The city agreed yesterday to temporarily halt construction on the $5.26 billion rail project apart from some short-term tasks required for an orderly shutdown, according to statements from the Honolulu Authority for Rapid Transportation and the Native Hawaiian Legal Corp.
NHLC lawyer David Kimo Frankel met with city and rail officials Monday afternoon and issued a statement that "it is our understanding that the city has halted construction of the rail project."
Later in the afternoon the Honolulu Authority for Rapid Transportation offered a brief statement confirming the shutdown.
"HART is working with its contractors to determine what work will be necessary for public health and safety, to secure and maintain the job sites, or to otherwise responsibly wind up ongoing activities," the statement said.
"All parties involved have agreed to work together to address any issues that may arise in the coming weeks," it said.
Native Hawaiian Legal Corp. sued the state and the city over the rail project on behalf of Paulette Kaanohiokalani Kaleikini, alleging the city improperly began construction before completing a required archaeological inventory in the path the rail line would follow.
The Hawaii Supreme Court ruled Friday that the State Historic Preservation Division violated its own rules by allowing the project to proceed before the survey was complete.
Former Governor Ben Cayetano has moved his mayoral campaign beyond rail to the bigger question of whether Hawai`i will be controlled by its people or by business and labor interests that put their own bottom line ahead of the public good.
His targets are helping him make the point by the way they've massed to stop him.
Cayetano closed the July 17 televised debate with rivals Peter Carlisle and Kirk Caldwell by saying, "This campaign is not about rail; it's about the exercise of political power."
He argued, "There are people out there, a select few — big business, big labor — who have been running things for a very, very long time. They have their fingers in almost everything that we do, which affects our lives and our children's future."
Cayetano said he came out of retirement to "put the power back into the hands of the people" and promised "a transformational moment in Hawai`i politics" if he's elected.
This is extraordinary coming from a former two-term Democratic governor who was elected with the support of many of the business and labor interests he's now taking on.
It's akin to President Dwight D. Eisenhower's warning at the end of his career about the dangerous accumulation of power by the military-industrial complex.
Business and labor leaders have responded by boldly throwing their money and power around to derail Cayetano, and it appears to be backfiring.
Pacific Resource Partnership, a construction industry alliance, has spent about $1 million on widely discredited attack ads against Cayetano.
The group seemed almost grateful for an excuse to pull the ineffective ads off the air this week after Cayetano was hospitalized with a bleeding ulcer.
Another campaign to counter Cayetano and save rail has been waged by a group called Move O`ahu Forward, whose board is a roster of the corporate, banking and labor executives Cayetano accuses of running Hawaii for their own gain.
Until public pressure forced recent cutbacks, the Honolulu Authority for Rapid Transportation employed more than 20 public relations agents to promote rail and shout down critics like Cayetano at a cost of $2 million to taxpayers.
HART, which was sold to voters as a way to bring independent management to rail, has all but become a subsidiary of First Hawaiian Bank, with top bank officers holding both the board chairmanship and finance committee chairmanship.
Virtually invisible in the scuffling over money and power are the West Oahu commuters rail is supposedly about.
Cayetano's warning of a rigged game is resonating with many voters, and all that's left for his powerful foes is to hope he doesn't win an outright majority in Saturday's primary voting so they can live to fight him again in the general election.
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Honolulu City Council member Nestor Garcia broke a record Monday. And it’s probably one he wishes he hadn’t.
Garcia, who is winding down his second term and not running for any political office this fall, was fined $6,500 by the Honolulu Ethics Commission for breaking conflict of interest rules and misusing city resources while acting as the executive director of the Kapolei Chamber of Commerce, a side job that pays him $60,000 a year.
The fine is the largest in the history of the Ethics Commission. It's more than triple the $2,000 penalty levied against infamous former council member Rod Tam, who improperly spent nearly $12,000 of city money on meals that had nothing to do with business and was later convicted of theft and other charges.
According to the Ethics Commission, Garcia failed to disclose that he worked for the Kapolei Chamber of Commerce before voting on 52 bills or resolutions that the business group had testified on in front of the council.
Of those 52 votes, 38 were related to the controversial $5.2 billion rail project....
