 And welcome to Hawaii Together on the ThinkTech Hawaii broadcast network. I'm Kili Ikeena, president of the Grassroot Institute. I've got a friend today with whom I'm going to have a conversation and invite you to join in with us. He's Randall Roth, professor emeritus of law at the University of Hawaii, School of Law at Richardson. He's a distinguished member not only of that faculty, but also here in the community. You may know him from his series of books called The Price of Paradise, or maybe his blockbuster called Broken Trust in which he chronicled the demise of the then Bishop of State and all that was going into that debacle at the time. But lately he's been active in some contemporary issues, particularly the Honolulu Rail. And for about the last five years he and I have been talking and writing about it, in fact even longer in his case. And I welcome him to the program today so you can get an inside scoop as to how he thinks about the Honolulu Rail project. Please welcome to my program today Randall Roth. Randy, welcome. Good to have you back. Wonderful to be here. Well, it's always good to have you here. Tell our audience just a little bit about some of the projects you've worked on that has brought your name into the public eye, particularly The Price of Paradise. Now that started out as a bunch of essays on basically how expensive it is to live in Hawaii, but there is a theme underlying it the way things work here politically. Right. The title, The Price of Paradise, was a take on an old quote about the price of liberty's eternal vigilance. Well, the price of having a home that is paradise to you is paying attention to know something about the various issues that are controversial within our community. So each chapter of the first book was about a controversial issue, whether it be cost of living or the height level of taxes or transportation issues, public transit. The book went over well, so many, many copies of schools, high schools and colleges in Hawaii were using it in the classroom. So we did a volume two, and that did well. So we started on Hawaii Public Radio, The Price of Paradise radio show, where we would have guests in to talk about controversial issues. So that was kind of my introduction as somebody who would attempt to get the community as interested and informed as possible about issues that sometimes there just isn't enough time in the day to really be up to speed on. In fact, a lot of people use the term price of paradise as a buzzword today talking about something that we all know too well, and that is the high cost of living. Why is it that we continue to put up with Hawaii's high price of paradise? Well, there's a long answer to why things cost as much as they do. Well, give me the short one because we're going to get to the rail soon. The short one, you've talked about the Jones Act a lot, and we're obviously a very isolated sort of place. But part of it is that we don't have competition in the political realm, and so our politics, quite frankly, don't work as well here as they would if we had a little bit of competition. I wrote a piece for Honolulu magazine one time talking about whether politics in Hawaii was broken, and the short answer is yes, and I think that's related to rail. How rail got as messed up as it is and why it doesn't work any better than it does, and I think that's related to another issue that I was involved in 20 years ago with four others. I co-authored a piece in the newspaper called The Broken Trust. That's right. In fact, I'm going to ask you a little bit about that if I can. That deals with an institution which is so important here in the state of Hawaii, our largest private landholder and my alma mater, the Kamehameha Schools, and for all the good it's doing today and has always done since its inception, you helped the public to understand that there was a side of it that needed reform, and that became The Broken Trust which you co-authored with Judge Sam King. Tell us just a little bit about that and didn't it really lift you up to national prominence in the area of the state and trust law? Yeah, this goes back 20 years ago and the five trustees of the trust then known as Bishop of State, now we call it Kamehameha Schools, were setting a world record for breaches of trust and I've had people hear that description and laugh and meant to be catchy, but it's true, they were literally setting a world record for breaches of trust and the story, Judge King and I tell it in the book Broken Trust, but the short version is because of the dysfunctional politics in the state at that time, that institution which is an incredibly important institution, it's a private institution, a private trust, it's incredibly important here in Hawaii, the people who took it over had political connections that got them where they were, they took good care of their friends, there were unacceptable connections between the trustees of that trust and the judiciary and the executive branch and the legislature, a phenomenal amount of corruption and eventually there were five different investigations and eventually it was a federal agency which is terribly important, just like now in Hawaii we've got a criminal investigation of rail by the feds, oftentimes it's the feds that come in and make the difference, same sort of thing with Broken Trust, I'm not sure our local judiciary was ever really going to do what needed to be done but the feds came in and removed all five trustees and set new rules for the selection of trustees so that since then it's been far less politicized, I'm sure it's not run perfectly but from my standpoint it's run dramatically better than it was 20 years ago and I think keeping politics out of that particular trust is the main reason why it's running so much better. Well thanks for that background and I wanted our viewers to get a little glimpse to your credentials and your qualification in terms of looking at institutions and different operations here in the state of Hawaii you've observed a lot and you bring that