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Five City Council members are in Washington, D.C., but there’s still plenty going on at City Hall. The mayor released his budget plan for next year, new unemployment figures are out, and Civil Beat is reporting from the inside.

New Transit Agency Seeks $21M in First Budget

5:38 p.m.
It will cost $21.1 million to run the new Honolulu Authority for Rapid Transit (HART) in its first year, according to documents posted to the city’s new .

The documents provide the first glimpse of the new authority, which will be responsible for establishing all fares, fees and charges for the city’s $5.5 billion rail line, as well as managing and overseeing planning, construction, operation, maintenance and expansion.

Read Civil Beat’s full story.

Info Technology Works Out New Site Kinks

3:12 p.m.
Department of Information Technology Director Gordon Bruce said his team is working out the last few kinks on a designed to share information about the city budget.

“We’re just correcting some of the errors in the database, ensuring that what goes to the citizens is the current version of the budget, verifying all the numbers,” Bruce told Civil Beat Tuesday afternoon. “Just a cleansing kind of act, and stress testing it to make sure we can handle the demand if there is. We have no idea what kind of demand there’s going to be.”

The city is uploading a line-by-line spending plan for the first time ever, and Honolulu Mayor Peter Carlisle said he wants as many people to review the plan as possible.

City Moves Forward with Waste Facility in Waialua

1:15 p.m.
City officials are moving ahead with plans to build a composting facility in Waialua. In February, Environmental Services Director Tim Steinberger sent to Gary Hooser, the new director of the State Office of Environmental Quality Control, describing a forthcoming Environmental Impact Statement on the project.

It’s part of an initiative to increase recycling that former Honolulu Mayor Mufi Hannemann announced in 2009. The composting facility would be built on 112 acres of fallow land. The goal is to divert about 85,000 tons per year of food and other recyclable wastes from Waimanalo Gulch landfill.

Taxpayers Spent Less Money Defending Police Officers in 2010

11:26 a.m.
When a police officer breaks the law, it makes headlines. Trouble-makers represent a tiny fraction of a much larger police force, but recent show the number of police officers punished for breaking the law or department regulations has been creeping back up after years of decline.

It also got Inside Honolulu to wondering: How much time and money does the City and County of Honolulu spend defending cops accused of crimes? Turns out: City lawyers are doing the vast majority of the work in-house. In documents obtained through an open records request, we found city attorneys spent 5,209 hours representing Honolulu Police Department employees in litigation matters in 2009, and 3,795 hours in 2010. Outside attorneys billed the City and County for 134 hours spent representing Honolulu Police Department employees in 2009, and 28 hours in 2010.

All in all, that means the City and County paid for lawyers to spend 5,343 hours defending police officers in 2009, and 3,823 hours in 2010. Given the department’s 1,959 officers , that amounts to about three hours of legal representation per officer in 2009, and about two hours of legal representation per officer in 2010.

Could City Ask Residents to Pay-to-Play for Trash Pick-Up?

10:04 a.m.
When it comes to saving money, City Council Chairman Nestor Garcia and Honolulu Mayor Peter Carlisle have said everything is on the table. We’ve heard about new or higher fees for camping, golfing, using city parks, acquiring driver’s licenses and more. In trying economic times, municipalities have to get creative. Then again, some cities are just looking at charging money for the basics: Trash pick-up, for example.

We noted with interest of a Los Angeles Times story about free trash pick-up for the majority of San Diego county residents. Looking to close a hefty shortfall, San Diego Mayor Jerry Sanders is considering charging for the service. It could be seen as a win-win: More money for the county and less trash in the landfill.

If you were charged by the bag, would your household produce less trash?

from the Los Angeles Times.

Catch Up on This Month’s Inside Honolulu

March 7, 2011: Honolulu Mayor Peter Carlisle says he doesn’t want a raise; Salary Commission recommends bump in pay for vacant medical examiner job; Tom Berg‘s chief of staff blasts HECO.

March 4, 2011: Landfill channel not designed to handle rainfall equivalent to storm that caused near-catastrophe; Six City Council members out of town.

March 3, 2011: Line-by-line budget to go online in about a week; Five City Council members are D.C.-bound.

March 2, 2011: Mayor Peter Carlisle raises taxes, fees in first budget; More money for autopsies; Liquor commish nominee Wesley Fong talks commission image issues; TheBus turns 40; Ides of March deadline for City Council’s HART nominees.

March 1, 2011: City Council member Breene Harimoto worries about bandaid approach to homelessness; Planning Committee advances North Shore communities plan; Parks and Rec eyes new dog park; Tom Berg pitches Matson containers as possible living space.