Hanabusa taps Formby as chief of staff

Mike Formby, acting executive director of the Honolulu Authority for Rapid Transportation, will become Colleen Hanabusa’s chief of staff if she wins the general election Tuesday to fill the seat left vacant by U.S. Rep. Mark Takai, who died from cancer in July.

Hanabusa, a former U.S. representative, and Formby have essentially led the cash-strapped rail project since its former executive director, Dan Grabauskas, agreed to resign in August.

The duo also took a more assertive leadership role in the months prior to Grabauskas’ exit, when Formby still sat on the board and its members spent some 17 hours evaluating Grabauskas’ job performance behind closed doors. Formby and Hanabusa served on the HART board together for more than a year.

Hanabusa resigned from the rail board last week as she aims to return to Congress, while Formby will resign from HART on Monday.

“I think we share similar concerns and interests,” Formby said of his time working with Hanabusa. “She knows policy inside and out. We work well together.”

Hanabusa, Formby said, approached him sometime after he became HART’s acting executive and proposed that he serve as her chief of staff if she wins. At that point Formby had already decided to leave his role at the city, and he had been considering a return to his private law practice, Formby said Tuesday.

“Colleen’s style is to be prepared, so if she’s elected to fill Mark Takai’s seat … then she wants to be prepared,” Formby said.

Hanabusa, who did not respond to requests for comment Tuesday, is actually on the ballot twice. She faces nine challengers in a special election to fill out Takai’s term, which ends Jan. 3.

Voters will also cast ballots for their choice of who will serve the subsequent two-year term in the U.S. House of Representatives representing urban Honolulu. Hanabusa, a Democrat, will face Republican challenger Shirlene Ostrov, a former U.S. Air Force colonel.

Hanabusa, who claimed 75 percent of the vote in the seven-way Democratic primary in August and is expected to win the general election, would be returning to the House seat she filled before her unsuccessful bid for the U.S. Senate against Brian Schatz two years ago.

In late September Hanabusa and Formby declined to confirm speculation that she had already offered the chief of staff job to him, saying it would be “premature to discuss those issues.”

Formby said he didn’t see any conflict in considering and accepting Hanabusa’s offer privately while the two continued to oversee rail publicly. When he stepped down as the city’s Department of Transportation Serv­ices director to serve as HART’s acting executive director, Formby said he always made it clear that he intended his post at the rail agency to be short term.

Formby’s successor at HART, Krishniah Murthy, is slated to start Dec. 5 as the agency’s interim director. HART Deputy Executive Director Brennon Morioka will lead the agency for the month between Formby’s exit and Murthy’s arrival, Formby said Tuesday.

Hanabusa and Formby have known each other professionally for years, going back to Formby’s time on the state Land Use Commission, he said. “I thought she was the most tenacious attorney I ever saw appear before the board,” Formby said Tuesday. The two also dealt with the now defunct Hawaii Superferry while Formby was a deputy director at the state Department of Transportation, he said.