HART chief resigns
DENNIS ODA / DODA@STARADVERTISER.COM
After the Honolulu Authority for Rapid Transportation board came out of a closed-door session, Chairwoman Colleen Hanabusa announced that Dan Grabauskas was stepping down as executive director and CEO of HART and that Michael Formby, director of the city Department of Transportation Services, would be interim director of HART. Behind her is board member Damien Kim.
GEORGE F. LEE / GLEE@STARADVERTISER.COM
Dan Grabauskas resigned as executive director and CEO of the Honolulu Authority for Rapid Transportation.
Amid rail officials’ seeming inability to stay ahead of skyrocketing costs and calls for greater accountability, the project’s top executive resigned Thursday after more than four years leading the Honolulu Authority for Rapid Transportation.
Colleen Hanabusa announced Dan Grabauskas’ resignation Thursday after the HART board she chairs emerged from its final private session on his job evaluation. Since April it spent some 17 hours behind closed doors discussing the matter.
“I believe in this project and its importance to the residents of Oahu, and by stepping aside today I hope to allow HART to move forward to ultimate success with fresh leadership,” Grabauskas wrote in a resignation letter to the board Thursday.
The executive, who led HART since April 2012, attended the start of Thursday’s meeting but wasn’t present when the board announced that the parties had come to a mutual agreement for his resignation. Grabauskas was not available for comment afterward.
Hanabusa said the board voted unanimously to approve the severance deal. Asked whether the board had asked for Grabauskas’ resignation, Hanabusa said it was a personnel matter.
“If you look at the history of the project and what has happened, each one of us interprets it differently,” Hanabusa said. “He believes, with the board, that it’s time to move on.”
Grabauskas was in the second year of his latest three-year contract. Under his deal he’ll get severance of $282,250, which Hanabusa said reflected his base salary of $257,250 plus $25,000 for a release of claims. She said his last day on the job was Thursday but that the official separation date is in October.
Mike Formby — who emerged as one of Grabauskas’ most outspoken critics in recent months — has temporarily stepped down as the city Department of Transportation Services director to serve as HART’s acting executive director. He’ll also temporarily step down from the HART board, and he’ll lead the rail agency until its board finds Grabauskas’ replacement, officials said. Formby met with rail’s senior management immediately following Thursday’s meeting.
Formby will continue to earn his $147,000 DTS salary, Hanabusa said. He and other rail leaders will be in San Francisco on Aug. 29 and 30 to discuss the project’s future with top Federal Transit Administration officials, she added.
While some have called for Grabauskas’ departure for months, the move adds more uncertainty to a cash-strapped project that’s now short at least $1.3 billion to make it all the way to Ala Moana Center. Nonetheless, city leaders say the departure allows HART to hire an executive with more construction savvy. Grabauskas’ forte, they said, was operations. The transit system’s not slated to start full service until 2024 — if the city somehow finds the dollars to finish it.
On Thursday, Mayor Kirk Caldwell said he would have supported whatever the board decided because city voters had left it to the HART leaders to make the choice. He added that he believed the board made the “appropriate decision.” Caldwell has touted his board appointments of Hanabusa and Colbert Matsumoto as key steps toward better rail oversight.
Caldwell’s opponent in this year’s competitive mayoral race, former U.S. Rep. and City Councilman Charles Djou, called for Grabauskas’ dismissal Wednesday and argued that Caldwell should be the next to go.
City Council Chairman Ernie Martin added in a statement Thursday, “While I called for his resignation months ago, I would like to thank Dan Grabauskas for his service.”
Both Caldwell and Hanabusa said politics had nothing to do with Grabauskas’ resignation, and a spokesman for Martin said the Council chairman’s previous calls for Grabauskas to leave weren’t politically motivated, either.
Last spring, when Martin called for his exit, Grabauskas said he intended to leave that decision to the board.
“This is my home. I’ve put down roots now over the last four years,” Grabauskas said in April. “I love Hawaii. I’d like to stay here, and I’d like to see this project through.”
GRABAUSKAS garnered positive marks soon after arriving at HART. In July 2012, three months after starting the job, he slashed the agency’s much-criticized public relations budget by $2.8 million and told City Council members that he “wholeheartedly” supported an audit of rail-related public outreach. He also won points for being considered more responsive to rail stakeholders and the public at large.
“Thanks to Dan coming on board, there was better consistency, coherence. There was follow-through. What it really said to me was he was a people person,” said Hinaleimoana Wong-Kalu, who chairs the Oahu Burial Council. The burial council, administered through the Department of Land and Natural Resources’ State Historic Preservation Division, dealt closely with HART over the agency’s archaeological inventory survey along the line, particularly after the state’s top court ruled the survey would have to be finished before construction could continue.
“Whether or not he was going to be the best fit in other elements of the project, I can’t speak to that. (But) you needed a glue — to glue together the working components … and I think that was him,” Wong-Kalu added. “I appreciate that which he has brought to the project. I don’t think it would’ve come this far without him.”
For his first yearly evaluation, in spring 2013, the board unanimously praised Grabauskas for “exceeding expectations” with his leadership. It awarded him a $35,000 bonus in that year and the next.
