Editorial: HART probes will go on

This has been a busy week for debates on audits into Oahu’s troubled $9.2 billion rail project, debates compounded by last month’s federal subpoenas for documents from the Honolulu Authority for Rapid Transportation. The City Council was discussing a $2 million forensic audit into rail; meanwhile, the state auditor canceled its $700,000 contract with an accounting firm looking into rail’s change orders, citing concerns over the accuracy of the work.

Further, the federal investigation into possible criminality is actually causing the state auditor and legislators to back away from their previous demand for future annual reviews of HART documents and contracts. Already facing difficulty extracting information from HART, the state auditor expressed concern that the federal investigation would further hamper HART’s cooperation, thereby compromising the annual reports’ thoroughness.

While some might see the ditching of annual reviews akin to surrender by state officials, that isn’t necessarily so. Not if, as House Finance Chairwoman Sylvia Luke proposes, the annual reviews make way for a more consequential state investigation — namely, a “criminal vetting” by the state Attorney General’s Office. Looks like inquiries into the rail project, on various levels, are moving from the informational shallows into deeper dives for culpability.