ÌìÃÀÊÓƵ

Questions.

They are the basis of the journalism at Civil Beat.

This week was a good example of what I’m talking about.

Take Honolulu’s rail project, perhaps the most pivotal decision facing our community. The first thing newly-elected Mayor Peter Carlisle did in his first week in office was head off to Washington to talk rail with the Transportation secretary of the United States.

At the same time, Civil Beat published in-depth responses to two key questions about the rail project:

• Did the process that culminated in the current city proposal adequately evaluate what would be the most cost-effective transit solution to best serve the largest number of people?

• What are the five best reasons to support or oppose the project?

With the first question, we had veteran Honolulu journalist Greg Wiles evaluate the answers from Honolulu Hale and rail opponent Cliff Slater.

With the second question, we published their answers verbatim and experimented with something known as . We hope you will help us evaluate the responses through the healthy — and civil — discussions we’ve been having about rail on the site.

What has come through to me about the project from this effort is that it appears that all along the only transportation solution that has been given serious consideration over the past few years in Honolulu is rail. The discussion has been less about transportation, and more about how to leverage federal dollars to build something that a sizable group of people believes is essential to the future of the community.

Read the articles for yourself and become informed about the issue, just the way the new mayor is becoming more informed as he shifts from more than two decades as a prosecutor to his new role as a civic leader.

• Overview
• Honolulu Hale’s view
• Opposing view from Cliff Slater
• The Rail Divide — Part 1: City Claims Evaluated
• The Rail Divide — Part 1: Slater Claims Evaluated
• The Rail Divide — Part 2: Slater Claims Evaluated
• The Rail Divide — Part 2: City Claims Evaluated
• The Rail Divide — Part 3: Slater Claims Evaluated
• The Rail Divide — Part 3: City Claims Evaluated
• The Rail Divide — The Five Best Reasons to Support or Oppose the Honolulu Rail Project
• The Rail Divide — Part 4: The City on Five Best Reasons to Support Project
• The Rail Divide — Part 4: Slater on Five Best Reasons to Oppose Project

Another example of our journalism stemming from questions is our poll reporting. This week, again working with (MRG), Civil Beat conducted an in-depth survey of Hawaii voter attitudes.

What’s striking about working with our colleagues at Merriman is the size of the sample they’re able to develop, which means that we can go far beyond telling you what likely voters are thinking and with some confidence explain who’s thinking what and why. I find the results revealing. For example, it’s Republicans who more strongly favor the amendment to switch from an elected board of education to an appointed board, which to me was unexpected.

We published three articles on the poll results this week, and we’ll be sharing the complete results as well as the questionnaire Monday, along with the results of our question on attitudes toward the role of religion in government.

We asked:

“The people of Hawaii have differing opinions on the role of religion in setting the government’s policies. Which of these common attitudes best describes your opinion?

Would you say that religion should have no role at all in setting government policy? Would you say that religion should have no official role in government, but that there are important religious teachings that probably should be at least considered when setting policy? Would you say that the best teachings of all the world’s religions should play an official role in setting policy? Or would you say that the teachings of Christianity, in particular, should play an official role in setting government policy?”

I think you’ll find the results worthy of your time.

Our poll showed Neil Abercrombie, Colleen Hanabusa and the Board of Education constitutional amendment all with narrow leads, but the races are tight and the election was still three weeks away when we surveyed likely voters.

• Civil Beat Poll: Abercrombie Holds Slight Edge in Hawaii Governor’s Race
• Civil Beat Poll: Hanabusa on Top in 1st Congressional District
• Civil Beat Poll: Majority of Voters Back Appointed Board of Education

We’ll continue to ask questions, and we hope you do the same of us. One of the cool things about Civil Beat is that our reporter-hosts stand ready to try to answer your questions and share the results on the site.