But the course of his tenure started to change in August 2014, when HART opened bids to build the rail’s nine westernmost stations that all came in more than $100 million over budget. The bids surprised rail officials and Grabauskas, who expressed uncertainty over whether the rest of the planned construction would fall within budget.
Four months later he would announce that the project faced a $910 million budget deficit, largely due to a hot construction market.
In winter 2015 Grabauskas would help local policymakers — particularly Caldwell — make the case before state legislators to approve a rail-tax extension.
On March 4 of that year, as lawmakers closed in on what would be a five-year extension of Oahu’s general excise tax surcharge, Senate Ways and Means Chairwoman Jill Tokuda asked Grabauskas whether the five-year proposal “finishes what you’ve started.”
“That’s correct,” Grabauskas replied. Five years, he told the senators, should give the project three years of tax revenues to fill rail’s budget hole, plus a contingency cushion. In all, it could boost rail’s total budget to about $7 billion, rail officials estimated. (They later adjusted that to about $6.8 billion)
Missing from that discussion with lawmakers, however, was an August 2014 Federal Transit Administration risk assessment that put rail’s “upper-bound” price tag — the most that rail could cost — at just under $7.6 billion.
Hanabusa, HART’s current board chairwoman, flagged that cost figure earlier this summer.
Months after state leaders approved the tax extension, rail officials including Grabauskas indicated that construction-cost escalation and utility problems were further driving up costs.
Board members who had supported his leadership — Ivan Lui Kwan, University of Hawaii General Counsel Carrie Okinaga, former First Hawaiian Bank Chairman Don Horner, former state Senate President Bobby Bunda and private development manager Keslie Hui — either left the board to pursue other opportunities or were pressured by city leaders to leave as the costs mounted.
Members of the revamped board, particularly Hanabusa and Formby, began to openly criticize Grabauskas — saying he wasn’t forthcoming with budget details and other information. In April, Formby fumed that “we look like potted plants when we don’t have the opportunity to ask questions and make decisions.”
Hanabusa said that month she was “very disturbed” by Grabauskas’ defiant reaction to a city audit released this spring that criticized HART for relying on outdated financial figures, among other issues. Grabauskas had accused city Auditor Edwin Young of bowing to political pressure inside Honolulu Hale with his handling of that report.
In August 2009, Grabauskas agreed to a $327,000 buyout to resign as the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority’s general manager, amid questions over two crashes on the Boston area’s Green Line subway and the agency’s financial troubles, according to the Boston Globe.
Grabauskas, Boston’s former Mayor Thomas Menino and other officials criticized his departure as politically driven by the state’s then-governor, Deval Patrick, a Democrat, according to the Associated Press. (Grabauskas was a Republican appointee.)
In Honolulu, whom the board hires largely depends on whether city voters approve a City Charter amendment to transfer rail operation to DTS and leave HART to build the system, Hanabusa said. She appointed board member Colbert Matsumoto as chairman of the search committee.
Formby’s deputy at DTS, Mark Garrity, will serve as that department’s acting director but won’t serve on the HART board, officials said.
Retired community activist Jim Anthony said he worried about losing Grabauskas’ institutional knowledge on the project. Hanabusa said that HART staff has much of that knowledge.
Rail leaders now focus on a recovery plan for the project.
“I don’t think that getting rid of someone is necessarily going to make a problem disappear,” Wong-Kalu said.
143 responses to “HART chief resigns”
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The theft and looting of Oahu taxpayers continues for the most outdated, oversized, overpriced rail any City anywhere has ever been foolish enough to buy.
Another wooden stake into the inept HART of the $29.6 Billion Dollar TITANIC RAIL SCAM from no where to no where and much more than a Blight!!!
STOP ORGANIZED CRIME!!!
VOTE OUT ALL INCUMBMENTS!!!
The cost of the Rio games is estimated at about 11 billion. We are almost there and all we have to show for it is a cement water slide.
Not to mention some already rusting rail cars which will be years old if and when they ever run on the track. Out of warranty?
Corruption, we have courts and the judicial system. No one accused of anything is guilty, until proven guilty in a court of law. You are advocating mob rule, which does not belong in our democracy, where the rule of law prevails
vector – When taxpayer’s money disappears, when prices do not even come close to what is in the contract, when purchase receipts disappear, on and on, it doesn’t take a court to see there is a serious integrity problem.
Going on with rail since day one. Same ole same ole.
Vectum: When government ARROGANCE is commonplace and the R * A + P – I ~ N * G of PUBLIC resources goes on, then mob rule is the only recourse.
Now we know you have a vested interest in keeping the status quo fat and happy though, right? How’s Krooky this morning? Had his first beer yet???
@Corruption wrote: VOTE OUT ALL INCUMBMENTS!!! Sadly this NEVER happens, that is why we stay in this mess.
shop-A-holelick, you are another rail terrorist and saboteur, willing to throw all the $6.8 billion of our Federal, State, and City tax money down the drain for a half built dysfunctional rail line.
