After accepting Don Horner’s resignation from the Honolulu Authority for Rapid Transportation, Mayor Kirk Caldwell piously lectured about the city’s runaway rail costs: “I want real numbers, not sugarcoated numbers.”
His outrage is eight years too late.
In rail’s early days, before HART existed, Caldwell served as former Mayor Mufi Hannemann’s managing director and self-described “primary point person” on rail.
That’s when the grossly unrealistic cost projections and construction timetables were set, aimed more at selling rail to a wary public than reflecting its true cost.
That’s when construction contracts were foolishly signed years before the city was ready to build, and the city made the costly mistake of illegally segmenting rail’s archaeological survey.
How much better off would we be today if Caldwell had demanded “real numbers” then instead of participating in pervasive sugarcoating that even federal overseers questioned?
Flash forward to Caldwell’s 2012 mayoral campaign promise to “build rail better.”
“Kirk will ensure better station design, less visual impact, tighter financial controls, and paying attention to community concerns,” said his website.
In three years, he’s effected little of this, especially tighter financial controls.
His main visibility on rail was last year as HART’s frontman in lobbying the Legislature to extend the half-cent rail excise tax to cover a $1.3 billion deficit.
House Finance Chairwoman Sylvia Luke accused Caldwell of misrepresenting key numbers.
Now with an election looming, he’s running for cover by scapegoating Horner, whom he just reappointed to HART last year, and crying that his reputation is at stake.
It certainly is, but more for what he’s done — or hasn’t done — than what Horner has done.
Want to talk sugarcoated numbers?
In his 2012 campaign, Caldwell painted rail as a financial marvel, with the federal government picking up a third of the then-$5 billion cost and visitors paying a third of the excise taxes that fund the local share.
“If you do the math, less than half of the project cost is paid locally by the residents of Oahu, and the rest comes from somewhere else,” he said. “We don’t have to pay for most of it.”
He made rail sound almost free.
With HART’s latest news of unexpected expenses for moving utilities, rail costs are approaching $7.5 billion and still rising.
The federal share of $1.5 billion is now only a fifth of the total cost and the local share has increased some $2 billion on Caldwell’s watch; the completion date has slipped more than two years.
The mayor has sought to defer the next big rail financial shock until after the election by deflecting discussion of how he’ll fund more than $100 million in annual operating subsidies.
Caldwell helped create the rail fantasy, and now he must own the reality.
Reach David Shapiro at volcanicash@gmail.com or blog.volcanicash.net Opens in a new tab.
