Mayor Kirk Caldwell and the Honolulu Authority for Rapid Transportation are lying to the public once again about rail when they claim that costs for operation and maintenance of rail will be covered by “a private entity” in some magical public-private partnership arrangement (“$2.8B budget calls for tax hikes on hotels, investment properties,” Star-Advertiser, March 2).

They try to mislead us into believing that the city won’t have to pay for any of that, which of course is not true. Fares only cover a small portion of those costs, with the balance “covered” by us taxpayers. In addition we would have to pay that private entity a profit on top. None of these figures have been revealed to us by this secretive conspiracy. We can only hope the feds bust it open.

Meanwhile property taxes will be used for rail, despite earlier promise. But how sweet to see Mufi Hannemann — former mayor and now head of a lodging/tourism association — crying about increased hotel taxes to pay for the disaster that he created.

Dennis Callan

Punchbowl

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