Vector says: “shop-A-holelick, you are another rail terrorist and saboteur….”
Seriously? You need to go for a walk.
Without rail our children and grandchildren have no future.
wiliki, you’re full of guano, along with the othe rail shills. At least those of us who oppose the boondoggle have tangible reasons why we are against it. 5 years behind shedule and billions over budget. Poor planning and poor management have been evident all along.
The GET hurts people who can least afford it.
Those are tangible and reasl reasons why rail is a boondoggle. All the rail shills have in their defense is that our kids needs (even though most kids won’t use it) or that we need the infrastructure (which the city isn’t currently maintaining properly) or that they need it to relieve traffic (even thought the city admits rail won’t relieve traffic).
Grabby please take the past 3 Mayor’s with you as you depart the State. Call it a BOONDOGGLE MEETING OF FOOLS.
Dipped his beak long enough. “NEXT!”
Actually during his time with the Massachusetts Bay Transit Authority (MBTA) he had a history of:
– Safety negligence, lack of a “culture of safety”
– Inability to implement technical safety fixes, a la NTSB recommendations
– continuous maintenance problems
– projects wayyyy over time/over budget
As usual, the bureaucrats who hired him willfully failed to do their due diligence. We bought damaged goods.
http://bluemassgroup.com/2009/08/things-i-do-not-understand-t-grabauskas-edition/
This project is incomplete. Grabauskas is not to blame. Gov. Cristy should take heat on that.This is a good reason
not to elect Djou. Better sign out. computer flakier than usual.
Localguy, you may want to re-read the story written by Blue Mass Group. It is one reporter’s opinion and thoughts about what went wrong with the Big Dig and who might be responsible for them. He did not explicitly blame Grabauskas and instead asked whether the responsibility rested with Grabauskas, the three project board members or the state legislature.
Actually during his time with the Massachusetts Bay Transit Authority (MBTA) he had a history of:
– Safety negligence, lack of a “culture of safety”
– Inability to implement technical safety fixes, a la NTSB recommendations. He thinks he knows it all, Feds have to educate him over and over.
– Continuous maintenance problems as in cracked concrete
– Projects wayyyy over time/over budget just as our rail project is
As usual, the bureaucrats who hired him willfully failed to do their due diligence. We bought damaged goods.
http://bluemassgroup.com/2009/08/things-i-do-not-understand-t-grabauskas-edition/
Finally, some action being taken, but the 600 pound gorilla remains–what will be the cost to maintain this white elephant? Will our world class bus system be thrown under the wheels??? 60 years–just like Detroit–keep voting for these losers.
He had a four year paid vacation at the taxpayers expense.
Take a look at Grabby’s signature on the letter. Notice it is completely illegible, the scribble of a child’s mind.
Anyone who does not take pride in having a professional, legible, signature has real identity issues, unprofessional. Never should have hired him.
It shows his disdain for his bosses and the people of Hawaii. It’s indicative that he cares not one iota about the whole fiasco at this point and is glad he secured his road money…
Get rid of all the HART employees too! After all, they are the ones who failed in getting the cost correct. Grabauskas is a scapegoat for their incompetence.
Thank you for reminding us about the rest of the incompetents involved in this fiasco.
Exactly right. This guy’s golden parachute will add up nicely to the previous golden parachute from his last job. The same last job THIS city turned a blind eye to when he was hired.
Notice how our elected bureaucrats failed to learn anything about contracts after all the UH Manoa contract debacles. They basically followed their same shoddy example. Sticking taxpayers with tens of thousands of dollars in wasted funds.
No way should his contract allowed a full year of extra pay for his resignation. Can’t do the job, pack up, go home, good bye. Dime a dozen for these people.
He might get another grand $$ if he consigns all his aloha shirts on eBay since they’ll be yet another bitter reminder of his time on that hick island full of bumpkins
“Formby will continue to earn his $147,000 DTS salary.” I do not understand. If he is not doing his job (he never was anyway), why should he be paid? Anyone know the reason for this?
kirafirl, I can only guess but most likely it’s to keep his State pension growing. I like the use of the term “earn” if he’s not doing THAT job, how can he “earn” it?
It takes at least $100k for someone to tell us our highways CAN’T be fixed
Prediction no permanent hire until after the November Elections. Now back to this move, we are going to pay for the year anyway. So whomever we hire means we will pay double. The HART board should revisit with DG’s predecessor. If memory serves correctly, he was paid half as much and did twice as much. And had 20 years invested in the project.
Forgot to mention, he was also a local boy, but then Horner felt no local person was as gifted and talentef as someone from the Mainland
Always waiting for the Great White Savior from the mainland to show us our backwards ways. The missionary mentality is still alive and well.
Yes, he was Kenneth Toru Hamayasu who was with the City Dept of Transportation. He was involved in the rail project for many years and did a lot of work on it
but being a city employee did what he was told and did not have the freedom to be candid about the problems this project was going to create.
“Formby will continue to earn his $147,000 DTS salary”
Why???? Is he making the HART Director salary of $257,250 in addition to his DTS salary? If he isn’t, why not drop the Director’s salary to $147,000?
