.

Read CHERYLYN ROSARIA SMITH’s Obituary in the Fresno Bee

One comment

  • I would like to recommend a rallying call for Jerry Brown’s kickback project “ Moombeam’s Folly Trolly”