 Welcome to this week's Moving Hawaii Forward. I'm your host, Tim Apachella. This week, we once again look at the Honolulu Rail Project. The state legislature has recently announced they will be meeting in a special session in late August to come up with a funding plan that shores the $3 billion shortfall. Many outspoken critics of rail, Randy Roth, Cliff Slater, Ponal's Prevodorus, Scott Wilson, Dr. Keone Dudley, and others tried to warn Oahu residents that the rail project was off-track from the very beginning. It's sad to say the predictions and their cries in the wilderness have been proven correct. Recently a local journalist, Mark Coleman, wrote an excellent article for the Grassroot Institute of Hawaii website. This piece cited a vast collection of articles written by those critics and their dire warnings stating, Houston, we have a problem. Mark Coleman's article clearly points the many critical points that should have been listened to but were ignored by Hart, the mayor's office, Honolulu City Council, Hawaii State Legislature, Federal Transit Administration, and even many residents. Everyone is listening now, but is it too late? Mark Coleman was a journalist for the Honolulu Star Advertiser for 27 years and Pacific Business News for 10 years. He continues his long journalistic career as a contract writer and editor. Mark, thank you very much for coming on the show. You're welcome. I appreciate it. Thank you for taking the time out and sharing your vast years of experience as a journalist and your recent article, which I thought was very well placed and very succinct and really hit on all the high points of where we are with the rail project and where we've been with the rail project. Thank you. I love the title of your article. I gotta tell you. The title was Honolulu Rail, Clearly a Fiasco, and you're a communication major. You're an undergraduate and you're masters in communication. You may remember a guy named Stuart D'Angelo who had this concept about denotation and connotation, and denotation is the exact meanings of the words and how people get hung up on definitions, and connotation is the emotional response we elicit from words and things like that. I look at that word fiasco, and I love it, because if you don't look at the exact meaning, generally people think there's something wrong, there's an emotional connection to that word, it means something's up, something's amiss, so the definition was that it's, fiasco means a thing that is complete failure, especially in a ludicrous or humiliating way, and you picked the right word. Yeah, I was going for brevity for one thing, and that word jumped out at me. Yeah, so words are important, but when it comes to describing our rail project and where it started and... At this point, it's pretty much a fiasco. I think everybody agrees. Even supporters clearly are nervous about the whole thing. True believers are gonna go down with the rail, so to speak, you know, if it comes to that, they'll never change their minds. But even a lot of people who support rail, at this point, are starting to think that perhaps it needs a close look at what's really going on. There is the issue of, do you continue it or stop it at Middle Street or just stop it altogether, like they did with the big dig in New Jersey? Well, it's one thing to have this thing almost daily, if not daily, on the front page or the second page of the Star Advertiser. It's another thing when the New York Times writes it up and calls it a boondoggle. Now, the word boondoggle is an interesting word, too. And that came from Panos Providoris because he was interviewed in the New York Times, but the bottom line is it's an embarrassment now, and it's almost a worldwide embarrassment. This project is the highest, greatest cost per capita in any projects at any time. To be here on this small island of O'odham with barely a million people, if that, and to have to pay for this huge, gigantic mega project, it's basically a mega project, and everyone knows that these things always cost more, but through the years, those who said that were always, oh, don't worry, we got this one under control. It's almost like we have to be lied to in order to have a project approved. Makes you wonder if they really meant to be lying or if they were just hoping for the best, I try not to look at the motives too much. There's always talk about that there's some intentional criminality or fraud. Well, we'll talk about that. But I have no, at the moment, there's no proof of any of that. And there are some people who are convinced that there is, and that's why I personally would like to see a forensic audit. We've had some other audits. Talk about that too. I have had a quote that I've mentioned many times on this show by the ex-mayor of San Francisco, Willie Brown. And as you know, he's a very good mayor in San Francisco, and he left being mayor, and he got his own article in the San Francisco Chronicle. So on July 28th, 2013, he basically, not in a paraphrase because I don't have the exact quote here, but he basically said, when it comes to big projects, if people really knew the