Please don’t tell me that we need to make it a high salary to attract the “best and the brightest” cause that isn’t how it’s worked out.
Aloha, to clarify, officials said yesterday that Formby would *only* earn his DTS salary while serving as acting HART executive director and CEO. Sorry for the confusion in how that was phrased.
Marcel,
Thank you very much for taking the time to read and respond to questions.
Pretty clear to me. Kekela wants to be a legal beagal.
What’s a “beagal”?? One of your “needy” kids???
needy kids can’t afford beagals to play with.
It doesn’t matter who they hire to replace him or who’s elected mayor. It’s just re-arranging the deck chairs on the Titanic.
Exactly. Rail’s/Titanic bow is starting to slip under the water. Rail is going down.
Baloney. Caldwell supports rail. Djou has always voted against rail.
Grabauskas is competent and experienced. Formby is clueless and will be a caretaker in this critical phase of rail.
If Grabauskas leaves early, then the City response to the fed report will have to be delayed til June 2017 to give the new guy time to get his feet wet.
Back in March 2012 when Grabauskas was unanimously voted by the HART board members as CEO and Executive Director to oversee the construction of the Honolulu Rail Transit project, why weren’t they aware that Grabauskas forte was “operations” and didn’t have the construction savvy? It’s a reflection of how clueless and incompetent city leaders and board members were about construction, especially for a project of this magnitude. As a result, incompetent city leaders and HART board members has caused this city to be in such a terrible mess. Until a “champion” with the expertise and knowledge about rail construction is selected, who knows when and how this project will be able to continue and finish as planned. Maybe Uku, Wiliki, OD or Nanakuli might have the answer.
Plenty going on right now. Construction going on at a fast pace. Perhaps Formby can get some stations built in Waipahu and Pearl City so some of the rail track can be tested? And expecting more cars for testing.
On a fast pace? Bwahahahaha. 5 years behind schedule.
Wiliki, your lies are getting more and more shameless.
A very heartfelt letter from a good man who achieved great progress with our needed rail system and who still has great optimism that we will eventually complete the project successfully in accordance with the desires of the voting public. Now it is time to move on and hopefully the HART board will find a new leader in timely fashion so that the momentum of project does not get hindered. Fortunately all the government leaders presently in charge are together on board to have the rail project completed all the way to Ala Moana as planned. As indicated in the results of our recent primary election, the majority still voted for candidates for Mayor who want rail finished as planned. It is important that people vote the same conscience to keep Kirk Caldwell as mayor since he will keep the rail project on track. Rail has to be completed to the downtown area so that average locals living far on the west side have a better transportation alternative to commuting in horrendous traffic congestion. Stopping rail at Middle Street and requiring riders to transfer to a slow bus getting stuck in traffic the rest of the way to downtown would defeat the purpose of having rail. Converting the rail guideway to bus operation would be even worse and ridiculous as no major city in the world do this to waste a state of the art transportation design opportunity. We are also fortunate to have good timing for Coleen Hanabusa to return to Washington and lobby for additional rail funds from the Feds to alleviate our local tax burden to cover the unforeseen cost overruns due to our booming economy of higher construction and land costs. We always still have the option of the easiest way to raise needed rail funds which is to extend the small half percent general excise tax surcharge which is barely felt and most fair since taxpayers only pay according to their financial ability to spend. We all need to stay positive that the amazing construction that we see now will result in us enjoying a beautiful sleek train that will whisk riders overhead past the traffic jams to their destination. We indeed have a bright long range future with rail for our children and grandchildren.
So you are on a HART contract and not a side contract working directly for Grabby, eh?
uku – Soooo what will you do when your stepfather, Grabby, moves back to the mainland? Please tell us you are going with him. Good riddance to bad rubbish.
Middle street works perfectly as it is the central bus station. Seamless transfer to all bus routes, whisked to their place of work. Ala Moana is a shopping center, not a transit center.
Our children and grandchildren will forever look back on rail, asking how their parents could have fallen for the lies and shibai surrounding rail. What were they thinking? Why did they think money pit rail would fit in the Nei?
Now relegated as “Rail work drones” most of their pay siphoned off to support rail’s crushing monthly O&M costs. Estimated to be $25-50 million per month.
Feds are not going to give the Nei a dime more for rail as there has never been professional rail management. So many times the Feds have had to step in and educate our utterly clueless elected bureaucrats/heads of government agencies. They know a lost cause when they see one. We are on our own.
Grabauskas will probably leave early if he has a good offer. And the city report to the feds will have to be delayed from December this year to June 2017.
The politics works out fine.
ukuleleblue says “We indeed have a bright long range future with rail for our children and grandchildren.”
There are so many things wrong with your lazy cut-n-paste, it’s hard to know where to start.
It’s a 8-10 billion dollar train from a developer’s new sprawl to the luxury tourist mall. The only “children and grandchildren” who are going to see a bright future from this mess are the offspring of developers and construction executives.
It doesn’t go into the communities it was promised to serve, nor does it reach the destinations it needed to go to be useful and successful.
