 Aloha, and welcome to Hawaii Together on the Think Tech Hawaii Broadcast Network. I'm Kili Iakina, your host and president of the Grassroot Institute of Hawaii. Well, it doesn't matter where you're from, whether you're in Japan or in Europe or anywhere in the United States, you have now heard about the Honolulu Rail. Recently, the Wall Street Journal did an expose and dubbed us perhaps the worst boondoggle of public works in the United States. Ouch! That hurts! Lucky we live Hawaii. But today we're going to take a deep look into the auditing of the rail, Hawaii's project today that has become a national renown. I haven't expert with me today because her job is to do just that. Take a look at the rail project and make sure that it's on track, so to speak. She's a councilwoman for the Council District 2 of Honolulu City and County, which is a vast region on the island of Oahu. And she's been tracking the rail for a while, even before she was elected. Today, my guest is somebody who's becoming rapidly well known all across the state because of her strong views on the rail. Her name is Heidi Tsunayoshi, councilwoman of the Honolulu City Council. I'm going to welcome her to the program. Councilwoman Heidi, welcome to the program. Hello, and good afternoon. Thanks for having me on the show. It's a delight to have you on the program today. You and I have similar heartbeats. We've been listening to and watching and talking about the rail for quite some time. Now, you're not new to City Council, although you're in your first term. You actually worked there before. That's correct. I had the distinct privilege and honor to work for Council Chair Ernie Martin, who was a council member before I began my term in January of 2019. And I did work with him for the full eight years of his term. So through that perspective, I've got to get a lot of insight into what it takes to be effective as a council member and what it takes to get out into the community and address concerns. Now, you were working behind the scenes for many years for Councilman Martin. You basically learned every aspect of City Council work. What caused you to throw your hat into the ring in front? That's a very good question. So I never thought I would go into politics. So start with that. My background is in counseling psychology. So I was actually, before working with Councilmember Martin, was working at Alegua High School as a high-risk counselor with at-risk youth. High-risk counselor. I mean, at-risk counselor with high-risk youth. That's not a bad thing for the council in any way. So I was very passionate about working in the social services and working with our communities and then had the opportunity to work with Chair Martin, who himself has a background in social work, so that was a fit. And then when he was coming towards the end of his term and knowing all that I knew about what we were working with in the communities and what the challenges we had moving forward, I really thought about it long and hard, talked it over with my family, and decided that it was something that I could do to serve at even a higher level for the people. As service has always been my main focus, I thought that was a good thing to do. And also I have two daughters who are now 21 and 18, and thought that I really wanted to do my part to make sure that they had a Hawaii that they could be proud to call home. So I decided to put my hat in the ring, if you will. And now you're in the limelight quite a bit. In fact, rapidly moving into the limelight for a freshman on the council, I know that I started to follow what you're doing when you started to talk about the rail, because for many years that has been a concern to me and the grassroots. And I remember back when Mayor Mufi Hanuman began the program, we were talking in the early days about a $2.5 billion price tag. Today we're nearing the $10 billion price tag, and the rise in cost has been astronomical. Whether people are supporting the rail or opposed to the rail, it represents a real problem. Now, when did you start tracking the rail, and what made you become a little more concerned than the average citizen? Well, so it's working as a staff member with Chair Martin had heard many of the discussions that came before the city council from Hart. And at that time was just the Honolulu Area Rapid Transit. Authority for Rapid Transit, correct. And when Hart officials would come to discuss the projected costs, projected deadlines, all of those kept changing over and over again. And as a staffer, I just had so much concerns about it. And then as I started in January of 2019 and as a council member had the opportunity to see documentation and look into specifics as to what we were looking at, I had my concerns heightened even more because I saw information dating all the way back to 2007, that before Hart was even formed, almost $3 billion of money was already expended for the project. And so knowing that we knew even in 2007 and in 2009 was the first audit that was done. And even at that point, there was concerns for lack of internal controls, lack of accountability. And having taken office in 2019, saw that there was a decade of time when different audits had been saying there's a lack of internal controls or concerns for accountability. And in the way I was looking at it, there is no real action towards bringing accountability to the project. So I decided to ask for the forensic audit. For a moment, because the story you're telling is really astounding. You're saying that a project of this magnitude had