Randall Roth has been a "name in the news" in Hawaii for a long time, most recently as a co-plaintiff in a lawsuit against the city’s $5.2 billion rail transit system, currently before the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco. A decision is expected any day now, including on whether it is even within that court’s jurisdiction to decide on it just yet.

Roth contends that the city’s proposed elevated heavy rail was sold to the public as a traffic-reduction solution, but actually is about "transit-oriented development and fundraising."

A University of Hawaii law professor since 1982, specializing in trusts, estates, federal taxation and professional responsibility, Roth says the rail project is a "broken trust." That’s also the title of an expose he co-wrote in the late 1990s about shenanigans at Bishop Estate, now known as Kamehameha Schools. Published by the Honolulu Star-Bulletin, it rocked Hawaii politics to the core, forcing major changes at the estate, including the replacement of all of its trustees. The expose was all the more powerful because of the stellar individuals who had joined him in writing it, all of whom had Native Hawaiian ancestry. One of those, former federal Judge Sam King, went on to help Roth write a book, also called "Broken Trust," subtitled "Greed, Mismanagement & Political Manipulation at America’s Largest Charitable Trust."

On a lighter note, Roth also was a consultant on the 2011 movie "The Descendants," written by Kaui Hartman Hemmings and starring George Clooney, which involved a kamaaina family debating what to do about inherited trust lands on Kauai.

"It was a great book and a great movie," he said last week. "But I especially delighted in the story line that involved a great big trust in Hawaii with beautiful land and pressure to do something before the trust terminated because of the Rule Against Perpetuites."

Roth, who was the senior policy adviser to former Gov. Linda Lingle during her first year in office, was born and raised in Kansas, where he graduated from Ellinwood Rural High School. He has college degrees in accounting and economics from Regis College in Denver, law from the University of Denver and advanced law from the University of Miami.

After Regis, he attended a Jesuit seminary for a year, thinking he might want to become a priest. But that didn’t happen, he recalled, because "once I figured out what the vow of obedience really meant, I knew that I would not be able to comply with it."

Eventually moving back to Kansas, he came to Hawaii in late 1981 to give presentations on tax law to the state Bar Association. He loved it here so much that he returned with his family six months later, after landing a teaching position at UH.

He is a past president of the Hawaii State Bar Association, the Hawaii Justice Foundation, the Hawaii Institute for Continuing Legal Education and the Hawaii Estate Planning Council. He also has received numerous awards for his teaching and civic activities.

Roth, 65, lives in Kahala with his wife Susie, an educator and professional clown who, he said, is "the driving force behind most of what I do." They have four adult children.

Question: You told me you consider the city’s rail project to be a “broken trust,” but I wanted to ask whether as a trust attorney in particular you think the state Department of Hawaiian Homelands might be another broken trust around here.

Answer: I’m not sure if the problems over there are anywhere near the magnitude of the problems of what we used to call Bishop Estate.

The management at DHHL, I think, has been strong at times and not so strong at times, but it’s really disheartening to read in the Star-Advertiser about occasional leases and permits that at least appear to reflect a political connection. …

I know that they have some funding challenges over there, but favoritism is bad any time, and particularly troubling in this case where you’ve got people who’ve been on waiting for decades; people dying on the waiting list. You’ve got these horror stories, and then when you hear about somebody who seems to be jumping the line, and violating the terms of his permit, perhaps because he is a commissioner, that really is very disheartening.

Q: How well is DHHL pursuing its mission? I mean, it is a trust. What’s different about it that it could languish like this for almost a hundred years and not accomplish its mission?

A: Yeah. … Most trust lawyers would argue that it’s certainly not a conventional trust. It’s not a trust in the same legal sense that Bishop Estate, now know as Kamehameha Schools, is. It’s almost in a category by itself, which makes it very difficult to evaluate using rules that apply to conventional trusts.

It is an obligation that the state took on in the Organic Act, and there’s been a lot of funding over the years, but there continues to be some real funding problems, and the state is going to be looking at some real difficult years ahead, budget-wise, because of the pension and retiree health care liabilities that don’t show up on the books but can’t be ignored.

Q: Following the original “Broken Trust” scandal with Kamehameha Schools, formerly Bishop Estate, would you say things have improved since then? Have the trustees been acting more responsibly?

A: I’ve not followed it particularly closely. I hear mixed reviews as to how they’re doing. My impression is that it’s dramatically better than in the late 1990s, at the time of the so-called Bishop Estate controversy or scandal.

My sense is that the trustees are head and shoulders above the ones that were ousted in terms of their ability, in terms of their work ethic, in terms of their personal characters — Oz Stender, of course, being the exception among the ones that were ousted.

Q: Legend has it that when you were working on the “Price of Paradise” books, you’re the one who coined the term “paradise tax.” You did that?

A: Well, frankly I don’t recall if I just grabbed it out of thin air, or stole the term from something that had appeared in the newspaper; I don’t feel ownership over it. (Laughter) But in fact, as I recall, it had been used to talk about the difference in the cost of living, and we added an element. We said it’s not just the higher cost of living here but the fact that many people, many professions, many jobs pay less here, than other places. So you’re really combining a higher cost of living and less income for many occupations.