Colleen Hanabusa is going to be the junior-est of junior senators. It took Senator Inouye’s nuclear level seniority to force the FTA to sign off on this dog of a project. The world has moved on since his death and now some other ancient senator is taking advantage of the rules to pour federal dollars into his state, and Hawaii has moved to the back of the line for the next generation or two.
And hould stop trying to mislead people about the nature of the GET. The General Excise Tax is not a simple sale tax. You know that. You’ve been corrected already and you still want to fool people into believing something that isn’t true in order to get the money flowing into this disaster of a rail project.
The general excise tax (GET) is additive and pyramids. Not only has it been calculated to be closer to a 12-14% sales tax, it is applied on items and services where an ordinary sales tax wouldn’t apply, like rent, medicine, food, and water.
If you don’t notice taxes in Hawaii, I am very happy for you but that’s not true of everyone, especially the poor and struggling. I think you notice taxes here, because you don’t actually live here. Why don’t you finally clear that up and tell us all where you live on the mainland and what your connection is to this mess of a rail project?
Kalaheo1, thank you for your own cut and paste and repetitious remarks. The Rail GET tax surcharge is only 0.005%, compared to the GET .04%, and compared with all the other Federal, State, Medicare, Social Security taxes, which are between 25% to 35% of our income. If you are complaining about taxes, you need to complain about the 25% to 35% in taxes we are now paying.
You got your decimal point off! Maybe that is the reason why you think extending the GET forever is no big deal.
That isn’t the only place vector is off target. I’ll be nice this time.
All you pro-railers keep doing the “spin” on the “its only half a percent” with respect to the GET RAIL TAX. Its a 12.5% increase over the prior 4% base.
SPIN it anyway you want but that’s fact.
Vector says: ( I don’t know how to math )
Get your decimals places right, THEN calculate to state and federal income tax on a struggling familiy below the poverty line, then consider they are VICTIMS of the highly regressive general excise tax that taxes food, clothing, medicine, water and shoes, not to mention essential service.
THEN try to justify taking it from struggling families and spending millions of it on rent for luxury high rise office space with reserved indoor parking for a bunch of do nothing “executives.” Do you have any idea how disrespectful that is to families who work 2-3 jobs just to keep their heads above water?!?
The GET surcharge is hardly felt, No risk in whether the tax will not bring in enough revenue. This financing is solid.
wiliki – Wrong again. Article after article has criticize the tax for being a total leech on the economy.
How many times with hat in hand has Grabby had to ask for more money? Way too many.
Financing and spending should both match, be right on target. Sad to say with rail 300% over budget with no end in sight, it is an out of control financial debacle/money pit.
Voting Public as you call us were LIED to sell this B$ train (for a lowball price) of only 3 billion to UH. ALL LIES, MISINFORMATION, DECEIT and some corruption as well.
Hope you are PROUD of that FACT !!
Stop lying about the original budget and today’s budget. Budget projections, are only estimates. Many unforseen problems arise in any project that throw the earlier estimates off, like litigation, Oahu Burial Council archaeological investigations for iwi, lawsuits from Contractors due to delays affecting their contracts, unforseen additional utility work, etc. The cost to build a house a decade ago, is now multiples of that today. And those construction and labor costs have been increasing between 5% to 10% yearly
Poor or no planning is the result of cost overruns. Tear it down, cut the losses.
OH those PESKY power lines that have been there for decades! Those PESKY graves that have been there for centuries! Those PESKY contractors squeezing more $$ for change orders! Those PESKY construction workers building luxury condos for developers in cahoots with the local government in which the choo choo’s original intention was HIJACKED by Moofee!
UNFORESEEN, UNFORESEEN, UNFORESEEN!!
Unforeseen huh? If HART uses the same logic and foresight as you (and apparently they do), it’s no wonder we have such a train wreck.
vector – Uhhhh, those are all standard issues always plaguing any construction project. Nothing new and definitely not “Unforseen.”
As I have said, Nei rail planners failed to do their due diligence by researching rail issues with all USA cities having rail. Nooooo, the Nei hires a person with a track record of resigning as projects go downhill, did the same to us.
Rail still doesn’t have a dedicated power source fully planned out, ready to start construction. HECO will not let rail pug its extension cord into the grid.
Just another day in the little 8th world of Hawaii Nei.
so true. The initial proposal may leave out a lot of stuff.
Your pathetic, move on already. Pack your bags and get out of town. Your name is trash here.
Next man up. It’s not about politics. It’s about finishing rail.
Uhhhhh rail is finished, done, over. It will end at Middle Street just as antifailers have successfully predicted for months.
At 300% percent over budget it is time to end the money pit. Finish rail at Middle Street, put away all the other plans of going all the way to UH Manoa, taxpayers have had enough of the lies and shoddy management.
Taxpayers will see their property taxes go up to cover rail’s crushing monthly O&M subsidy. Estimated between $25-50 million per month.
What an utter debacle from day one.
ukulele, really? Vote for clodwell because he will keep the project on track?
