ÌìÃÀÊÓƵ

The funding will help, but the multibillion-dollar transit project still faces much larger financial problems.

The longtime transit official was hired in 2016 to help guide Oahu’s rail project through an especially rocky period.

He’ll oversee a public relations program whose costs he sought to reduce as the council’s budget chairman.

An outside auditor for HART describes Natalie Iwasa’s idea for a hotline as a “best practice.”

HART’s new executive director Lori Kahikina says she’s open to any ideas that avoid having to get special utility clearances along Dillingham Boulevard.

Natalie Iwasa has long attended Honolulu Authority for Rapid Transportation board meetings to raise questions about rail. Now the Legislature has made her a non-voting member of the board.

Bill Brennan and Joyce Oliveira were two of the longest-serving employees at a tumultuous agency that’s seen heavy turnover.

The government-spending watchdog and frequent rail critic known as “Bike Mom” will lend an independent voice, the House Speaker said.

From stalled utility work in the Dillingham corridor to a failed P3 deal, rail suffered one setback after another.

UPDATED: The city’s outgoing environmental services director joins rail right as HART struggles with utility relocations along Dillingham.