true cost, true cost of what that project was gonna be, they would never vote for it. He said, in addition to that, he said, the only thing you can do is get on it right away and dig a hole so big that there's no alternative to that big hole than to just fill it in with more money. That's pretty much what they did here. That's what they've done here. They rushed it into production, so to speak, before all the ducks were lined up, hence those, at least one or two of those lawsuits, hence the first lawsuit for sure about the EV. And the second one was a different issue, as I recall, but yeah. So, I mean, they kind of knew that people weren't gonna swallow a $10 billion price tag. And even now, they're saying, don't worry, once we're done, you'll love it. Try it, you'll like it. Now, we don't know what's in the bill, but once it's there, you're gonna love it. Well, they've been seeing that for a long time. They have, and the thing about being a boondog, I mean, Ponos might have said it in that New York Times article, but the concept has been around forever, including back in 1981, when I wrote this story for Pacific Business News, Robert Poole from the Reason Foundation, he's a national transportation expert in aviation, but also rail, and issues like that as well. And he was speaking here in August 1981, and the headline of this article was called Heart Called Giant White Elephant. This was in the Eileen Anderson days before the current heart, you know. And he was saying that it was gonna be a gigantic white elephant if they went ahead with it, and this is just a fascinating article written 1981, 91, 2001, 2011, you know, almost 40 years ago. Well, in reporting, you know, I'm sure, you know, things were a lot easier because you probably had access to public officials a lot easier. Ponos Prevedores basically said, you know, when the rail was up for vote back in 1992, all the critics about rail, you know, had an opportunity to sit down with public officials, with the rail officials, and basically lay out their case saying why this wasn't the best of ideas. He said, but this time around, they hired all these, you know, professional public relation firms, and the, you know, those in charge basically created a big wall around them so that you couldn't get in and really get, you know, valid responses to their criticisms. Well, there are a lot more gatekeepers now, that's for sure. And as a journalist, you've seen this. Well, you know, I'm not, for the last few years of my journalism career at the Star-Arvetizer, I did a lot of interviewing of people, name-in-the-news kind of folks, but I didn't do the kind of reporting that would have familiarized myself with how difficult it might be on the ground for actual transportation reporters and such. But, you know, those are the guys, the guys who were doing that work, but I did get to see people like Kevin Dayton and Marcel Anarray and others at the Star-Arvetizer, you know, they're doing a fantastic job and other publications, Civil Beat and so on. But, you know, for myself, now as a contract writer and working with Grass Street Institute, yeah, some people don't return my calls, you know. But I'm not having that much trouble. I haven't tried to call everybody, you know, but I haven't never had to follow NFOIA. I try to, I give people enough time to make sure they really aren't calling me back and I'll take it from there, but I can't really speak to that in terms of now versus then because I haven't been doing that kind of reporting lately. My article that you talked about that I had on the Grass Street Institute website, that was really working off a lot of what guys like Kevin and Marcel have done and many others, it wasn't just critics of the rail that I was citing, in fact. No, you had over 27 sources and there was variety from A to Z. Yeah, yeah. And really great, you know, resource list. Thank you, and I, you know, it was almost something I could write and then I went back and found the sources, you know. That's how easy it is to think about this project at this point. It's just all out there and having tracked it since the 1980s, you know, the 1981, I know that there was a, that this was all going to happen, you know, and why, you know, you feel like a voice in the wilderness. That's what I put in the introduction. Yeah, and now it's like, they're just trying to put lipstick on a pig, you know, and there are a lot of economic reasons to ditch the thing even now. I'm not saying you should. Personally, I've never really been in favor of it. I think there were a lot of other better ways to handle the issue of traffic congestion, which was the original reason for doing this. In fact, I've been tracking this so long. I remember when Fosse, I remember when the original rail proposal was from Honolulu to Kailua, right, you know, and then it was, then it was variations of the theme going out to Kapolei area for the Evercroids to get to Honolulu. Right. I think they were even talking about at one time of going to Hawaii. Yeah, they were. That was a concept. Yeah. So, you know, it's like when those issues kind of, when those needs