What makes you think the rail project is “on track? 5 years behnd schedule and counting. Billions over budget and counting.
Clodwell needs to go too.
The anti-railers are impotent and defeatists, and have no solutions for dealing with the financing shortfall. Just whining, and making false accusations and character assassinations of the Mayor, HART, Grabauskas, and anyone who shows support for the rail project. Temper tantrums
Vectum, you’re at it earlier than usual. Now that your boss Grabby is OUT, you need to find more busy work? Or is your boss Krook?
financing shortfall ? Wow buddy you need some help. Its called LIES, MISINFORMATION, DECEIT and CORRUPTION. Stop the LYING !!!
vector – Class is in session, you need to follow and learn.
Anti-railers have been correct from day one. Rail would be over budget, it is at 300%. Years behind schedule.
Grabby is the one with the false allegations when he said is would be our “Go to guy” for rail. Turns out he can’t meet the standard, a wasted hire.
As for character assassination, again anti-railers didn’t have to do anything. These losers did it to themselves with their lies, professional failures, utter incompetence. All they had to do was admit their limitations versus trying to hide them. We could see right through them.
Again no need to thank me. For you class is always in session.
Vector, I’ve been advocating a solution for a while now. Tear it down, cut our losses and use any leftover funds to add more express buses. We will avoid the crushing operations and maintenance costs.
The rail project is like a liquored up gambling/alcohol addict. The only way it will stop is to run out of money.
Vector says: “The anti-railers are impotent and defeatists, and have no solutions for dealing with the financing shortfall. ”
“Financing shortfall”? Oh, you are clear part of the problem.
This rail project has a lot of problems, but “financing shortfall” is not one of them. They are collecting BILLIONS from unavoidable taxes on food, medicine, essential services, water, clothing and school books. If they had managed to keep control of spending, we’d be fine, but the co tracts Mufi, Kirk, and HARt signed lacked performance guarantees and were simply a starting point for changed orders “unforeseeable” issues like the requirement for an archeological
EIS and power lines.
But “we aren’t giving HART enough money” has NEVER been one of the issues. It’s what they’ve done with it thats the problem.
Did anyone actually bother to read that un-paragraphed jumble of B * U – L – L ~ S * H # I – T ???
You need to take a long walk.
As for my children and grandchildren will rail stop at CCC so I can visit?
What is CCC?
Apparently all the critics know what is wrong with the project. Well, here is the chance for one of you to step in and take over. I wish you success.
You don’t really think the powers that be are going to hire someone critical of this mess do you?
JayDeeL says: “Apparently all the critics know what is wrong with the project. Well, here is the chance for one of you to step in and take over.”
Sure I know what is wrong with the project. It was promised to run from traffic weary west side communities like Waianae, Ewa, and Kapolei and go to UH and Waikiki. Unfortunately it got gifted to developers and construction interests and now runs between a developer’s new sprawl well outside those areas and runs to a luxury shopping mall. It was designed to be as expensive to build as possible but lately has far exceeded even those estimates.
Then Mufi Hannemann and Kirk Caldwell awarded contracts to political contributors years too early that lacked performance guarantees and opened the door wide open for massive change orders. (You’ll note that the FTA protected federal tax payers against these excesses)
Then they created HART after they poisoned the project beyond repair in order to shift accountability to stooges like Dan Grabauskas. I’ve said it before, but I don’t think the minds of Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, Elon Musk, Sam Walton, and Lee Iacocca could turn this mess around.
You are basically saying “Now that the captain of Titanic (Mufi and Kirk)) have hit that giant iceberg, I’d like you see one of you critics steer us back to shore.” The damage is done and it ain’t happening.
“If you look at the history of the project and what has happened, each one of us interprets it differently,” Hanabusa said.
What has happened is simple. The public was LIED and MISINFORMATION was used to shove this 3 Billion Train to UH to the voters. ALL LIES and DECIET and I will throw in some corruption as well.
Typical meaningless political rhetoric from Hanabusa. For most politicians the words “interpretation” and “understanding” are interchangeable, yet they mean entirely different things.
Actually, she nails it. Very clever of her.
wiliki – Again not true. She is so out of touch, behind the times, proven special interest and union lap dog. Only in it to take care of #1, look good, do as her union bosses tell her. Professional bureaucrat to the core.
Yes,Kirk hired Colleen. She then asked the hard questions. She had Grabowskas resign. So yes she doing a great job.
Here we go again-severance pay? Why are top officials always being paid off. If you people terminate a janitor for unsatisfactory work performance or he resigns do we pay him severance pay. Transparency? I would like to know what went on in that executive meeting Maybe all of the board members should be terminated also cause are you the ones who let this rail project get out of hand? Aren’t the board the one who oversees the doing of HART? Maybe we are terminating the wrong person(s). And Hanabusa just got put on the board and she gets to be chair?? She is just an arogant annoying political individual who couldn’t beat Schatz. She is too old to get elected to the US senate- she would be 80 before she would have any seniority benefit in the senate.
Paid to take the fall so Kirk and other politicians can continue getting fat at the Rail trough at tax payor expense
END THE OAHU TRAIN TO NOWHERE PROJECT NOW
The Caldwell pivot! See I make executive decisions!!