problems probably early on a decade ago or more. And no one was really paying attention to that. We didn't slow down and say, let's take a look at these problems. Let's dig in a little deeper. Why do you think that is? Why do you think there is so much momentum behind the train, so to speak, that we didn't slow down and say, hey, we've got a correct course along the way? I think that from what I see now, I think there was a lot of just letting things go on in that school. But the forensic audit is actually looking for if there was any internal breaches of internal control. So that's really what the forensic audit, which I called for in resolution 19-29, is looking to see was it intentional that we really weren't looking to how these internal controls were breached or how we were spending. A lot of people are looking at it, saying, was there any purposeful fraud, waste, and abuse going on with this system? But ultimately for myself at this point in time, what we need to do moving forward to make sure we don't have any more bleeding of taxpayer dollars. Well, you've been talking about and you have stood for a resolution in the council to bring about a forensic audit. And congratulations on your initial success in that. We're going to see one along the way soon enough. But you had mentioned other audits had taken place. And in fact, one of the concerns raised when you began to say it's time to have a forensic audit is that other people said, wait a minute, this thing is audited all the time. There are constant financial statements audits. There is federal government auditing its expenditures. There are audits by the state government. So your opponent said, Heidi's just going to be wasting money with the forensic audit because we've already audited this quite a bit. But you used three words earlier that would kind of differentiate a forensic audit from the rest. And it was fraud, waste, and abuse. Now our viewers, what exactly the forensic audit will do that no other audit has done? Right, thank you. So for previous audits done by the city and state, they looked at snapshots of time. This forensic audit is going to start from when we started collecting the GE in 2007 all the way up to now to see if there was any purposeful breaches of our internal controls that has left our assets unprotected, which is basically taxpayer dollars. So again, to see if there was a purposeful intent in not having true documentation or if there is anything that we need to look at as far as actions that were taken that caused the waste that we have. So you're talking about, as you mentioned, the GE tax payments that were being made to help fund the rail. You're talking about the money. That gives the impetus to the forensic audit in order to search what has been done with the money. So there's going to be a careful look to see whether there is intentionality there. You must use the money for fraud, waste, and abuse. Now when you started to promote this audit for fraud, waste, and abuse, what were some of the areas in which you got a lot of pushback? I think there was a concern for the cost of the audit because we had to, of course, appropriate the money through the city. When the resolution was first heard, the resolution was drafted to where the heart was going to be, the entity that would fund and look for the external auditor that we would be using. And there came concerns from the heart board. I did after the resolution was heard at a committee meeting, go to attend the heart board meeting where the heart board discussed the resolution and they were in opposition to the resolution. So I brought the resolution back to the city council and said, if heart is unwilling or unable to conduct the forensic audit, then I think that is within the scope of the Honolulu City Council who has to oversee what's gonna happen for rail many years from now, heart is only chartered and the charter tasked with the construction of rail, but the city council, other councils beyond our time are gonna have to be taxed with even looking at the operation and maintenance. So we brought back to the city council. Didn't heart already have an audit, a forensic audit and a budget of $500,000 that it ultimately voted down? Correct. They had had it as a line item previously. But to go back what you said, one of the major pushbacks you got is this is gonna be too expensive, which is kind of hard to fathom. I mean, we're going from 2.5 billion to 10 billion dollars inching up in the billions and we're not willing to spend even a few hundred thousand or the millions that it would take to do an audit. It doesn't seem to make sense because such a forensic audit could ultimately save you billions. Exactly, and that was my intention. And even now as I talk to people who are foreign against the audit is that my intention is that I think this is the money that we need to spend is necessary and in light of what we have spent and what we will continue to spend, it's a very small deposit if you will into what we need to do to be able to save a lot of money in the long run. So I'm very glad that we got the votes to push that out of the Honolulu city council and that we will be working forward and moving forward into identifying who we were going to be identifying to do that audit. Well, I want to congratulate you because you've been the spearhead really at the front end of getting this forensic audit going by the city and counting it, so here to be commended for that. I know a couple of years ago the Grassroot Institute came to the conclusion that our