It’s infuriating to see federal prosecutors once again having to expose local public corruption that city and state authorities should have been on long ago.

This time it was five current and former employees of the Honolulu Department of Planning and Permitting charged by the U.S. attorney with allegedly soliciting thousands in bribes for giving favored treatment to building projects — a practice suspected for years.

Of equal concern to the charges against Wayne Inouye, Jocelyn Godoy, Jason Dadez, Jennie Javonillo and Kanani Padeken was the wimpy response of Mayor Rick Blangiardi, whose spokesman said, “These alleged activities should not reflect on the more than 200 dedicated DPP employees who work hard every day to ensure the health and safety of the citizens of Honolulu.”

Why not a pledge to root out corruption wherever it occurs?

It certainly does reflect poorly on DPP employees, many of whom likely knew of the bribery and did nothing, and also poorly on elected leaders who blithely praise the dedication of privileged public workers while doing little to dig deeper into suspicions of corruption.

And it reflects terribly on city prosecutors and state attorneys general, who for years have heard credible allegations of such bribery and did little, leaving the FBI and U.S. attorney to take out the trash.

In 2018, civil engineer and permit router Lauren Hudson testified to the City Council, “I don’t want to blatantly say bribery, but there are gifts and favoritism. I have had multiple real estate agents and many, many clients ask me to pay a gift to a ‘friend’ in DPP to have their permits, you know, passed through, and I refuse. … I shouldn’t have to pay a civil servant a gift to do their job.”

She was scolded by then-Councilman Ron Menor: “You’ve raised some very serious allegations. You’ve used the words bribery, favoritism, gifts being handed under the table. … Do you have concrete evidence to back that up? If you don’t, you ought to be very careful about making those kinds of statements.”

It’s a clear and troubling pattern. As local authorities ignored signs of massive corruption by former Honolulu Police Chief Louis Kealoha and his prosecutor wife, Katherine, the U.S. attorney stepped in and convicted both on multiple counts of fraud and other misdeeds.

Federal prosecutors are also pursuing ongoing cases untouched by local authorities involving former Prosecutor Keith Kaneshiro and other city officials, the free- spending Honolulu rail project and an alleged local organized crime ring.

In 2019, federal prosecutors struck a plea deal with Frank James Lyon, a local engineering executive and former city zoning board member who admitted paying state officials $250,000 for $2.5 million in contracts.

There’s little public sign of state action against its employees who allegedly received the bribes.

The recent guilty plea by Hanalei Aipoalani for accepting a bribe while serving as the city’s CARES Act administrator was also the result of a federal investigation.

Reach David Shapiro at volcanicash@gmail.com.