Grabby’s reasoning on why he shouldnt be canned posted before the board meeting. What kind of clown would post this kind of swag?
ukuleleblue says:
August 18, 2016 at 6:53 am
Dan Grabauskas should not be to blame for the rail cost overruns. The main culprit were the delays all along the way which kept pushing up the construction timetable. No one could have foreseen our booming construction economy that was fueled by the high demand for luxury condominium towers in Kakaako which created high construction cost and land inflation. Contractors have since been in the driver’s seat in commanding high bid costs in construction jobs where the rail project has had to compete with the more lucrative condominium work. Land costs needed for the rail alignment have also increased due to skyrocketing real estate prices in the booming Honolulu market caused by high demand and low supply and also low interest rates. As far as rail costs exceeding budget, Dan has been doing his best and no one else could have done better under the circumstances. The costs are what they are and we need just find the funding to complete the rail project as planned for our long term future to meet our transportation needs. Although we should “think outside the box” for other ways to raise funding for the cost increases, we already have an easy solution which is the continuation of the small half percent general excise tax surcharge for rail as needed. The GE tax is the most fair across the board and is barely felt as taxpayers only pay tax according to their financial ability to spend. We have made great progress thus far with the amazing rail construction and need to stay the course and not change the leadership indiscriminately midstream. There are very few in the transit industry that have the extensive expertise and experience that Dan has and it would be extremely difficult to find someone better. Dan should be allowed to stay on to see our exciting rail project to completion. We all need to stay positive and just imagine the beautiful sleek trains that will whisk riders overhead past all the traffic congestion. We have a great future with rail for our children and grandchildren.
uku – Is this tired old cliche, “Think outside the box” the best you can do? Really? All our rail management people had to do is survey every city with rail to learn what works, what does not. Take the best practices, dump the rest. Didn’t happen so here we are today with rail 300% over budget, years behind schedule, no source of power, a shortened route to Middle Street. Failure after failure. We are our own worst enemy.
Our children and grandchildren have a reduced future, rail work drones in the future. Higher property taxes and other costs added to rail’s required subsidies. Many, realizing there is no future here, will leave the sinking Nei for a far higher quality of life on the mainland, enjoying the good life.
Dumping Dan is the best event ever. Just can’t make the big decisions, can’t answer the tough questions, a track record of resigning from previous jobs after his failures overwhelm him. Now with a clean slate we can find a proven winner, get the shorter rail route done, work to reduce the cost overruns.
Land has always been expensive here, can’t be used as an excuse for rail being 300% over budget. Shoddy management is the reason rail is so far behind today.
Just another day in the little 8th world of Hawaii Nei.
Ukulele makes a lot of sense. We don’t want to switch horses in Midstream especially.
The rail horses need to go out to pasture or the glue factory already.
wiliki – uku continually is off base, posts shibai, does as he is told by his stepfathers, Grabby & Kirky Boy. Just like another poster…………
wiliki – uku makes no sense, usually off base, not up to date.
Bs crappy premature contract signing by Kirk and gang
Can we have some your Kool-aid?
“Asked whether the board had asked for Grabauskas’ resignation, Hanabusa said it was a personnel matter.” There goes the transparency, Colleen.
I don’t have one good word to say about Grabauskas or HART or rail but to his defense, he couldn’t have known just how messed up it is to do business in Hawaii thanks to grandstanding half-brains like Hanabusa and Ernie Martin.
Oh and Mufi. Can’t forget good ole Moof.
SA did a nice job of burying yesterday’s 300++ comment story deep in the bowels of the interweb
Not at all. Listed on this page. What? Can’t you find it?
Next in line is the mayor.
In the background I hear the rock group Queen song “Another one bites the dust.”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rY0WxgSXdEE
Don’t try to swim back to the mainland. Your estimate of distance and time will be way off.
If you stop in Frisco tell everyone in the Castro Barry says “hi”.
Sounds like he’s just the scapegoat and is taking the fall!
In defense of Grabauskas, sort of. Grabauskas is unfairly being blamed for the numerous problems which beset Boston’s Big Dig project including its massive cost overrun and construction delays. Grabauskas was 20 years old when planning for the Big Dig project started in 1983. The projects initial cost was estimated at $2.4 billion but had risen to $7.7 billion when construction started in 1992 and to $14 billion when construction ended in 2008. The final cost is expected to rise to about $24 billion when bonds have been paid. Engineers argued that the original cost estimate was way too low, but politicians covered up realistic cost estimates to obtain public support for the project. Does that sound familiar? Sort of like HART, isn’t it? Grabauskas became GM of the project in 2005, which was 13 years after construction started and 3 years before it ended. The numerous problems and cost overruns already had occurred by the time he became GM, yet he was somehow expected to fix everything retroactively and was fired for being able to do so. When Grabauskas became CEO of HART, the p-poor planning already had been done and the cost overruns were well on the way to where they are today, yet he was expected to fix the mess created by Caldwell and his construction industry co-conspirators created. H has been made the fall guy.