kind of faded, it's almost like they were looking for something. We've got to build a rail somewhere, you know. Yeah, there's federal dollars out over there somewhere. Yeah. Boy, why don't we just try to get some of that? And I just wish that they had not been in such a rush or fallen. Right. So, you know, you start to worry about crony capitalism and who benefits, you know, follow the money is the benefit really going to be equal to the cost. Well, at this point, I'm thinking that it's not. And I'm a true believer that you don't throw good money after bad, the fallacy of sunken costs. It might be time to pull the plug on the thing. But first, I'd like to see a forensic audit, which, as you know, is different from a mere financial or performance audit, in that in those kinds of audits and similar audits, the auditors basically go in assuming everybody's on the up and up and they just want to make sure everything's going according to how the contracts are specified and that the financial statements really reflect, you know, that they're accurate, both for business and government. But a forensic audit is more looking into correspondence, going emails deeper into the contracts to find out if there's any fraud, any criminality, any violation of law. And I'm not saying there is, but now that we're three to four times over budget and only halfway there, with the hardest part looming ahead, you know, going into town. Yeah, but you know, Hart says, oh, that's the past, you know, why do we want to go in the past? Let's just move forward. Yeah. Doesn't that sound convenient? I mean, really, I wonder if the heart director who said that has had any second thought about that, and if she would change her mind or reword her. And then the other guy said, there was another guy on the board, too, who said, you know, kind of backed her up and said, they'll basically say, well, we're new, let's start fresh. Yeah. That was before us. Yeah, that was before us. But you know, also new on the board is Felix, John Henry Felix, and he's the one who requested a forensic audit, which they actually approved and allocated $250,000 I wish to submit that in their budget for the city council to approve. Hold that thought for a minute. I'm sure they interrupt you, but we do have a commercial break. All right. I'm Tim Appatelle. I'm here with Mark Coleman, and this is Moving Hawaii 4. We'll be right back. You're watching Think Tech Hawaii, 25 talk shows by 25 dedicated hosts every week, helping us to explore and understand the issues and events in and affecting our state. Great content for Hawaii from Think Tech. We all play a role in keeping our community safe. Every day we move in and out of each other's busy lives. It's easy to take for granted all the little moments that make up our every day. Some are good, others not so much, but that's life. It's when something doesn't seem quite right that it's time to pay attention because only you know what's not supposed to be in your every day. So protect your every day. If you see something suspicious, say something to local authorities. Aloha and Richard Concepcion, the hosts of Hispanic Hawaii. You can watch my show every other Tuesday at 2 p.m. We will bring you entertainment, educational, and also we'll tell you what is happening right here within our community. Think Tech Hawaii, Aloha. Welcome back to Moving Hawaii Forward. I'm here with Mark Coleman, a journalist for many decades, and we're here before the commercial break talking about an audit of the heart rail system. Mark, before I interrupted you, go ahead, continue what you were saying about there was actually an approval for the forensic audit by heart. It seemed so. The whole trans-Chocant, Vice President of Research for Grassroot Institute, went back into the videotapes of the hearings of the Heart Board in November, June, May, and so on. He transcribed that exchange you were talking about. I think your name is Embershoom, the woman on the board who was saying, let's don't muck around in the past, and if I got her name wrong, I'll pop that. That's okay. These things happen. Anyway, why they were even talking about it is because late last year, John Henry Felix had suggested, had recommended, in fact this is a letter from John, he had recommended that they do a forensic audit because the credibility of rail transit on Oahu had lost, the credibility for it had virtually disappeared. Nobody believes anything anymore about what public officials have to say about it. They said it's well deserved and if they want to restore their credibility, they need to do this. That these other sorts of audits, like the performance audit that the city auditor did, which was pretty rough on Heart and the project, they're still just kind of cursory. They don't go deep. And so apparently from the transcript, it sounds like Colleen Hanabusa, former chairwoman of Heart and now U.S. representative, she supported it, Mike Formby supported it. There's apparently support on the city council for it, at least three members. The voices are getting louder. They are, and there's people in there. So I think this is a perfect