to bear on your observations of the rails so tell me what do you see just briefly right now going on in the rail we've got all kinds of things on the surface people are aware of we were supposed to cost maybe two to three billion dollars at the beginning and now it's ten billion or more it was a project that was supposed to be efficiently done and we should have been riding the rail by now but that's not taking place and in your estimation what is happening right now? I think the whole project is built on a foundation of deception if you go back to the beginning they were promising 10,000 jobs every year and you know that's... it was laughable at the time and with the benefit of hindsight it's provably laughable they were saying that it was going to cost well for years they were saying 2.7 billion and then it inched up to 3 billion then it inched up etc we've had an audit just in the last year that said they knew before the first shovel had been put into the ground that they were never going to come in at the original budget and it was never going to be on schedule now it's way over budget and it's way delayed you know it was supposed to be operating already every three minutes beginning last year and now you're looking at 2026 at the earliest for it so there's all this deception in the past and I mentioned that in answering your question about where we are right now because unfortunately it hasn't really changed the CEO of Hart who's in charge of doing this has recently said that the critics have calculated that stopping at Middle Street would save 440 million dollars we calculated that we think it would save billions of dollars at least 2 or 3 billion probably 4 or more so one to come up with the number that he came up with which is absurd but two to attribute it to us in pieces that he has done publicly just strikes me as just not an honest way to do it he said for the two years that he's been here the budget has been stable and the schedule is exactly what it was but if you look at Hart's recovery plan that they've submitted to the FTA and the FTA hasn't approved it yet but Hart has said well we think that we're going to come in at the current budget figure and we think that we're going to come in at the current schedule but as part of this recovery plan we'll go ahead and take the higher number in the later date well they're giving the FTA one set of answers and telling the public about a different set of answers which is just inherently dishonest I believe whenever he talks about how much rail is projected to cost he'll give a number and then say excluding interest well interest is a real cost it's going to have to be paid by the taxpayers and to exclude it when talking about what rail is going to cost strikes me as inherently misleading well we obviously could go down a very long litany of dissections let me give you one more in a PC Road in the Star Advertiser commentary just a couple weeks ago he described their approach to things as transparent that they continued to be transparent well this is the same Hart that a year ago in dealing with the state auditor resisted the straight auditor's attempts to get minutes and when they finally got some of the minutes they were redacted to where the auditor said they were totally meaningless and they would allow hard employees to be interviewed only if there was a supervisor there at the time of the interview and the auditor said this is really not in a spirit of cooperation well how you can do that and then describe your operation as transparent just strikes me as deceptive this whole practice of deception which you could chronicle from the beginning to the current time and project into the future is something that just can't happen by itself however I mean don't we set up accountability structures we've got a state government we've got the city and county government the Honolulu Rail Board the Hart Honolulu Area Rapid Transit Board how is it that a board watching over this process from the beginning and a city council along with mayor can allow deception to take place yeah going back 20 years with the old Bishop of State now Kamehameha Schools controversy there you had a world record of breaches of trust over a long period of time and you look at that and say how could that happen well the short answer is the dysfunctional political circumstances at the time I think it's the same thing now and by that dysfunctional political circumstances you're referring to what the absence of competition in the party system yeah I mean and I don't think it's because Hawaii's dominated by Democrats I think we'd have the same problem if it were as dominated by Republicans as it is by Democrats but we don't have a two-party system here and so we've got this rail project that has been a total debacle that's what the Wall Street Journal called it other national publications called it a fiasco I mean it's about to set a world a world record if you will for rail projects that have gone over budget and taken more time and that's just the beginning of all the problems and yet who in our congressional delegation I mean we're spending federal dollars but who in our congressional delegation has said one negative word about the rail project what can you recall of the governor saying a negative word about the rail project and the point is if there were fingerprints of the other political party on that project then it would get some scrutiny there would be some accountability but because of what I think of as our dysfunctional politics in Hawaii it's for an island community dominated by one party and again to be the libertarians you know whatever party it is if there's that kind of total domination I think you're gonna have problems think about it for a minute explain to people outside Hawaii that we've got a recent police chief who has been indicted well you know before we go on I'm gonna ask you to hold that because we're gonna take a quick break Randy and then we'll come back and talk about what you're hinting at and that is the culture of