Yes, he was way over his head here but HART needed a strong leader and that was not he.
Not so fast. Grabby sold himself as the “GO TO” guy for rail. If this had been true he would have first reviewed everything and told us upfront there was no defined power source for rail, the power line/undergrounding issue after Middle Street, everything wrong he could find at that time. Didn’t happen. Later when these areas came up all he could do was stand there with that “Deer in the headlight look.”
On and on he was playing catch up versus leading by example. Did not exude confidence, did not give us that warm and fuzzy feeling like he really knew what he was doing.
As I previously posted about him. During his time with the Massachusetts Bay Transit Authority (MBTA) he had a history of:
– Safety negligence, lack of a “culture of safety”
– Inability to implement technical safety fixes, a la NTSB recommendations.
– Continuous maintenance problems
– Projects wayyyy over time/over budget just as our rail project is
As usual, the bureaucrats who hired him willfully failed to do their due diligence. We bought damaged goods.
http://bluemassgroup.com/2009/08/things-i-do-not-understand-t-grabauskas-edition/
The scapegoat has left the corral, and an older goat is his replacement…How is this fresh? We continue to hear the same old lies just from a different beak.
Thought that when he renewed his 2nd contract he got a bonus? If yes, what happened??
If i remember correctly, he received his bonus prior to the status report coming out.
Perfect…as planned now Kirk and gang have blamed their poor & devious decision making on hart & take back control looking like the good guys with the whole old boy regime machine behind him! Disgusting
Perfect planning Kirk! Form hart to blame your mistakes on & look like a big hero taking back control with the old boy machine behind you! Disgusting !
Kirky boy is done. He will lose the election and move into a retirement home where he will fit right in. For the early riser, they can listen to him telling his shibai stories how he saved Honolulu, rail, the Nei, everything.
A low property tax, historic retirement home.
What a mess.
It all goes back to who appointed the HART board. The board has failed and so has all of their appointees like grabby.
Collen you will not get my vote this year because you voted to pay a person for not working.
Kirk you will not get my vote because you are teflon and will not take responsibility for your board appointments and their lack of abilitites.
WHY is their no investigation by SA into decisions made by HART a public board? $10 billion project and no expose’s on who the board is and their qualifications. wake up people of Oahu you are being fleeced by your elected officials, ALL OF THEM.
HART like the police commission, is autonomous. This decision is the responsibility of HART and Only HART.
If
As I was saying, if HART was 100% staffed with truly competent, high integrity, rail and business finance experienced professionals then they could make the right decisions all the time.
That said…………………..
AUWE- I’m wondering would it have been possible to have retained Grabauska’s
In a different position or capacity rather than just terminate him and pay him $282,000 severance pay and get nothing out of it?
It seems to me that he could have been useful in some capacity to still help with the project with all the time he has put in so far rather than just give him
$282,000 for doing nothing .
“he could have been useful in some capacity” Well. We could give him one of those office style cleaning carts. He can go station to station and keep them clean. For once in his life a job he can do. Then again?????????????
He is too much of a distraction. Havent you had the pleasure of reading his posts on this site?
It takes $56,400,000 of the 1/2% GET surtax to pay for his $282,000 severance pay.
That would mean 18,800 taxpayers spending on average $30,000 in a year and paying the 1/2% tax would be needed top pay his severance for just quitting.
We have 5 million tourists coming in each year.
One has to question the numbers put out by the HTA. In 2014 they stated there were 240,073 tourist arrivals every day at our airport. (Pg 3) If you divide this number by the average passenger capacity of 250 per plane you get 960 flight arrivals every day, average 40 every hour. Hmmmm, something is not computing.
Trust but verify.
http://files.hawaii.gov/dbedt/visitor/visitor-research/2014-annual-visitor.pdf
Still waiting for the POWER STATION to run the train !! We have got to wake the hell up and stop this money pit from raping the tax payers !! Stop it now and quit believing the thieves !!
Some day in the far, distant future, none of the comments will be about rail.
HeyVector, did you read Hawaii unemployment rose, please explain?
How can you mend a broken hart? How can you stop the Rail from falling down?How can stop the scripts from going to developers.What makes the world go round
Bad decision. Not time to move on. IT’s time to get the job finished.
I take it Hanabusa made the call against your boss wishes?
scapegoat time. No one is taking the blame for anything.
wiliki, the blame lies with caldwell or grabby. Chose one.
Not time to move on? $200K++ in the bank AND he gets to disavow any connections to YOU, weewili and your co-shills ukuBS, noneacoolieboss and vectum!
Seems like coming to a mutual agreement and giving him severance pay if he resigned was the easy way out for the HART board who couldn’t do their job of evaluating him in a timely manner. This way it eliminates the need to evaluate him or fire him or keep him on the job.
If Grabby had a shred of integrity, he does not, he would man up to the fact he does not deserve any severance pay as he willfully failed in his job. He would refuse the money, quietly leave the Nei as quickly as possible.
Oh come on! You KNOW “integrity” and “honor” are not part of the oath.
As wells all politicians….