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There’s always something interesting going on at Honolulu Hale.

Civil Beat is reporting from the inside.

5:57 p.m. Thursday’s Committee Meetings

The final agendas for this week’s Honolulu City Council committee meetings were published online today.

• The Committee on Zoning and Planning meets Thursday at 9 a.m. includes a to amend the Waianae Sustainable Communities Plan, as well as from Committee Chair Ikaika Anderson and from Department of Planning and Permitting Director David Tanoue.
• The Committee on Transportation meets Thursday at 1 p.m. includes a that would urge the Hawaii Legislature and Gov. Neil Abercrombie to allow a general excise tax surcharge — like the one used to pay for the rail project — to pay for highway and bikeway construction.
• Also on Thursday, the Honolulu Authority for Rapid Transportation Project Oversight Committee will meet at 9 a.m. Read here.

5:32 p.m. Large Rail Landowner List Updated

We’ve just updated our story from July with a corrected list of the top landowners within a half-mile of the rail line.

Three of the top 25 owners were omitted in the original story. The error is complicated, but the takeaway is that Aloun Farms is now No. 5 on the list with more than 550 acres near the proposed route.

The thrust remains the same: A handful of owners controls about half the land.

Read the updated story.

5:24 p.m. New Planning Commissioners Named

Mayor Peter Carlisle has revealed his picks to fill two vacancies on the Honolulu Planning Commission.

Cord Anderson would replace Andrew Jamila, who resigned from the Commission after he was fined $650 by the Honolulu Ethics Commission for repeated violations of conflicts-of-interest provisions.

According to , Anderson is a real estate developer. He’s also second cousin of Honolulu City Council Vice Chair Ikaika Anderson. who has himself disclosed in the past that he’s a distant relative of North Shore developer D.G. “Andy” Anderson.

Daniel Young would replace Kerry Komatsubara, whose term expired June 30. Young is regional sales manager for

The two appointments are on the at the Oct. 5 Council meeting. If and when they’re confirmed, they’ll bring the number of commissioners back to nine. Earlier this month, a shortage of warm bodies prevented the Commission from making a formal recommendation on a controversial bill that would help the city crack down on illegal vacation rentals.

12:22 p.m. Free UH Football Tickets

Fans attending Saturday’s University of Hawaii football win over University of California-Davis might remember the halftime ceremony honoring Honolulu’s first responders.

They also might have noticed more first responders than usual in the stands around them.

That’s because the city accepted 500 game tickets — valued at approximately $16,000 total — from UH for first responders to attend the game. Mayor Peter Carlisle‘s Office of Culture and the Arts sent the Honolulu City Council a last week for an “after-the-fact acceptance” of the gift.

The $16,000 gift for tickets to one game represents almost as much as the $22,000 in game tickets that UH execs scored in the last year. Read the story that delves into those gift disclosures.

10:34 a.m. The Virtues Of Managed Lanes

Read an op-ed on Civil Beat today about an alternative to rail that contributor John Brizdle says will offer drivers more options:

Managed Lanes are Oahu’s Future

HART Says FTA, Not IMG, Spurred Financial Adjustment

On Friday, we told you that the city lowered its projections for federal bus grants receipts in its most recent financial plan, published in April.

Honolulu’s high hopes had been highlighted in an independent financial analysis performed by Infrastructure Management Group at the behest of former Gov. Linda Lingle. And though Mayor Peter Carlisle called that report “shoddy,” among other things, Civil Beat determined that IMG’s concerns about the “bus discretionary” grants were well-founded.

Friday evening, a spokesman for the Honolulu Authority for Rapid Transportation emailed with a clarification, and we share it with you for your consideration:

Hi Mike, I have to take off but I wanted to get back to you on your story that ran today.

Just wanted to clarify that that the rail project’s updated financial plan was not changed to adopt the IMG report findings.

The fact that the April 2011 Financial Plan reflects the use of less Section 5309 Bus Discretionary funds is a direct result of a recommendation from the FTA based on its review of our August 2009 financial plan that the next plan (April 2011) should be less reliant on FTA Section 5309 bus funds.

It had nothing to do with the IMG report.

(emphasis in original)

Rail Archaeology Meeting Tonight

The Honolulu Authority for Rapid Transportation will hold a public informational meeting tonight to discuss the City Center Archaeological Inventory Survey. It’ll start at 6 p.m. at the Farrington High School cafeteria.

For more about the meeting, read Friday’s edition of Inside Honolulu or check out HART’s website for and .

HPD Preparing For “War”?

Our main story today: The Honolulu Police Department has requested more than $700,000 worth of non-lethal and less-lethal weapons in the last two years, much of it in the last few months as the department prepares for the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperative summit in November.

The American Civil Liberties Union of Hawaii is concerned that such purchases show HPD is gearing up for “war” rather than preparing its officers to deal with peaceful protesters. HPD declined to answer questions last week; we’ll start fresh again with them today.