transparency or lack of transparency in our state but we'll wait until after the break there's a lot more to hear from Randy Roth when we come back for a break I'm Kili Iacuna you're watching Kauai Together on the Think Tech Kauai Broadcast Network don't go away because I'm gonna ask Randy about the future of rail and what best solutions we have before us at this time we'll see you back in a moment Aloha I'm Cynthia Sinclair and I'm Tim Appachella we're hosts here at Think Tech Kauai a digital media company serving the people of Hawaii we provide a video platform for citizen journalists to raise public awareness in Hawaii we're a Hawaii non-profit that depends on the generosity of its supporters to keep on going we'd be grateful if you'd go to thinktechkauai.com and make a donation to support us now thanks so much Hi I'm Rusty Komori host of Beyond the Lines on Think Tech Kauai my show is based on my book also titled Beyond the Lines and it's about creating a superior culture of excellence leadership and finding greatness I interview guests who are successful in business, sports and life which is sure to inspire you in finding your greatness join me every Monday as we go Beyond the Lines at 11 a.m. Aloha thanks for coming back I'm sure you're fascinated by what my guest Randy Roth has to say about the Honolulu Rail and we're gonna jump right back into that conversation in a moment recently the Wall Street Journal published a piece on the Hawaii Rail it wasn't about trade winds and beautiful mountains and oceans and beaches it was about how we have one of the biggest debacles in public works projects in our country and in the world that's not the kind of press Hawaii really needs nor wants and yet for some reason the people of Hawaii seem to tolerate it I'm gonna ask Randy why he thinks that is in just a moment but first we'll resume with a story you were telling about many examples of a lack of transparency and dishonesty taking place in our world here our political and our civic world there is a political culture that I think includes a lack of accountability a lack of transparency a lack of what I call political competition and the indicators that it's a dysfunctional situation you've got a recent police chief who's been indicted or serious crimes you've got the prosecutor or the city and county of Honolulu who's received a target letter which generally means that somebody's about to be indicted now the police chief and the prosecutor are supposed to be the watchdogs supposed to be the watchdogs at the top of the pyramid if you will of watchdogs but then you come down a rung and right under the police chief you've got five members of the elite intelligence unit who have either led guilty or been indicted or about to be indicted you've got at least one deputy prosecutor who has at least if the media is to be believed committed some various serious transgressions in her position as deputy prosecutor again she will has a trial coming up you've got a court counsel this is the top in-house lawyer for the city who has received a target letter which again presumably means normally means that they're about to be indicted that's amazing that all at the same time involving different alleged wrongdoings and you've also got a lion construction company that has led guilty and identified various state employees who reportedly have accepted bribes in exchange for giving large contracts to this construction company and you've got this I think it's going to be ten to thirteen billion dollar rail project that is currently under criminal investigation by the FBI I can't think of places elsewhere in the United States maybe Chicago, maybe New Orleans there are few places that have had a lot of high officials who've been indicted or threatened with indictment I don't know of any that have had this many all at the same time seemingly unrelated several of them are related but most of them seem not to be and then people ask me do you think there's any fraud with the rail project just because it started out at a couple billion and now we're up to ten billion and we think it's headed up to thirteen billion dollars it would be remarkable if there wasn't fraud the city auditor two and a half years ago when he wrote his report he said there were no internal controls for the years that he was looking at they the people working in heart they wouldn't know if there was fraud they wouldn't have a way of detecting it because they lacked internal controls I trace all of this back to a dysfunctional political environment and anything that involves billions of dollars in this state ends up being political sooner or later and I think the rail project is the only way you can explain how far is politics and I want to make it clear that you're not saying that it's the Democrats you're saying that it's whoever it could be the Republicans the problem is that there's not a second party of significant size and capacity to be able to challenge a party and you know this is the Hawaii that we live in as you were going down that long list and you weren't complete by the way abuse and our government and criminality and so forth I was just realizing that if I were sitting in another city and somebody who lived in that city told me that story about their city I'd be shocked I'd be stunned but here in Hawaii there's a kind of malaise we see these headlines they're in the news constantly we get used to it why do you think it is that the people tolerate this in Hawaii well for starters when you're on a delegation say something about what appears to be an amazing level scope of corruption why wouldn't they be saying something about that they say a lot about Trump and what's going on in Washington DC why wouldn't what appears to be a huge amount of corruption in their own community why wouldn't they say something why wouldn't they go on record do you think it has anything to do with the fact that a prominent Democrat politician did do that that was Ben Kaetano and the consequences he faced were quite severe it's a perfect