Council should stick to business

That politicians behave politically surprises nobody. When they do so in apparent disregard for how it affects the public business, that’s when voters ought to be taking notice.

There’s been another reshuffling of Honolulu City Council leadership, 15 months after all nine members had voted to install Councilman Ron Menor as chairman. Garden-variety jockeying for power has returned the gavel, in a narrow 5-4 vote, to Councilman Ernie Martin, who had held the chair for five years prior.

The reorganization also meant a game of musical chairs in other key assignments among Council members: Kymberly Pine replaces Ikaika Anderson in the No. 2 spot, and Trevor Ozawa takes over the Budget Committee from Joey Manahan.

Anderson and Pine both have an eye on the 2020 mayor’s race, and that competitive tension adds to the calculations here. Further, Martin is running for Congress in November.

Pine has said she supported up-ending the Council due to concern over the rail budget and other issues, including transparency. Martin said his supporters on the Council felt that under Menor, the body was too deferential to Mayor Kirk Caldwell.

However, it seems plain that electoral advancement was a prevailing force, at a critical time when the Council needs to focus fully on the people’s business.

The in-basket at the Council is filled with jobs it should be doing: restructuring taxation, resolving the homelessness and housing crises, getting a handle on vacation rentals and other land-use concerns.

But witnessing this needless and distracting palace coup, the public has the right to wonder whether their elected city leaders are competent to manage the real work at hand.

The biggest immediate challenge they face is rail transit, which could suffer serious collateral damage from these machinations.

The newly ensconced leadership has a decidedly more contentious relationship with the city administration — especially over rail.

Honolulu’s critical but financially troubled project is at a precarious juncture. The Federal Transit Administration still has not approved the latest financial plan for the 20-mile, 21-stop elevated system. Until it does so, close to half the $1.55 billion federal subsidy for the project — $700 million — hangs in the balance.

Caldwell and administration leaders have met with FTA officials on the plan; they said the agency wants to see the city’s commitment to finish the project before yielding the rest of the federal share.

Caldwell’s plan in Bill 42 represents a sticking point with the Council. The measure seeks to cover a $214 million budgetary hole that opened up, even with the increase in the tax revenues approved last year by the state Legislature.

That shortfall in the plan to finish the $8.165 billion project resulted because state lawmakers used a more generous revenue projection than city officials did, the mayor said.

The mayor wants the Council to approve his proposal in the bill, which would secure $44 million for administrative costs by authorizing the issuance of bonds. The loan itself may not prove necessary but, he said, setting it up is needed as a show of faith to the FTA. Caldwell said the FTA is signalling it wants that amount plugged into the budget to certify that the plan covers all costs.

Some on the Council have balked, and there are legitimate reasons. Incurring debt for administrative costs is not ideal.

But there are ways the administration and Council could compromise — limiting the duration of bonding authority, perhaps, or the amount of the loan. Both sides need to come to terms.

Unfortunately, all the tumult of Council power struggles cannot possibly fill the federal officials with confidence that the city knows what it’s doing. Neither does it engender the confidence of the general public.

Council members need to stop jockeying for power and get to work.