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UPDATED 4/22/11 10:35 a.m.

The Honolulu City Council Transportation Committee chair says city officials are “fully concentrating” on rail construction and “didn’t seem to be too concerned” about the project’s long-term impact on city finances.

Breene Harimoto told Civil Beat Thursday that he continues to be uneasy about the role the council will play as the Honolulu Authority for Rapid Transit ramps up operations. Harimoto says he remains a “huge supporter” of rail but says he remains “very concerned” about some aspects of the project.

Told that city Rapid Transit Division chief Toru Hamayasu had responded to a question about how the city should pay for the operation of the transit system for the next two decades by saying it was “a question for the City Council,” Harimoto said he was “speechless.”

UPDATE On Friday, Hamayasu clarified that his statement was made regarding TheHandi-Van specifically, and not about the entire transit system. Handi-Van does not fall under the Rapid Transition Division he manages. Hamayasu, through a spokeswoman, said it is incorrect to imply that he isn’t concerned about how to pay for transit.

“I think that just brings home the concern about HART,” Harimoto said. “They have their kuleana. But if the city council has very little oversight, then we get into the situation where they do their thing, in essence, the city is left holding the bag for the operating subsidy. And I don’t mean to be too negative but that kind of drives home the concern when you say what RTD said.

“In this case, because the subsidy does come from the city, the City Council has to vote on the subsidy. So if we have no oversight of what’s going on — especially with this issue of the budget, if we have no say on the budget — so, no say over HART itself but we have to fund the operations, there is some disconnect there.”

The newest incarnation of the city’s transit financial plan, released Wednesday, reveals that the projected transportation operating subsidy is projected to rise to more than $5 billion over the next 20 years despite savings in rail construction costs due to the core systems proposal from Ansaldo Honolulu. (Mayor Peter Carlisle in March announced Ansaldo Honolulu was the city’s pick for a $1.1 billion contract to manage core systems.)

Concerns about long-term costs intensified after the city announced Ansaldo as its bid selection, since its projected operations and maintenance costs were more than $100 million higher than either of the two rejected bid proposals. However the design/build portion of its bid was more than $100 million lower.

“I think people are fully concentrating on the construction,” Harimoto said. “That became apparent in the bid selection. The allegation that the winning bidder shifted cost from the construction down to the operating, that was a huge red flag, and people didn’t seem to be too concerned about it.”

Running the train, TheBus and TheHandi-Van is estimated to cost taxpayers an average of a quarter-billion dollars per year for the next two decades. Asked if he could see wiggle room in the city’s budget to cover those growing costs, Harimoto expressed little confidence.

“No. Absolutely not. As it is right now we need to find ways to cut services or somehow tighten our belts as it is, and that’s going to be really interesting,” he said.

Honolulu Transportation Services Director Wayne Yoshioka emphasized that the new plan represents “conservative” projections, meaning the costs could fall over time.

Harimoto had yet to read the new plan as of Thursday afternoon. After the marathon meeting that stretched from morning to night on Wednesday, he’s giving his colleagues time to educate themselves on the financial details before he holds a Transportation Committee meeting to vet the new plan on May 12.

“I really believe that rail is the opportunity for us to just change, it’s reinventing Honolulu. I really believe that,” he said. “But on the other hand, there are some significant concerns with this project, with the financing, the ongoing operating costs. We haven’t really truly wrestled with those issues yet, at least not the current council. When we have that committee meeting, we’re going to have a lot of discussion of those concerns.”

The meeting — which will come after Harimoto has a chance to read the plan, possibly during his weeklong trip to San Francisco and Copenhagen that starts Sunday — will be one of the council’s few chances to ask questions before HART takes over overseeing rail on July 1. After that, council oversight of rail will be limited.

The council’s specific role in overseeing HART remains controversial. In November 2010, when voters approved the charter amendment to create the semi-autonomous agency, council members said they believed they would oversee its budget.

The charter question voters approved reads: “The council shall, with or without amendments, approve the authority’s appropriation request.”

But city lawyers later challenged the extent to which the council would be involved in the budget process. The city’s managing director later assured council members the administration would reach some kind of compromise.

That appeared to happen Wednesday, when City Council members advanced HART’s operating and capital budgets: Just having it on their City Council agenda indicates they have some say in the matter.

But Harimoto told Civil Beat that the administration may not know about a memo he says City Council Budget Chairman Ernie Martin on Thursday sent to council members explaining the process by which the City Council will introduce amendments to the HART budgets.

“The budget chair just came out with a memo outlining the process, so apparently they are allowing us to make changes,” Harimoto said. “But there are concerns about that also. If we change it without really understanding what that is … I think we understand more about the workings of the other departments. With RTD, it’s been hard to understand what’s going on. I’m not sure if the administration understands what we have planned. We’ll see how it plays out.”