Honolulu Mayor Peter Carlisle has emphasized getting “politics” out of the rail project as a priority.

It’s one of the reasons he’s so adamant about removing the City Council’s authority over the new rail agency’s budget. Carlisle has said he will veto the council’s bills setting the Honolulu Authority for Rapid Transportation’s spending plans. He even says he is willing to take the council to court over the matter. City Council members, too, say the dispute is heading toward litigation.

And yet, the mayor had no problem inviting reporters and TV cameramen into his office Wednesday afternoon to hear him announce the results of a poll about the public’s attitude toward rail. Carlisle stayed in the spotlight on rail instead of asking PB Americas — the city-contracted company that paid for the poll — to talk about it.

Think about that for a second: The mayor — the city’s best-known politician — held a news conference where he reiterated how badly the public wants politics removed from the rail conversation.

(By the way, City Council Transportation Chairman Breene Harimoto — also a politician — stood at the mayor’s side throughout the news conference. Nobody from PB Americas or polling company Qmark spoke at the event.)

“If you put this to the people who are more expert, rather than those of us who are not, I think we’re going to get a better result,” Carlisle said. “And I think that’s really what we promised people.”

The new rail agency officially starts its work on July 1. At that point, will the mayor stop making major announcements about rail?

We also have to ask: What will that mean for his re-election campaign? Some of Carlisle’s biggest successes as mayor have been rail-related. When the project is off his plate, how will Carlisle prove himself?

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