City officials have been so misleading for so long in spinning the construction costs, timetable and operating expenses for the $5.26 billion rail system that few believe what they say anymore.
It now falls to Gov. David Ige and state legislators to protect Oahu taxpayers by forcing Mayor Kirk Caldwell, the City Council and the Honolulu Authority for Rapid Transportation to provide honest financial projections before they consider the city’s request to make permanent the half-cent rail excise tax, which otherwise expires in 2022.
City leaders promised repeatedly to build rail on time and on budget, even as construction snags made it increasingly unlikely.
Now that the generous $1 billion contingency fund for rail is all but gone with half of the work still to be bid, Caldwell and rail CEO Daniel Grabauskas admit the project is $700 million over budget and a year behind the scheduled 2019 completion.
No problem, they figure; they’ll just ask the Legislature to extend the rail excise tax to cover their broken promises and miscalculations.
There are several problems.
The rail tax was enacted on the promise it would yield enough in its 15-year life to cover the local share of construction costs and would not need extension.
We must end the cynical attitude of city leaders who promise anything to get what they want, then feel free to break the promises later when they think it’s too late to stop rail.
There’s more cynicism in attempts by current leaders to blame shortfalls on bad decisions of previous administrations.
HART has ardently defended and executed the decisions it inherited from the Hannemann and Carlisle administrations, seldom changing the plan.
Caldwell, who was former Mayor Mufi Hannemann’s managing director from 2008 to 2010, described himself then as the "primary point person" on rail and was neck deep in any bad decisions made.
He promised to "build rail better" while campaigning, but has done little beyond nodding "yes" to Grabauskas’ spin.
The governor and Legislature can end the ducking, dodging and finger-pointing.
They can demand a financial plan that credibly reflects how much more slippage to expect on costs and timetables and how much rail will realistically cost to build and operate.
They can insist the mayor, City Council and HART all agree on a financial plan so there can be no room for further blame-gaming.
If the response isn’t compelling, they should deny a tax extension and let the city make do with what it has.
The question is whether lawmakers have the guts to keep faith with Oahu taxpayers, considering that their own campaign funds are filled by the same developers, contractors, construction unions and banks that have powered the deficient rail plan at the city level.
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Reach David Shapiro at volcanicash@gmail.com or blog.volcanicash.net.