Wednesday, June 20, 2012
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"SWITCHING & DITCHING"
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Thursday, April 19, 2012
HONOLULU LIGHT RAIL PROJECT HEADED FOR "BURIALS CENTRAL"
By Kēhaunani Abad, PhD As early as 2005, the O`ahu Island Burial Council (OIBC) raised red flags. The rail project would undoubtedly impact Hawaiian burials. Three years later, when the OIBC had not received promised communications from the City and County of Honolulu, the council asked for an update. At that time, and at many meetings thereafter, the OIBC called into question the planned rail alignment, which would directly collide with concentrations of burials. Joining the council's strong objections were the National Trust for Historic Preservation, the Office of Hawaiian Affairs, Hui Mālama i Nā Kūpuna O Hawai`i Nei, the Native Hawaiian Legal Corporation and Hawaiian families. But City planners did not listen or did not care. A growing chorus implored transit officials to shift the project route, thereby avoiding known burial areas. Still the City ignored efforts to avoid conflict and prevent costly litigation, delays and project modifications that would ensue once burials were encountered. Despite these warnings and pleas, the railway is headed straight for an area that could be called “Burials Central.” Since the State implemented burial laws in 1990, more than 400 burials have been encountered in the core of the Honolulu urban corridor – an area bordered by River, King and Ke`eaumoku streets and Ala Moana Boulevard. Adding documented historic cemeteries and epidemic burials to the 400 would more than double that figure. Before Western contact and well into the 19th century, rolling sand dunes in this area were burial grounds for generations of Honolulu `ohana. They would kanu, or plant, the remains of loved ones in the dunes. Mana concentrated in iwi kūpuna (ancestral remains) would imbue the `āina and spiritually nourish the living community. Under the protection of their `ohana, iwi kūpuna and `āina would become one, perpetually connecting kūpuna, `āina and `ohana. But following two centuries of foreign impacts, these traditional burial areas were no longer controlled by families of the deceased.
Disease and depopulation, the improper seizure of lands and illegal overthrow of the sovereign Hawaiian government created a spiral of negative outcomes – including removal of many `ohana from ancestral lands. Burial areas came to be “owned” by landlords and governed by new laws that afforded no protection to unmarked burials. Many burials were dug up and destroyed. Hundreds of others were built upon, leaving iwi kūpuna to continue their repose in Honolulu burial sands. But lack of Hawaiian ownership of burial sites has not bred lack of concern. Hard-fought laws were enacted to safeguard burials as significant historic sites. Prior to the rail project gaining approval, state and federal laws require completion of an Archaeological Inventory Survey (AIS) to identify significant historic properties, such as burials, and facilitate plans to avoid them. To shortcut this vital planning process – and despite vehement objections of the OIBC – federal officials, the State Department of Transportation (DOT), Honolulu transit officials and others signed a rail Programmatic Agreement in 2011. Unfortunately, this agreement enables the project to start construction along a committed route without first completing an AIS. This misguided approach places Native Hawaiian burials in peril and gambles with taxpayer dollars. As attorneys for the National Trust for Historic Preservation warned, “the City’s decision renders the project legally vulnerable under Section 4(f) of the Department of Transportation Act.” This Act dictates that the federal DOT “cannot approve the use of land [involving]…historic sites [including burials] unless…there is no feasible and prudent alternative” and only if “the action includes all possible planning to minimize harm to the property resulting from use.” But planning for burials has been minimal. The City has not completed its AIS for the project area involving “Burials Central” and has not seriously considered an alternate course, such as a King Street route, which would avoid burials. If burials are found via the AIS or later during construction (since an AIS investigates only a sample of the project area), two laws are triggered. First, Section 4(f) of the DOT Act would force transit officials to seek a “feasible and prudent alternative” that avoids burials. And second, state law authorizes the OIBC or the Department of Land and Natural Resources to preserve the burials in place, as was done at Ward Villages where fundamental project changes were required. If burials remain in place, rail alterations would be required. Turning a blind eye to this reality, rail proponents contend they need only move a rail pillar forward or backward along the route to avoid burials. But that myth assumes burial areas would be limited and overlooks the greater impacts of train station construction and infrastructure relocation. Four immense rail passenger stations are planned for the Honolulu urban corridor. And massive ground disturbance would occur as electric, phone, cable, water and sewer lines are relocated and roadways reconstructed. So the question is not whether these disturbances of sandy deposits would encounter burials. The question is how destructive such encounters would be as work proceeds. Would kūpuna be brutally unearthed by backhoes or pounded into oblivion by pile drivers? If kūpuna are laid bare by intrusive archaeological hands, would transit officials coerce the OIBC to remove the remains? If kūpuna are undisturbed, would the rail project require major alteration? At how many junctures might this occur? How would this affect the project timing and budget? These are questions that should have been investigated long ago to minimize harm to kūpuna, anguish for the Hawaiian community and expense for Honolulu taxpayers. Overriding each of these concerns, however, is the City’s desperate and shortsighted determination to force the rail project forward – no matter what the cost.
Wednesday, April 18, 2012
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