Q: But those books also were pointing out policy issues that added to the cost, right?

A: Oh yeah, and when we used the term “price of paradise” for the title of the books, what I had in mind was the old quote that’s been attributed to many, including Thomas Jefferson, that the price of liberty is eternal vigilance. … So just as the price of liberty is eternal vigilance, the price of paradise is eternal vigilance. What I put in the introduction to the second volume was that if you want to have a great community, and you want to pass that on to the next generation, you need to be involved in these issues that never really go away. They’re perennial challenges. So what I was trying to get across is, yeah, there are tons of issues in the two volumes, and the point is, we as members of this community need to stay abreast … and engage in public dialogue and debate the issues and be informed citizens, informed voters. So that was the concept that was kind of driving the title, “The Price of Paradise.”

Q: Did the books ever broach the Jones Act? Was that ever mentioned?

A: No, as I recall, we didn’t even mention the Jones Act. I personally think that legislation does more harm than good, especially for Hawaii. But as I recall, we did not get to that in either of the two books.

Now, we had a “Price of Paradise” radio show that we did for five years, after the books came out, and we did shows on the Jones Act at least a couple of times. It definitely is an important issue generally, and especially for the people of Hawaii.

Q: When you were an adviser for former Gov. Linda Lingle, you encouraged her to establish an appointed school board. Is that right?

A: Well, at the time, her main thing was local school boards. She wasn’t talking at that time about an appointed school board. But each of those two proposals grew out of a concern about the elected school board that was not working well. Obviously the challenges of public education in Hawaii are multifaceted, but I think the governance system is a major reason why public education here has not been at the level that I think it could and should be.

Q: Do you think, now that we do have an appointed education board, that it’s made a difference, or is working better and will make a difference?

A: Well, I think that definitely it’s working better. It’s still early to see, for example, whether they really will implement performance contracts for principals, that are intelligently designed and have real consequences to them. There was a law in 2004 that required it, but … they’re still kind of working on it. If the current school board — which seems to be determined to implement performance contracts for principals— if they can do that, … and if they can really follow through on their announced plans to do meaningful performance evaluations of teachers, … if they follow through and really demonstrate with their actions that they care primarily about the children in the system, then that would be absolutely wonderful.

I also would like them to talk a little bit more about what their vision is for the system, if you will, down the road. The performance contracts and the evaluations of the principals and the teachers are, of course, critically important, but also whether they’re going to try to decentralize our exceptionally centralized system. It’s the most centralized, most top-down educational system in the country, and I happen to believe the best decisions are the ones made closest to the children. …

That’s why I feel so strongly that principals in a union is a ridiculous idea. And why I feel so strongly that performance contracts for the principals is critically important. I would really like it if the board would talk a little bit on whether their ultimate goal is to put more decision-making at the school and the complex-area level, as opposed to having so much of it made in one building.

Q: Now, about rail, what is your objection to it and how optimistic are you that it will be stopped in court?

A: I think elevated heavy rail is a terrible idea for this island, and I’m extremely troubled by what I perceive is the deceptive way the city in general, and former Mayor Mufi Hannemann in particular, misled the public. He pushed elevated heavy rail as a traffic-relief project, (but) … if you look at what the city has put in their own environmental impact study, it’s not a traffic-relief project. It’s a transit-oriented development project. You know — let’s use eminent domain and then figure out which landowners, which developers, which contractors are going to make a ton of money on this project.

And they sold it to the public as “Let’s have elevated rail or do nothing.” They portrayed the opponents as wanting to do nothing. I know nobody who wants to do nothing.

A: If it’s not stopped, what would make you happier about it?

Q: Well, I feel really really strongly it’s a flawed concept from the get-go, so tinkering at this point in time strikes me as not a good idea. Now, if it’s going to be elevated heavy rail with tinkering or elevated heavy rail without tinkering, I’d be happy to talk about the tinkering.

Q: I watched attorney Nicholas Yost represent your case before the appeals court earlier this month. How do you think that went?

A: It was kind of painful watching the oral argument because I was hoping that they would focus … on the arguments that we are making to stop heavy elevated rail and require the city go back and go through the process properly and follow the law.

As you and I observed, they spent virtually the entire hour talking about the procedural issues.

Definitely, one judge seemed to recognize, and say out loud, that if the Ninth Circuit doesn’t decide our appeal on the merits now, it may be that a huge amount of the planned system has been built by the time it gets back to the Ninth Circuit. So I’m hopeful that the Ninth Circuit will recognize that even though it is an unusual situation, … they will at least decide the procedural issue in our favor. And if they do that, then I’m optimistic we will win on the merits. I’m optimistic that they will order the city go back to Square One and follow the law this time.

If the city does that, if it does a rigorous and objective analysis of all of the reasonable alternatives, I am convinced that elevated heavy rail will be at the bottom of the list, and that a project that is affordable, environmentally responsible and, unlike elevated heavy rail, actually will reduce the current intolerable level of traffic congestion, that that would emerge and we would actually do that.