Andrew Robbins out as rail boss; interim replacement not identified

Contract negotiations are underway for a new interim CEO and president to take over the city’s beleaguered rail project Jan. 1 after the Honolulu Authority for Rapid Transportation’s board of directors voted Thursday to find new leadership.

Andrew Robbins’ fate — to not renew his three-year contract — was formally decided eight days before Christmas but had been months in the making.

Robbins told the Honolulu Star-Advertiser on Tuesday that he expected the HART board not to extend or renew his contract that made him the city’s highest-paid employee. Robbins earned an annual salary of $317,000, a $55,000 annual housing allowance and a $7,200-a- year transportation allowance plus the possibilities of raises and bonuses.

The HART board is negotiating with Robbins’ interim replacement and did not identify the candidate Thursday.

The incoming CEO and president would be the authority’s seventh leader since voters approved the HART concept in 2010.

Cost estimates to build the 20-mile, 21-station route from Kapolei to Ala Moana are now at $10 billion, with completion expected sometime in 2028.

The East Kapolei-to-Ala Moana line was originally projected to cost $5.3 billion and to be completed in 2019. The rail is funded primarily through a general excise tax surcharge on Oahu and the statewide hotel room tax. It represents Hawaii’s largest public works project ever.

Only board member Kika Bukoski on Thursday criticized the move to not extend Robbins’ contract and hire his replacement.

“I would have hoped we could have done this … in a more thought-out, deliberate process,” he told fellow board members. “I’m the minority again.”

Before Robbins’ ouster was made final, Mayor Kirk Caldwell choked up at times talking about the work of past and present staff and the unpaid board members.

“I put my entire political life on the line for this project and have as a member of the House and as majority leader fighting for the GE (general excise) tax,” Caldwell said while speaking remotely to the board. “You showed up, and you put up and you delivered and I want to thank you for that. … And to Andy Robbins, we may not have seen eye to eye on things, but I know this for sure: You and I care passionately about this project, and that’s what’s important at the end of the day.”

Caldwell and Robbins had a highly public falling out beginning in September when Caldwell announced that the city no longer would participate in a more than two-year-long effort to find a builder to finish the final 4.16-mile rail segment into Ala Moana using a so-called public-private partnership agreement.

The HART board then tried to oust Robbins but failed when Bukoski and then-board member Terrence Lee derailed the effort by voting against it. In addition to voting to remove Robbins on Thursday, the board also voted to hire someone to figure out what constitutes a quorum of the board, which is made up of both voting and nonvoting members.

In October, Caldwell added more pressure.

During a special board meeting, the mayor called on the HART board “to step it up and put the heat on the CEO.”

With Lee gone, Bukoski did not have any support Thursday to extend Robbins’ tenure or postpone the hiring of his replacement.

HART faces a Dec. 31 deadline to present a plan to the Federal Transit Administration on how it expects to build the final segment of the rail project into Ala Moana.

It’s the same deadline as Robbins’ last day at HART.

Robbins told the Star-Advertiser on Tuesday that he wants to stay in the rail construction industry and that there are possibilities for someone with his resume in such areas as Southern California.

He has lived on the East Coast and previously worked in the San Francisco Bay Area.