Mayor: Foes ‘Hostile to Rail’ Deliberately Misleading the Public
Mayor Peter Carlisle is channeling his inner prosecutor, analyzing patterns and concluding that rail critics are trying to mislead the public.
Carlisle has struck a decidedly more combative tone on rail in recent days. He pulled back from the project and handed the reins to the Honolulu Authority for Rapid Transportation on July 1, and had largely kept a low profile on the controversial issue since then. But this week, Carlisle has taken his critics head-on.
“We’re talking about a pattern here. Prosecutors look for patterns,” Carlisle said Thursday. Rail foes “are trying to mislead people. … Their use of terms like ‘fake groundbreaking,’ ‘aircraft carriers in the sky‘ and those types of things is absolutely, unequivocally misleading and done deliberately to frighten people about what’s going to be happening.”
The statement came during an editorial board meeting at Civil Beat headquarters Thursday afternoon that at times echoed his speech to the HART Board of Directors earlier in the day. All that comes on the heels of a shared byline on in Sunday’s Honolulu Star-Advertiser that made the case for the rail system.
Carlisle referred to well-known rail critics Cliff Slater, Ben Cayetano, Randy Roth and Walter Heen as the “Gang of Four” — a phrase that’s been featured repeatedly recently on a authored by a rail public relations subcontractor.
In the interview with Civil Beat, Carlisle called them “hostile to rail” and pointed out that none of the four live in Leeward Oahu. He singled out Cayetano, a former Hawaii governor, for living in a “mansion on top of a hill.” He said Cayetano, whose second term as governor ended in 2002, “is stuck in, first off, the finances of 30 or 40 years ago as well as the solutions of 30 or 40 years ago.”
Carlisle also said Roth is “one of the true genuine heroes” for his work on that exposed corruption at Bishop Estate, but that he is now being a “good soldier” to former Republican Gov. Linda Lingle, who did not support rail.
The sometimes-personal attacks against those who are hoping to stop rail are a new tack from the chief executive of a city home to nearly a million residents and host to tens of thousands of visitors every day.
Carlisle rejected claims that citizens were lied to in advance of the 2008 vote to move the project forward, saying that calling one’s political opponent a liar after a campaign loss is old hat.
“Every time I won, I was a liar, at least according to those people who lost,” he said. “Every time we win a constitutional amendment, ‘Oh you were misled by those S.O.B.s and da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da’ even though some of them were won by a 9-to-1 margin on occasion, so that’s just expected in unfortunately the political arena. Whoever loses claims that they were cheated.”
Carlisle downplayed concerns about major rail contractor Ansaldo’s work on other projects in the past, but said the city is looking closely into the issue.
“We’re looking at the Ansaldo thing very carefully,” he said.
During an appeal brought by losing bidder Sumitomo, it was revealed that the six people evaluating the proposals to design, build, operate and maintain the rail line didn’t weigh Ansaldo’s past performance and didn’t even pick up the phone to learn more about those issues despite the $1.4 billion price tag for the contract.
“If you had the shoe on the other feet, then Ansaldo would be shooting after Bombardier and Sumitomo,” he said. “The blemishes exist for all of them. I can’t tell you what the blemishes are, but I can guarantee if one of them was pulling the wings out of butterflies when they were three years old, that would be something that would be disclosed. And that’s really the way it is. You’re talking about really, really large chunks of money with very few number of competitors and absolutely cutthroat competition because the stakes are so high.
“It’s like sharks circling around this project the entire time.”
Carlisle said that while dissent and tough questions are acceptable, he’s not going to stop pushing for rail. He’s got a passion for the topic, deepened by his recent travels to Asia.
“When it comes to public transportation, we are knuckle-dragging troglodytes,” Carlisle said.
Now is the “picture-perfect” time for Honolulu officials to act — materials and labor are cheap, the president is Hawaii-born and the congressional delegation is lined up in support.
“You will kiss off ever seeing federal dollars coming to this island for a project of this magnitude” if local leaders can’t push the rail system through this time, Carlisle said. Federal authorities “were not happy about us bailing out on them previously with the famed Rene Mansho vote. If we do not do this, we will never see a federal dollar again.”
Told that attitude could be used to justify pushing forward with a project despite concerns or doubts, Carlisle agreed. But he said concerns here shouldn’t stand in the way of the project.
“Nothing this size is going to go perfectly. There are going to be bumps in the road,” he said. “There will be unforeseen circumstances in any project of this size or undertaking.”
