HART’s $1.66 billion contract might delay related rail work, CEO says
The Honolulu Authority for Rapid Transportation’s $1.66 billion contract recently granted to Los Angeles-based Tutor Perini Corp. to design and build Skyline’s last 3-mile segment to Kakaako might mean related projects at the rail agency could be deferred.
Although it’s not been disclosed which projects might be postponed, HART plans that the City Center Guideway and Stations, or CCGS, contract will include design and construction of six rail stations and miles of elevated rail guideway beginning east of the Middle Street Transit Center station.
The route will end at the proposed Civic Center station, east of the intersection at Halekauwila and South streets.
The contract, awarded Aug. 15, is expected to be executed in mid-September.
At its last board of director’s meeting, HART Executive Director and CEO Lori Kahikina told the panel, “We did explain to you folks … the affordability of this,” referring to comments made in a recent nonpublic, executive session briefing related to the new contract.
Kahikina said Friday the $1.66 billion was “just for the base bid to get to Kakaako.”
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“But right now we have done the financial scenarios. We believe we will have no problems to fund the $1.66 (billion) based on how strong (the state’s general excise tax and transient accommodation tax) has been,” she said, noting the rail’s funding sources, which also include $1.55 billion in federal money. “However, we will need to temporarily defer some projects, and we will need the board’s approval to move moneys between” what the agency terms “contract packaging plans,” or CPPs, which feature their own individual yet smaller budgets related to rail construction.
Kahikina said by the first quarter of 2025, “we will be coming to the board to get that approval.”
Moreover, she said that in October HART is set to meet with the Federal Transit Administration, which oversees the $1.55 billion full-funding grant agreement for construction of the CCGS project.
“We do need to update all of the cash flows once we get approval or a concurrence from (FTA),” she said. “And then we will update all of our financials and present (to the board), either in November or December, all of our updated cash flows to you folks.”
After the meeting, HART staff told the Honolulu Star-Advertiser that a small number of specialized projects are being considered for the potential deferral, but final decisions about deferrals have not yet been made.
They said no project being considered for deferral will affect the CCGS timeline, nor are they part of the FFGA scope.
Yet other issues about HART’s latest contract award — including its transparency — were also touched on at Friday’s meeting.
Prior to naming Tutor Perini as its next contractor, the HART board held a special meeting Aug 13, which included that closed-door executive session.
Before that nonpublic meeting, city Deputy Corporation Counsel Daniel Gluck told the board that due to “procurement law and Sunshine Law, we’re going to need to have an executive session on this.”
“Our intention is after award (of the CCGS contract) … we would release the recording of the executive session, because the executive session only needs to be confidential for as long as those procurement discussions are ongoing,” Gluck told the board at the time. “So the intention is not to keep this confidential forever, but only until award.”
At Friday’s meeting, board member Robert Yu asked whether those recorded meeting minutes were now publicly available.
Kahikina said city Corporation Counsel had reviewed the meeting minutes and “highlighted areas that they feel should be removed from that recording.”
But Kahikina indicated that neither she nor HART staff had fully reviewed the closed meeting’s recording yet, and therefore it was still not publicly available.
To that, Yu said, “We were just under the impression that the entire executive session is available.”
Gluck noted that within the meeting minutes “by and large, there are items that are attorney-client privileged, or otherwise have to be kept confidential, and would fall within the exceptions of Sunshine (law).”
Still, Yu replied, “There was some question as to why isn’t the recording up yet. Because at the special meeting it was clear that as soon as the contract is awarded that the recording’s going to be up.”
Board member resigns
The resignation of board member Michele Chun Brunngraber was also formally announced last week.
Appointed by Mayor Rick Blangiardi in 2022, Brunngraber had served as a nonchartered state legislative appointee since 2019, before becoming a voting member.
Her term on the board was set to expire Dec. 31.
Ian Scheuring, the mayor’s deputy communications director, told the Star-Advertiser that Brunngraber officially resigned via a letter to the mayor on Aug. 13.
In that letter Brunngraber said: “It has been an honor to serve on the board for the last 4 years and contribute to the important work that HART does. However, due to increasing family commitments, I find it necessary to step down from my duties as a board member.
“I believe it is in the best interest of the board to have a fully engaged member in my place, and I regret that I can no longer fulfill this role,” she wrote.
She also stated her resignation was “effective immediately.”
Of late, Brunngraber, chair of the board’s Human Resources Committee, had tense discussions in open meetings with Kahikina over the renewal of the CEO’s $275,000 annual contract, which was also set to expire Dec. 31.
Tension between board Chair Colleen Hanabusa and Kahikina became public after the two had a contentious exchange during an April board meeting.
But following months of delays and much debate, the HART board voted June 28 to provisionally grant Kahikina a new multiyear contract that still awaits finalization.
At the same June 28 meeting, Hanabusa indicated — but did not fully explain — that she planned to step down as leader of the board of directors, pending a deferred annual board leadership election that’s expected to be held later this year.
As far as Brungrabber’s replacement, Scheuring said, “Mayor has been interviewing potential board members, and a name will be submitted to the City Council upon selection.”
Currently, the HART board is down two voting members: the mayor’s appointee, formerly Brunngraber, and Edwin Young, who recently resigned due to undisclosed health concerns.
Sworn into his post in July 2023, Young, a former City and County of Honolulu auditor, replaced Mark Howland, who’d served on the panel since 2021.
Cindy Matsushita, the HART board’s executive officer, told the Star-Advertiser that Young’s open seat “is in the process of being filled by the board.”