opportunity to do it, especially now. And it could be done by the legislature. If Heart's not going to do it, what they eventually did when it came back around in June, they decided, well, never mind, let's don't do that after all, but the money's still in there. You mentioned the legislature, and you also mentioned, you know, the fact that there's no credibility here with this project, even the people who support it aren't believing what the costs are going to truly come out to be. So finance chair Sylvia Luke said on March the 10th, said it's not because people no longer support rail, but people have lost confidence in the cost. And they have lost confidence in what this project is going to cost in the future. There it is right there. And those are the people she's referring to that actually support the project. Right. And as we go into the legislature, you know, theoretically they're all for the rail. And at least that's the way that some of the news articles have been framed, that the only issue for them at this moment is to consider how to raise taxes to fund rail, and that they couldn't agree, and that's why they had this stalemate. But I'm not so sure they all really do support rail, and I'm not so sure. And I have a feeling that very few of them want to either extend the GTT or impose a tax on the tourism industry or anything else that involves raising taxes. And they have a real good opportunity if what's also happening right now tomorrow, the council is going to take another vote on whether to issue bonds. And I think there might be one more vote after that. But they want to float bonds, and they are pretty much saying that if they do, $350 million with the bonds would cover them through January. So what the legislature could do, it would be a very good face-saving maneuver, I think, for them, and put everything on the table. They don't believe, it's like here, both money committee leaders do not agree on at least one thing so far. They don't believe the figures anymore from the city. That's from Luke. Luke says she doesn't trust the city budget. That's from the style advertised. They don't trust the city figures anymore. So what they ought to do, I recommend, is have the state auditor work with an outside independent transportation expert auditor to do a forensic audit of rail between now and January. And the legislature could, that's what they could do when they convene in late August. Don't just put everything else on the shelf and say, all right, you guys are covering yourself till January. We're looking, we'll conduct a forensic audit because there's a nexus, you know, the state GT, the state TOD planning. There's a lot of connection with them. Keep moving things forward until this. Yeah, yeah, you know, do your rail thing with your bond money that you're going to get. And then in January, we promise to take up this issue first thing. And once we get the results of this audit. Right. That way, they don't have to pass any taxes. They can all wait for the audit report. Well, FTA's looking for an answer, though. Well, and what is at stake is probably another 750 million because the real project already got us so much. Well, my view on that is, at this point, when you're talking $10 billion and possibly $13, $14, $15, who knows where it's going to end. What is a mere remaining $770 million? Good point. I want to get at more of this concept of why your point, and I think it's a good one, that a forensic audit is paramount. Randy Roth, who has been on Think Tech Hawaii and has opined on Civil Beat and the Star Advertiser. He's done a great job. Great job. He actually was one of the parties that took the rail project to federal court. He was on May 22nd. He was on Dr. Akina's show. And we're going to look at a quick clip on this because he's using the term fraud. Fraud is a legal term. It's a very strong term. But you know what? He's a legal law professor. So you think you would probably know what that really meant before he said it? Can we take a look at that? Well, I'm not an expert on transportation and transit and wouldn't normally spend nearly the kind of time and energy that I've put into this project. But from my standpoint, what's gone on is a form of fraud. Wow. I can tell from the very beginning, there's been more than just political spinning. I think it was really clear at the beginning that this was going to cost far more than the 2.7 billion that they initially said the 34 mile route would take. Then they increased it to 3 and then they increased it to 3.4 and then they increased it to 4.2 and etc. Okay. Well, that was Mr. Roth and opining that he isn't a transportation expert, but he recognizes how these costs kind of starting to grow. And the fact that he's using the term fraud would warrant maybe what other people think. Yeah. Well, I think if you're talking about a fellow who uncovered all the shenanigans at Bishop Estate, now Kamehameha Schools is saying this kind of thing. I haven't taken it seriously. And I think that's giving impetus to the push for a forensic audit. And, you know, he's not alone. There's a growing number of people. And