When Kirk Caldwell was elected mayor of Honolulu, I listed actions I thought he needed to take if he was to keep his campaign promise to "build rail better."

Now that he’s held office for more than a year and Oahu’s $5.26 billion rail project is moving into full construction mode, it’s a good time to review how he’s doing:

» Change the poisonous tone set by predecessors Mufi Hannemann and Peter Carlisle in bashing rail opponents with an army of public relations consultants.

Mostly done. Caldwell and transit CEO Daniel Grabauskas advocate vigorously for rail, but have toned down the vitriol and cut back the PR contracts.

» Honor his pledge that rail will be fully paid off by the end of construction from the city’s half-cent excise tax and federal funds, with no "mortgage" left for taxpayers.

Remains to be seen. The extent of cost overruns won’t be known until we’re further into construction. Caldwell is hedging his bets by pushing to extend the excise tax beyond its 15-year life.

» Fight to get back the 10 percent of the rail excise tax — about $400 million — that the state is needlessly siphoning off to fund its own nonrail projects.

The state hasn’t given back the money, but Caldwell has aggressively pressed the Legislature for its return in a way his predecessors hadn’t.

» Honestly address rail operating expenses, which are projected to double the city’s cost for public transportation.

Caldwell recently offered a plan for funding rail operations, but many Oahu taxpayers will be unhappy that he’d do it by making the temporary rail excise tax permanent, which rail advocates had previously promised wouldn’t happen.

» Correct the imbalance on the Honolulu Authority for Rapid Transportation board, which Carlisle and the City Council stacked with banking, development and labor interests, leaving commuters and community concerns unrepresented.

Too early to tell; Caldwell hasn’t yet had a chance to make HART appointments.

» End the incestuous arrangement in which city Transportation Services Director Wayne Yoshioka was an ex-employee of Parsons Brinckerhoff, the main rail consultant he was charged with overseeing.

Caldwell replaced Yoshioka with a new transportation director and HART didn’t renew Parsons Brinckerhoff’s contract.

But the new consultant, CH2M Hill Inc., is the recent former employer of HART’s No. 2 executive, Brennon Morioka, creating a new and similarly troubling conflict of interest.

Yoshioka has moved on to a job as transportation technical lead for AECOM, a design firm that has received about $100 million in Honolulu rail contracts.

Oahu taxpayers have a right to feel assured that government executives are overseeing contractors for the benefit of the city, not the other way around in a shell game based on the apparent theory that the stink lessens if you keep it moving.

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