Council chairman urges rail officials to quit

Amid rail’s rising costs, Honolulu’s City Council chairman wants the transit project’s two top executives to resign, and he’s asking his political rival — the mayor — to follow his lead in supporting that move.

“With mounting evidence of mismanagement and out of control costs … it is clear that we need a leadership team capable of moving this multibillion (dollar) project forward,” Chairman Ernie Martin wrote Thursday in a letter to Mayor Kirk Caldwell. It called on Honolulu Authority for Rapid Transportation Executive Director Dan Grabauskas and HART Board Chairman Don Horner to step down.

The letter, obtained by the Honolulu Star-Advertiser, called it a “stunning aboutface” that Horner could not promise Council members in a public meeting held this week that there would be enough cash to finish the 20-mile project. Previously, Martin said, Horner asserted the money from rail’s recent five-year extension would be enough.

Martin also pointed to a recent Hawaiian Electric Co. correspondence in March indicating it had warned HART three years ago of utility clearance problems along the elevated rail guideway, before much of the existing structure through West and Central Oahu was built.

“I find it very disturbing to learn that HECO’s concerns were first raised three years ago and yet the guideway has been built too close to the utility poles on Farrington and Kamehameha Highway for workers to safely maintain and repair them,” Martin wrote.

Such clearance issues now threaten to drive up costs further and could delay the project’s completion by another year, officials say.

“When certain members of the HART board of directors approach me with their concerns of being kept in the dark on a number of rail-related matters, it is certainly time for a change,” Martin wrote.

Additionally, HECO’s March 14 letter to HART states that the rail agency made a “critical omission” by not specifying in its remaining construction bid packages that the utility clearance issues have to be resolved before the rest of the guideway is built.

Grabauskas, who has served as HART’s executive director since April 2012, did not respond to requests for comment late Thursday. He is entering the second year of a three-year employment contract with the agency.

In an emailed statement, Horner pointed out that his term as rail board chairman is slated to end in a few months. “I have reviewed Chair Martin’s letter and appreciate his concerns. I will discuss his recommendation in terms of my chairmanship” — which started July 30 and ends June 30 — he said.

Only HART’s board has the authority to replace its chairman and the executive director, officials say.

“It’s not my decision to make,” Martin said Thursday. “Ultimately, I think the board has to have that discussion.”

Martin is considering a mayoral run against Caldwell later this year. His letter is the latest in a string of recent correspondences from the city’s top two elected leaders aimed at HART, in which they’ve put in writing their growing misgivings about the project. It also comes ahead of a report from the city auditor that’s scheduled for release sometime next week on HART’s management of the largest public works project in the state’s history.

Caldwell was unavailable for comment Thursday because he’s out of state on vacation, but he shares Martin’s “serious concerns,” Caldwell spokesman Jesse Broder Van Dyke said in an email. Caldwell is scheduled to meet with Horner on Monday and will comment further following that discussion, Broder Van Dyke said.

On March 21, Caldwell, who said earlier this year his reputation is on the line, also expressed his concerns about HART’s handling of the utility clearance issues. “I remain deeply concerned and, quite frankly, unconvinced that HART is adequately managing and mitigating the potential risks to both project schedule and budget associated with the utility locations,” he wrote to Grabauskas.

In the past year, rail costs have swelled by at least another $415 million, and the total cash its five-year tax extension is expected to produce has been downgraded to $1.52 billion from $1.8 billion. Rail officials say they’d like to see the bids on the remaining construction packages first before saying whether the project is in jeopardy of being short of funds again.

HART was slated to receive the first of its remaining construction proposals this week, but the public won’t know the details until after the agency evaluates the proposals and awards the contract. That could be in June at the earliest, Grabauskas has said.

Martin said Thursday that he believes “we need to go in a different direction” to help “stop the bleeding.”

“We’re at the tourniquet stage right now,” he said. “If we don’t apply more intense scrutiny, then we’re likely to lose limbs.”

Martin HART Letter 04/07/2016