Read the full story here.

Where’s Carlisle?

At 8 a.m., Mayor Peter Carlisle will deliver remarks at the 2011 Hawaii Conference of State Liquor Administrators at Ala Moana Hotel. At 6:15 p.m. tonight, Carlisle will be a guest at the China National Tourism Association’s China Tourism Night at the Hilton Hawaiian Village‘s Coral Ballroom.

Read Previous Editions of Inside Honolulu

September 23: Carlisle’s Public Sked; Council Reapportionment Public Hearings Set; Archaeological Meeting Now On Web; Wednesday Meetings; Postcard From HART; Safety At What Price?; Fact Check Scorecard; City Listens To “Shoddy” Report; Where’s Carlisle?

September 22: EOD, What’s the Deal?; Tuesday’s Committee Meetings; On Deadline Day, Sumitomo Still “Under Consideration”; The Great Waialae Bike Test; Fact Checking Rail Operations Costs; Not So Special; Where’s Carlisle?

September 21: Anatomy of Wastewater: The Book; Thumbs Up For City’s Budget; Businessweek: Honolulu No. 3; Congestion Deception Editorial Rebutted; Where’s Carlisle?

September 20: General Plan Comment Period Extended; More Bad News For Finmeccanica; Salaries, Salaries and More Salaries; State Excluding Military, After All; Horner Leaving First Hawaiian; Where’s Carlisle?

September 19: Rail Town Hall Meetings; Mayor’s Twitter Account Compromised; Federal Money For Electric Buses; Honolulu and the Military; Where’s Carlisle?

September 16: The “Creepy Crawlies”; Bill Survives, Barely; Ryan, Lee Back Tour Bus Ban; Carlisle Back To D.C.; More About the “Housing Preservation Initiative”; Law Enforcement Memorial and Today’s Honorees; Queens Plan, Too; Laie Marriott Approved; Other Resos On Horizon; Laie Testimony Begins; Sign Regulations Deferred; City Getting Out Of Landlord Business; The Three Other Finalists; Nine Other Applicants; Bunda Confirmed Unanimously; Testimony For Bunda; No Tours On Sundays; Council to “Play It By Ear” On Sign Regulations Bill; Today’s Meetings; Where’s Carlisle?

September 15: Ikaika Fundraiser Tonight, More Soon; Rail Opponents On the Radio; Finmeccanica Exec Offers Resignation; Horner’s Ansaldo Conflict?; Correction: $300K/Year; Honolulu’s $1.5 Million Lobbyist; Population and Ridership; HART Board on Friday; Where’s Carlisle?

September 14: Sister City Summit: A Summary; No News From Ethics Meeting; $1 Million for Psych Hospital; Tulsi Passes the Basket; Live-Tweeting Sister Cities Summit; Rail Soil Sampling Next Week; BRT v. Rail; Police On Protests; Sister City Activities; Where’s Carlisle?

September 13: Details On The Plan; ‘Modified Existing Plan’ It Is; Bombardier’s Response; Bombardier Lawsuit Denied; Berg: Reverse Ansaldo Contract; Sister Cities Program; Going After Castro; Godbey’s Disclosures; Wrong Again On Jobs; Real Property Tax Commission Meets Today; Friday’s Council Agenda; Where’s Carlisle?

September 12: City Asks for Early Decision on Rail Lawsuit; Ethics Commission Today; Where’s Carlisle?

September 9: Carlisle’s Public Sked; Remembrance Walk; Congestion Deception; ‘Outrage’ on Mayor’s Homeless Comments; Successful Sewage Trucking; Where’s Carlisle?

September 8: What We Learned; Honolulu’s Lousy Traffic; Undercover in Washington; Eagles Have Landed; Corp Counsel on Procurement; Horner Impressed; Stanley Chang Testifies; Aloha From Italy; Sale Or No Sale, Finmeccanica Is Obliged; Joint and Several Liability; Finmeccanica: Failure ‘Impossible’; The Questions; The Players; Ansaldo On The Big Screen; Where’s Carlisle?

September 7: Four Council District Plans; The Resignation Letter; Jamila Resigns From Planning Commission; Thoughts on Washington Trip; Not Following Rules; Where’s Carlisle?

September 6: Thursday Night In Waianae; Council Public Hearing Notice; Mayor On Homelessness; Jobs Claim Half True; Where’s Carlisle?

September 2: Peter, Toru, Carrie All Washington-Bound; Carlisle’s Public Sked; HART at First Hawaiian; Carlisle at Civil Beat; Ansaldo: We Complied With Licensing Requirement; Long Weekend; Civil Beat’s ‘Hatchet Job’; Where’s Carlisle?

September 1: PIG Picks Bunda; Carlisle’s Rail Pep Talk; Semi-Autonomous, But Connected; All Sewage Ideas Welcome; Defining ‘Undercover’; Today’s Meetings; Where’s Carlisle?