community and our leaders were pretty much divided about 50-50 between being for the rail or against the rail and we'd come to a standstill. But one of the things we learned through a campaign we ran called Audit the Rail is that it didn't matter where people were, whether they were pro-rail or anti-rail, they wanted an accounting of the money. And so really you've been at the forefront of something that is actually a unifying factor amongst the people of Hawaii. And have you seen that too? That people are not so much fighting against each other in terms of pro-rail versus anti-rail. People are rallying together calling for accountability on the same page. I think that's very true and I think that's really what drove me as a mother and as a daughter is that the biggest question on everybody's mind is how much is this gonna cost us? Cause as we know, we have so many other things that we have to work on in the city. We have so many other core services that we have to manage. And on top of that, the cost of living in our island home is just so high that the concern is very real and very valid for people of all generations and generations to come as far as the decisions we make today and how that will impact individuals and families' ability to live here in Hawaii. When we come back from a short break in a couple of minutes, I'm gonna ask you to give us some examples of potential fraud, waste, and abuse that factored into your proposal to conduct a forensic audit. But first, quickly, if you could answer this question, how can we make sure that the forensic audit is going to be independent, that it's not gonna be co-opted by government or by members of the heart? That's a very good question. Or the administration. Correct. And that's why we allocate it up to $2 million to make sure that we have the capability to really look through all the qualifications. And if we have to go external, out-of-state or wherever, we have to go to make sure we get a good accounting of what we need to uncover with this rail project. So this is going to be an independent audit that's going to have someone from the outside taking a careful look at what's going on inside. That is correct. With no ties to heart or the city council. Very good. Well, thanks for your mana'o on this, and I'm looking forward to the good results. And when I come back from this short break, I will ask you, give me some real examples of potential fraud, waste, and abuse. My guest today is city councilwoman Haiditsu Niyoshi. He covers the region from, oh, about Mililani Maoka up through Wahiwa all the way up. He just goes up to the north part of the island. It's a vast region, but it's a very important region. And one of the interesting things is that the rail isn't going to go to her constituents. So I think they're a little bit up in arms as to the fact that they're going to need to pay for it. We'll be right back. I'm Kele'i Ikeena on Think Tech of Hawaii's Hawaii Together. Don't go away. Aloha, this is Winston Welch. I am your host of Out and About, where every other week, Mondays at 3, we explore a variety of topics in our city, state, nation, and world, and events, organizations, the people that fuel them. It's a really interesting show. We welcome you to tune in and we welcome your suggestions for shows. You got a lot of them out there and we have an awesome studio here where we can get your ideas out as well. So I look forward to you tuning in every other week where we've got some great guests and great topics. You're going to learn a lot. You're going to come away inspired like I do. So I'll see you every other week here at 3 o'clock on Monday afternoon. Aloha. Aloha and Mabuhay. My name is Amy Ortega Anderson inviting you to join us every Tuesday here on Pinoy Power Hawaii. With Think Tech Hawaii, we come to your home at 12 noon every Tuesday. We invite you to listen, watch for our mission of empowerment. We aim to enrich and lighten, educate, entertain and we hope to empower. Again, maraming, salamat po, Mabuhay and Aloha. Welcome back and thanks for not going away. This is a fascinating program. I'm Kili Ikeena on Hawaii Together on the Think Tech Hawaii broadcast program. Think Tech Hawaii produces about 30 to 35 of hours of original content right here from our studios in downtown Honolulu and it's broadcast live across the world and then picked up in other venues and circulated. So we hope that you'll be tuning in and if you like this program, simply watch it on your YouTube link and share it. Other people can learn about this. My guest today is city councilwoman Heidi Tsuniyoshi who's talking about her efforts to audit the rail through a forensic audit. We're gonna pick up right away. Well, we're back and I promised you that I would ask you to tell us a little more about what caused you, in terms of the data, to move forward with a forensic audit. What potential evidence of fraud, waste or abuse were you looking at? I think when I saw the audits and what came out of the audits, I think some of the main things that stuck out there. Now you're talking about the state auditors audit. The city and the state audits, yes. The change orders and the exorbitant change orders. Some of the consultant fees that I saw and continue to see for consultants that we're bringing in and the high cost of those. Well, let's talk about change orders for a bit. For our viewers, that means once the contract is made, something has to be changed. And sometimes that's a legitimate process. We've discovered something in the way of the rail that has to be