It’s serious business, of course: the runaway costs for Oahu’s rail project that’s left taxpayers with no good solutions.

City and state officials will have their brains full over the next few months considering the least offensive of options. State legislators will be pressed to extend the 0.5 percent general excise tax surcharge — and that’s prompted two key lawmakers to extend an invitation to Carolyn Flowers, the Federal Transit Administration’s acting administrator, to come to Honolulu for an in-person briefing on FTA expectations.

One thing in their favor: Make it in late January or February — average of 38 degrees — and sunny Hawaii would sound awfully nice.

So long to HPU’s Hawaii Loa campus

The day long anticipated at Hawaii Pacific University has come: Castle Medical Center has bought its Hawaii Loa campus, allowing HPU to concentrate on its downtown campus. Moving day is a few years off, though; the college will lease back the property from its new owner. This allows time for both sides to make their adjustment plans — HPU to accommodate its students, the hospital to reconfigure its combined Kailua-Kaneohe properties.

Of course, some of the students there are prospective nurses. Maybe there are career networking opportunities, too.