American humorist Will Rogers is credited with saying, “If you find yourself in a hole, quit digging.”

It’s far too much to expect that our local leaders would have the good sense of that old cowboy, but would it be asking too much that they at least listen to what he had to say?

The Star-Advertiser reported in 2016 how the rail project budget was then $8.3 billion, already up by 58% from the 2012 budget of $5.26 billion.

Now we see a projected rail budget that has well more than doubled from the original to $11.2 billion, just short of being 130% over the 2012 budget. Given the newly projected 2033 finish, that figure is sure to continue growing. As currently planned, this project could conceivably bankrupt an already economically weakened City and County of Honolulu — and if it bankrupts Honolulu, it bankrupts Hawaii.

In 2016, when the rail budget was “only” $8.3 billion, the city was taking on a project debt of roughly $8,300 in costs per person for every man, woman and child on Oahu. Now, with the projected budget of $11.2 billion, that city’s rail-project debt will be roughly $11,500 for every man, woman and child on the island.

Based on the 2016 Star-Advertiser story, the Honolulu rail project was then generating between 5.5 times the per-person project debt and a staggering 54.5 times the per-person project debt of other major transportation projects in the U.S. With the current Honolulu Authority for Rapid Transportation (HART) budget for rail, we can expect that these figures are now appreciably worse.This is simply insane.

We have the perfect opportunity for a major reset with the coming new mayoral and national administrations. Three things need to occur:

>> An immediate, complete stand-down of authorizing any new procurement or work contracts (procurement and work already contracted should continue, at least temporarily).

>> A full forensic accounting review to determine where all the money has gone and see if significant amounts cannot be clawed back for poor performance and/or potential malfeasance and fraud.

>> New plans must be developed to halt current construction at the shortest possible point; Middle Street or just before Chinatown seem the likely options.

In the future, should the shortened rail show any possible success, we might consider extending the rail to the University of Hawaii-Manoa, where it could carry a significant population who expect to be walking during their day.

It has been repeatedly reported that various elements of the rail project have been under federal investigation since 2017. This reportedly includes 2019 subpoena requests for “thousands of pages of documents covering numerous angles of the project, including contract procurement, construction, relocation payments and minutes of the HART board’s closed-session meetings … ”

We need to get all four of our U.S. congressional delegates to apply all possible pressure on the U.S. Justice Department to bring these HART investigations to a speedy conclusion and to bring forward the expected indictments, which may well encompass malfeasance and fraud.

To put it simply, it’s almost certain that the feds already know where the money has gone and who’s responsible. Indictments and prosecution for any identified illegalities should be brought forward as quickly as possible. The citizens of Hawaii need this information, along with results of the forensic audit, to inform our efforts going forward.

Under the Trump administration, Hawaii had little hope of national influence. Under the incoming Biden administration, Hawaii should be in a significantly better position to expect positive federal responses.

The rail project remains a disaster; let’s just try to stop it from being Honolulu’s fatal disaster.

Henry Bennett is a publishing professional who has worked with local academic/research institutions; he lives in East Honolulu.