The city is hiring an outside attorney to help handle issues related to a federal criminal investigation of the Honolulu rail project, and has budgeted up to $50,000 to cover the cost of that legal work.
The Honolulu Authority for Rapid Transportation publicly acknowledged receiving three federal grand jury subpoenas earlier this year seeking voluminous documentation, but it is not clear exactly what the focus of the federal investigation might be.
Andrew Perreira, spokesman for Honolulu Mayor Kirk Caldwell, said in a written statement the as-yet unidentified private lawyer is being hired by the Honolulu Corporation Counsel’s office and will “advise HART regarding matters which involve issues pertaining to federal criminal law or procedure.”
The outside attorney will be tasked with responding to a subpoena for all executive session minutes of HART board of directors meetings, said Randall Ishikawa, city deputy corporation counsel assigned to HART. The city has not yet replied to that demand other than to notify the U.S. attorney’s office that the city is hiring a lawyer, he said.
HART Executive Director Andrew Robbins has pledged “full cooperation” with the investigation, which also involves the FBI. Caldwell also has urged the rail authority to cooperate fully with the investigation.
The first subpoena in February sought tens of thousands of documents in connection with the 20-mile rail line, the largest public works project in state history.
The documents covered in that demand included consultant contracts, a list of contractors and subcontractors, contractor change orders and supporting documents, archaeological studies and correspondence with the Federal Transit Administration, according to HART.
HART received a second subpoena later in February seeking information about payments made to tenants and property owners who were relocated to make way for the $9.2 billion Honolulu rail project.
That demand included 18 files that were part of an internal review that revealed overpayments to owners or tenants who were being relocated. HART discovered “irregularities” in its relocation payments in late 2017 and reported them to the FTA in early 2018.
Last month the FTA sent to Honolulu a team of five staff members who spent a week reviewing HART’s relocation files, according to HART officials, but the FTA has not yet reported back to the city with the results of its review.
HART officials say federal guidelines do not allow the rail authority to make its internal review of the relocation payments public, but Robbins has said he saw nothing in the files that rose to the level of criminal misconduct.
The final results of the FTA review of the HART relocation files will have to be discussed with the board in a closed-door executive session “because there are confidentiality issues associated with the federal regulations,” Robbins told board members earlier this month.
Robbins has said the senior HART staff who would have authorized the overpayments are no longer with the rail authority, and HART has taken corrective action to ensure it strictly complies with federal requirements.
The third federal grand jury subpoena served on HART sought complete and unredacted copies of all HART board of directors meeting executive session minutes.
Those records documenting confidential meetings of the HART board were the focus of controversy last year when state Auditor Les Kondo said HART was not cooperating with his request for executive session minutes for 2014, 2015 and 2016. At the time, Kondo said he had received only heavily redacted minutes from June 2016 to September 2017.
HART Board Chairman Damien Kim has said HART will do its best to comply with that subpoena but that it raises some legal issues.
“Executive session is so that we can confer with our attorneys about some of the issues that might be in there,” Kim said in February. “So, like with the state audit, we just was worried that there’s some attorney-client privileges in there that we just want to exercise our rights and make sure that if we need to do something, we’ll do it. But we have to see what our attorneys have to say.”