Grouchard Institute itself has a push going called Audit the Rail. Oh, okay. It's a petition you can go online and go audittherail.com and you can sign it and add your voice to the crowd, to the choir. When I interviewed Representative Bob McDermott and he's a Republican representative from the Eva district area. And, you know, he was one voice to say, look, let's just go. Let's just get this thing done. Let's just push it through. Yeah. And, you know, I admired his editorial and it was very succinct. It was very clear. And for politicians to be succinct and clear was really rare. So I walked him up on the show and, you know, discussed his points. And during the interview, I said, you know, there's just no credibility here. I mean, you want to push this thing through and everyone wants to get this thing done. But how do you do that when people are saying, wait a minute, is there fraud here? Is there a case of fraud and why do we throw more money after something that really is not looking so well? And he acknowledged that. And to my surprise, he said, I fully support a financial audit and a management audit. Which, you know, almost, I didn't expect that from him, to be honest with you. Well, those are okay, but it's got to go more than that. Yeah. So we have a clip of that, too. Just on what he said. Let's look at what Mayor Kirk-Callwell said when he first pitched this idea to the legislature in February 1st, 2017. He said, I think we're having a harder time than two years ago. And it's all based on the fact there's no trust. The numbers given have changed dramatically. Well, that's another statement. Yeah. And history now has proven itself right, because we're now in June. I would support a complete financial audit going back to the beginning of the project to this fiscal year. I think that will go a long way to restore public trust. I think that's a great point. And I wanted to ask you about that. That's a great, great point. I think also you would need also a management audit, too. Because, as you know, there are two specific different things. But there is no public trust. And I think local people feel, because I'm married to a local girl, and so I live in that world, somebody's making money on this. Somebody's getting rich. Somebody's pockets are being lined. And I think the voters are now realizing that, yeah, who is that? Who's making the money, bro? Yeah. There we have it. We have both Republicans and Democrats saying we have an issue here. And the groundswell is getting far more, much, much, much louder. Yeah. I'm somewhat disappointed that he's such a cheerleader for extending the general excise tax. A lot of Republicans aren't quite sure what to think about that. Because Hawaii already has such a high burden of cost of living. And that's another problem with the rail. It's a very expensive top-down, size-large, one-size-fits-all kind of thing. And it never did take into consideration cheaper alternatives and probably more effective alternatives. And the cost in money and land being taken from landowners, families, businesses, the hassle. Yeah, the blood bank. The hassle. Yeah, the blood bank. I mean, it's terrible. I think the social cost, the financial cost, and they just want to keep it going. I don't get it. You know, the question is, this debate about whether it's a TAD or a GET tax or it's property tax, those discussions are probably taking place right now in the background. And, you know, the special session wasn't really supposed to be enacted unless they had an answer. And they're just coming to the special session to vote on it, right? The shine laws that kind of get at this? I don't know. I don't know. We don't have time to go into that. I wish we did. Well, I think what they should do is get together and just shove all that kind of talk and vote to allocate money for a special audit in conjunction with the state audit or hire an outside firm. Because I don't think the state auditor would really vote. How long do you think it would take to do an audit of that magnitude? Well, I think they could do it by January. But, honestly, I don't know. But, like you said, things could still progress forward and until this had been resolved. I did talk about that with Randy Roth as a matter of fact. And he agreed that this would be a really good face-saving maneuver gesture for these guys. Unless it went south. Unless it didn't go well for them. Well, you know, you don't know until you get it, right? And if we are all working in the dark, well, that's no good. I'd like to see some light shine. Speaking of the sunshine, I'd like to see some sunshine on some of our particulars here. Well, Mark, we've run out of time. And I hope you'll come back again because we didn't get to all that. Yeah, there's so much talk about it. I got so much to talk to you about it. Like the alternatives to rail. Right, exactly. So we didn't get a chance. So please come back again. And I appreciate you coming on board and sharing your experience and your thoughts and your wisdom about this topic. So thank you very much. Nice to meet you as well. Great talking to you. Thank you.