moved and so forth. But obviously these were quite exorbitant and showed perhaps some things had not been planned for. Correct. I think for myself, like you said, change orders in a lot of big projects like this are not uncommon. There's a lot of variables that come up when you're doing a big construction project or any project for that matter. But the level to which the change orders existed and the magnitude of the cost of these change orders was very concerning to me in either it was a purposeful situation and or a lack of planning. And I think either case is not respectful of our taxpayer money because I think moving forward, what government really has to show the people is that we are willing to step forward and be good stewards of our taxpayer money. And that for me is what it's all about is that we're showing the intent that we wanna be good stewards of our taxpayer money. And in that light again with the consultant fees and bringing in consultants from all over at very, very high rates of pay is concerning as this project was touted to the community to say bringing so many local jobs to the communities. And there has been a good increase of local jobs but there's also a lot of jobs that are high-paying jobs that come from out of state and other places so we're not realizing the benefits of those jobs. Now you've had some concern about the necessity of some of the contractors. Now of course in any project of this magnitude you want to have the best national and international expertise. But you've been known to describe that as consultants watching consultants watching consultants. What do you mean by that? So just recently we had a committee on budget meeting and the idea of the holo card came up which the holo card is a card that they're gonna be using so it's a one swipe where you can use it for the bus and the rail. And within the identification of this holo project and what's gonna happen in our budget this upcoming budget for fiscal year 2020 there's a consultant for over $6 million to look into how to implement this holo card and that's one consultant for over $6 million. So things like that when I see it come up on the budget it's just so concerning to me because the everyday person doesn't have time to go through the budgets and really line out and buy line out and what are we looking for? But I think that is a job of elected officials is to look line item by line item what are we looking for? Is this really necessary? What is the benefit to the people and at that price tag is that really needed? So I think things like that and a lot of times I think when people are in government you see millions of dollars come in and come out all the time so for myself as a mother and a daughter every dollar that we spend is so important to the people so I think government officials get used to just approving million dollar things all the time but it's such a- Billion dollar things. Exactly, millions and billions of dollars but for me every dollar really counts so when I'm looking at the budgets I'm looking line item by line item and when I looked and became a council member and was able to do that that's where the concern came because when you look at it as a whole and try to explain it that detail isn't presented so that detail is also of concern for the P3 project moving forward as well so all those together led me to think that we really do need to have a full on look at this with the forensic audit. Now you just mentioned the P3 project which is a catch word today. The buzz word to say P3 when something's not very popular a lot of times we create a public-private partnership and on the surface it sounds very good because we've got the public sector government working together with the private sector to have a greater efficiency and the truth is it does come up with some great results but sometimes all P3s aren't healthy. Right. And you have some concerns about the proposed public-private partnership that the mayor has put forth as a means for financing and ending and finishing the construction of the rail what is your concern? So when I came in to start serving in January there was already agreement between the administration and the city council and Hart the Honolulu Authority for Rapid Transportation to move forward to complete the last component the last city center segment of the rail project through a P3 which is like you said the partnership. After coming on board I really started asking questions about why would anybody want to come aboard with such a project that's so risky what is it, what is in it for them if you will and at that time during discussions it was told to me and I went to a hard board meeting that part of the P3 was an operation and maintenance component to where the person who was selected to do the construction would also be operating doing the operation and maintenance for 30 years which caused me great concern because in our charter the heart is only supposed to be confined to the construction of rail. So when I went to the board meeting and said how is it possible that we're doing a P3 with construction and O&M now the conversation has changed to say oh no, heart is only dealing with the construction and the city is gonna do the O&M operation and maintenance component of the P3 but this causes me great concern because how do you come to a contractual agreement with two different entities for one project and so all of these things are just very, very concerning to me. Well it certainly raises some questions and to the average taxpayer who may not know the