example one it took a lot of guts for him to do what he did and two they taught him a lesson in the sense that they whacked him real hard which you can do when you've got total political domination in a community like Democrats here and as you were saying it's not that it's Democrats it's that it's one party and they have total dominance over a long period of time it could just as easily be Republicans or Libertarians or Greens or some other group it just happens in this case to be Democrats you mentioned earlier that the capacity to look out for fraud waste and abuse isn't present in the rail system did they elaborate a bit on that I thought there have to be checks and balances there are audits galore there are financial audits there are federal compliance audits and there's this state legislative audit there's city and county audits there's a board that watches over the operations of the administration so how is it that we don't have the capacity with which to really ferret out fraud waste and abuse there have been some terrific audits the city auditor Edwin Young did a terrific job and among other things pointed out the absence of internal controls that Hart wouldn't itself at that time know whether there was waste fraud or abuse Les Condeau the state auditor just beginning this year has issued I think it's the first three or four installments that he's going to issue he did a terrific job especially under difficult circumstances where Hart was resisting clearly resisting that they talk about oh we gave lots of documents etc we give lots of documents that are meaningless documents what they didn't do is cooperate on the most important documents where the minutes of those closed door meetings that the Hart board had so there have been some good audits but that's part of what I'm calling the political dysfunction in that they just sit there and nothing seems to happen the feds are in the middle of a criminal investigation so that has the potential just like when the feds got involved things happened with respect to the bishop estate trustees the trustees were were ousted so maybe there's hope because the feds are now involved in rail just as a practical matter there is some benefit to rail it shouldn't have started in the first place but now that you've got rail as far as it is if they completed the middle street that provides some value getting people past the H1 H2 interchange get past the middle street merge those are the choke points and so there is some value to get them to middle street but beyond that no beyond that you're better off just to have buses or ubers or whatever taking people directly to their actual destination so you're not saying let's just stop the project tear down the rail and completely end it you're suggesting that there is a workable solution now that could integrate with the rest of the transportation exactly you never would have started in the first place if you knew that it was only going to go to middle street because the cost benefit just doesn't make sense but we've spent it after you've spent as much money has been spent on creek port you've got that route all the way to the airport now and I'm very much dependent on Panos Prevoderas' expertise the chairman of the civil and environmental engineering department at the University of Hawaii Panos has said there really is some value now that they've gone this far there is some value once they get to middle street but not in continuing beyond middle street so I'm quite hopeful that that there can be enough of a public voice if you will saying stop at middle street save us billions of dollars whether that happens or not we'll see quickly the city and county in the face of a loss of massive funding potentially from the federal government has pitched a public private partnership to involve the private sector at this time do you see this as the way to bail the rail out? well first of all the people at heart are saying that this will both move risk from the taxpayers to the private sector and save money and it's almost like they're trying to sell the Brooklyn bridge or something the private tech the private sector will take risk that otherwise the taxpayers would have but at a premium they want to get paid to take that risk it's insulting it may not be a balanced it's just insulting the way they're talking about it but also the P3 is designed to make it difficult once those bids come in make it difficult to identify just how much is being spent to finish the rail project because they're putting it together with 30 years of operation and maintenance expenses which will be a huge number and how you allocate between how much of that is for construction of rail and how much of that is for 30 years of operation and maintenance is kind of a pencil pushing process we're going to have to conclude on that note and what you're leaving us with is a cliffhanger in other words you're saying if we haven't been able to watch the cost so far look out during the next 30 or so years because we're dealing with billions of dollars absolutely and FTA you've got some complicity in this thing number one to take back the money that you've already provided but number two you have a statutory oversight which you have not provided you better get on the ball and help the locals here decide to stop at Middle Street we'll be watching what you write in the future you recently did an op-ed piece what was entitled if anyone wants to google it my op-ed piece in star ad I don't remember the title just google Randall Roth Honolulu Rail and you'll get some good stuff Randy, thank you very much good to have you on the program as always appreciate your expertise and your commitment to what's good in Hawaii well thank you so much for being with us today Think Tech Hawaii's Hawaii Together my guest Randall Roth is well known for his insightful understanding of what's taking place in our institutions and in our government in the state until next time I'm Kili Iakina with the Grassroot Institute and best from Think Tech Hawaii Aloha