The expected formal opening of Mayor Kirk Caldwell’s reelection campaign is tonight, featuring a $20-per-person fundraiser at Salt Lake’s Honolulu Country Club.

But in some ways, the actual campaign strategy may have been given a test drive over the weekend with Caldwell’s opinion piece in the Honolulu Star-Advertiser.

As it has been for several elections, Honolulu’s over-budget and delayed rail project, now estimated to cost $6 billion, will be a major part of the campaign.

The project’s benefits, except to contractors and developers, remain to be seen. The problems, frustrations and controversy are all happening now and they are expected to get worse.

As the bad news mounts, Caldwell is raising the curtain on a seldom-noticed set of actors in the rail drama: the Honolulu Authority for Rail Transportation board of directors. Suddenly, the job of bringing the train in on time and on budget falls to the HART board, ignoring Caldwell’s pledge from his last campaign.

“Kirk will ensure better station design, less visual impact, tighter financial controls, and paying attention to community concerns,” Caldwell’s campaign had said.

Now Caldwell wants the HART board to pay attention to the increased costs and construction delays.

“I propose that the board, at every meeting, discuss project schedule and budget as a standing agenda item and report to the public,” Caldwell wrote. Caldwell also wants the board to take a workshop on HART and do it in public.

“It’s critical that every board member have a deeper understanding of project phasing, budget and schedule in order to responsibly oversee the organization,” said Caldwell.

It may be reasonable to question why Caldwell pushed forward his rail board nominees if they needed to attend public workshops on scheduling and budgets.

Caldwell then comes up with two seemingly contradictory admonishments.

First, the mayor says building the rail line is going to mess up traffic, so hurry up and just do it.

“Look to speeding up construction rather than slowing it down to mitigate traffic impacts. Rather than prolong the torture, let’s consider getting it done more quickly so that businesses and residents don’t have to suffer any longer than absolutely necessary,” Caldwell advises.

But then Caldwell tells the HART board to write into the contracts with possible rail line contractors “explicit language mandating the contractors assume responsibility for mitigating business interruptions, which includes traffic impacts, preserving vehicle, bike and pedestrian access, assisting in signage and wayfinding and responding to community concerns 24/7.”

It appears that Caldwell wants both fast action and caution and care. First he says don’t slow down to mitigate traffic impacts and then reverses field, telling the HART board that contractors should take responsibility for mitigating construction impacts.

So those running the rail project can either obey Caldwell’s advice to hurry rail because “traffic is going to be bad no matter what,” or the rail honchos can follow Caldwell’s counsel that the contractors transform themselves into the City and County of Honolulu and not only take over traffic mitigation efforts but also “respond to community concerns 24/7.”

Who needs city leadership, if we have contractors with a sharp public relations department?

If HART and its board can follow Caldwell’s new orders, they will need more than a workshop to do it.

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Richard Borreca writes on politics on Sundays, Tuesdays and Fridays. Reach him at rborreca@staradvertiser.com.