difference between the two it looks like something may be going on that could be a little bit slight of hand. In the first instance you talked about the operations and maintenance perhaps being added on as a sweetener for the deal. And that would raise a lot of questions about the contracting and in the second instance you talk about it being separated off as something the city manages. You know one of my concerns is that whenever there's a P3 public-private partnership there should be a balanced way of sharing the risk but it looks like the one that's being proposed puts the risk on the taxpayer. Because the private entity doesn't have to really pay. They pay upfront and then they get paid back by the taxpayers and as you know our city is really willing at times to go after taxpayers maybe raise property taxes, raise PE taxes and so forth and that's not a good thing. The other concern that I have about the P3 is this the private entity doesn't have to make it work. In other words whether it's efficient or whether the rail makes a profit or not the private entity gets paid by the taxpayer anyway. And that takes away all the incentive really to make it very profitable, very creative and very cost effective. And so I think your concerns about the P3 are right on the money and what are you planning to tell the city council now about P3s? So as you know right now we're going through our budget process and within the budget we're looking at the heart budget proposals. We have our upcoming meeting actually this Wednesday is a special budget meeting. So we're gonna be talking about all the budgets and I really wanna drill down and get information from heart and now I guess the city administration about the price tag for the operation and maintenance component of the P3 and the construction component of the P3 and how those are able to be put out together and let as one contract. And as you know this morning in the Star Advertiser paper there was I did ask Hart to provide information about what it would look like to stop at Middle Street thereby foregoing the P3 if we need to if it is too risky for our taxpayers because at the end of the day what you're saying is exactly right that the taxpayers are the one that's gonna be holding the bag either way and for operation and maintenance that part of the P3 my understanding is that's for a 30 year contract for operation and maintenance and how do we finalize a contract for 30 years of operation and maintenance when 10 years were included in the current real project with unsolved and then after that the city was supposed to take over operation and maintenance to give exactly what you said a sense of place a sense of belonging, a sense of pride in this project that we take it over and really start owning this project and making sure we make sure it's a viable project for our people. So I have concerns, great concerns when we're drilling down to see get answers for that. Well Councilwoman one of the big questions that people have now is where do we go? Should we scrap the project all together and go back to ground zero, tear it down or should we finish it to the end and make sure that the original vision is fully completed or do we stop it at Middle Street and save possibly as the newspaper cited a number $450 million which may need to be tweaked actually. What are your thoughts about where we're going, what we should do? Well like I told was included in the article this morning that I think it is that time for that discussion. I think that we do need to look at and as I even introduced the resolution 19-29 asking for the forensic audit I made it very clear that this is not a for pro or against rail as you said a lot of people are beyond that discussion of pro or against rail it's about the accountability of rail. So really where I think we need to go is get all the information so that we can make an informed decision and present that to the people to say this is the realities of what it is and no rose colored glasses and no leaving some information out for another day look at all the information right now before we decide what we can really do that it's gonna be a benefit to the people. I do believe that there can be benefits to the people by stopping at Middle Street. A lot of people wanna go all the way to all of Moana but I think we do have to look at all of those factors and what those means for not only this generation but future generations. So really think that it's time to have that conversation and see where we need to do. And the next few seconds before we close though would you just tell our viewers why transparency is important? Well I think like I said earlier that we really need to show the taxpayers that this is our opportunity to show the taxpayers that we wanna be good stewards of their money that we understand that every dollar that they make is hard earned that we do understand the high cost of living is making it hard for people to live here and that we just wanna make sure that people know that we're willing to do the work and ask the questions and make the informed decisions to create a better future. Well councilwoman Heidi Suniyoshi thank you so much for being with us today. Thank you very much, thank you for having me. My guest today has been the councilwoman of the second district of the Honolulu City Council that she's been fighting for forensic audit and you've heard her right here on Hawaii Together. I'm Kili Akinah, president of the Grass Root Institute. Until next time on the Think Tech Hawaii broadcast network, aloha.