Oh, he’ll fix the roads … but it’s going to cost you

It was encouraging to see Mayor Kirk Caldwell take ownership of Oahu’s rutted roads by promising to fix them and setting a deadline.

With more than 40 percent of city-owned roads in disrepair, Caldwell set a goal of bringing them all to acceptable standards in five years.

He proposed spending $153 million in fiscal 2014, twice the amount budgeted this year and many times the paltry $6 million spent as recently as 2002.

The mayor was generally applauded for the initiative — until the other shoe dropped.

In announcing his 2014 budget, Caldwell said we’ll have to pay for better roads in the form of a nickel-a-gallon increase in the city’s gasoline tax, to 21.5 cents from 16.5 cents.

This rankled residents who believe the problem hasn’t been a lack of money to maintain roads, but a diversion of those funds to other purposes by city leaders.

We have what Caldwell called "some of the worst roads in the country" despite the fact that Hawaii motorists pay the third-highest state, federal and county gasoline taxes in the nation at 68 cents a gallon, according to the American Petroleum Institute.

Caldwell’s proposed increase would make Hono­lulu the highest taxed, and Oahu vehicle registration fees have also risen in recent years.

In 2002, when the meager $6 million was spent on road repairs, the city collected about $50 million in gasoline taxes and vehicle registration fees.

Even Caldwell’s proposed 5-cent increase appears headed for the general fund, where there’s no guarantee it would be spent on the promised road repairs.

One example of citizen frustration is a Facebook page created by public relations executive Kitty Laga­reta called WAPNFFS ("We Already Paid Now Friggin’ Fix Stuff").

Lagareta wrote that Oahu­ans are "fed up with repeatedly being taxed to fix the same problems; BUT NOTHING EVER GETS FIXED!"

City Council leaders, who rejected a 1-cent gasoline tax increase sought by then-Mayor Peter Carlisle two years ago, quickly picked up on the public frustration.

Council Chairman Ernest Martin declared Caldwell’s gasoline tax increase "dead on arrival," and Budget Chairwoman Ann Koba­ya­shi doubted it’ll be approved on top of impending increases in water and sewer rates — also enacted to pay for upgrades and repairs that taxpayers thought they’d paid for in earlier increases.

Here’s hoping Caldwell has a Plan B to pay for road repairs from existing funds and won’t use the Council’s likely rejection of his tax increase as an excuse to renege on the promise to fix city roads — or to cut corners and fail to do it right.

That would be a cynical start to his young administration that would be difficult to recover from.

———

Reach David Shapiro at volcanicash@gmail.com or blog.volcanicash.net.