• 1. City & County of Honolulu’s own Parsons Brinkerhoff studies show when rail is built, it won’t change road congestion. Per Parsons Brinkerhoff, when complete, rail will take take 1.3 percent of cars off the road. Per Mayor Mufi Hannemann at the KGMB forum, it will take 11 percent of cars off the road, at an expense of $6+ billion.

• 2. Federal funds are in no way assured, despite Hannemann saying we will receive $900 million. The Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) must compare alternative possibilities.

• 3. Why has Hannemann delayed presentation of the EIS for some 6 months, possibly until after the election? Suspicious?

• 4. Rail will be ugly (80 feet and higher in a neighborhood you use), noisy (next to your place?) and running 20 hours a day – empty most of the time.

• 5. Hannemann refuses even to try road congestion pricing (rush hour), even though it works well in cities all over the world. Why?

• 6. A study of 258 rail and bridge projects over 70 years showed that 90 percent of them have cost overruns (Miller-mcCune.com, September issue, Derailing the Boondoggle), drastically over budget costs. The U.S. Department of Transportation says rail costs average 40 percent more than budget.

• 7. City & County of Honolulu budgets $70 million to buy all the land needed for rail. Are they kidding us?

• 8. Parsons Brinkerhoff ran the Big Dig in Boston, which started at $3.7 billion (sound familiar?) and ended at $14.6 billion ($22 Billion with interest). Are we next?

• 9. Why haven’t we seen any operations costs? City & County of Honolulu Transport Director says these costs will likely come from our property taxes. How much? Why the mystery about operations costs? It’s your money.

• 10. Why repeated contracts to the same few bidders who kick into Hannemann’s campaign?

• 11. City & County of Honolulu has not added buses since the mid 1990’s, trying to force us into rail. Why not more buses now running on hydrogen?

• 12. Hannemann hasn’t added left turn lanes and more bus pull-offs to speed traffic. Why? Why not 4 day work weeks to cut traffic?

• 13. By the time the swollen rail tab arrives, we’ll have ruined the City & County of Honolulu bond rating for all of our other needs.

• 14. U.S. District Judge David Ezra warns us that we need sewers first to avert public health disasters with 6 major lines that have, per a City & County of Honolulu study, “Outlived their useful life.” City & County of Honolulu fought to delay fixing them and $6 million of your tax dollars later, lost in federal court. Sewers and sewage treatment will run in the billions. The Waikiki sewer break at $48 million showed us what to expect from Hannemann with sewer maintenance. Will Hannemann have rail cost us needed sewers?

• 15. The National financial crisis equals fewer visitors which equals a drop in business which equals less City & County of Honolulu tax receipts — just when City & County of Honolulu incurs huge, open-ended rail costs. Does that make sense?

• 16. Hannemann says he loves Honolulu, but suggests he won’t stick it out as Mayor past 2010, but he will stick us with the rail tab when he moves on. If rail is that important, why won’t Hannemann promise to stick around and finish the job.

• 17. Engineering studies indicate that rail will have a huge carbon footprint, bigger than all the cars-buses-trucks combined. State law now requires that we cut emissions to limit global warming. As Mayoral Candidate and Professor Panos Prevedouros points out, rail flops on the global warming requirement.

• 18. Your electricity bill is up 51 percent in the past 12 months. Imagine rail electricity costs in 2018 for 20+ stations, 24 hours a day, plus empty cars running 20 hours a day? It will be at your expense.

• 19. Rail may very well bankrupt City & County of Honolulu. If so, then what?

• 20. Rail costs may very well drive out other much needed city services that we rely on, forcing us to raise property taxes and maybe the excise tax again. Is a noisy, ugly rail that does not cut traffic worth higher property taxes? If so, how much higher?

• 21. Why no serious look first at more HOT lanes , far more buses, and multiple occupant vehicle incentives? Why ignore other options? What’s the rush?

Please add it all up, weigh the pros against the cons, and vote what you think is best for all of us.

Credits: Hawaii Reporter

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Eight Pa’ia stores have closed in the past two months, and north shore business owners place much of the blame for the dire situation on Mayor Charmaine Tavares’ decision to shut down nonpermitted short-term rentals.

Overall, revenue is down 45 percent, Susun White of the Pa’ia Merchants Association told the Maui County Council’s Land Use Committee. A quarter of that decline is blamed on the loss of short-term rentals, she said.

“It could take years for us to recover,” White said.

For months now, the committee has been working its way through a set of bills intended to rewrite ordinances governing short-term rentals, defined as transient vacation rentals and as bed-and-breakfasts. One of the more controversial proposals involves whether to allow bed-and-breakfasts on land zoned for agriculture.

Islandwide, visitor numbers and tourist expenditures are down almost 18 percent from a year ago, according to the state tourism liaison’s office. The state says rising airline ticket prices and the ongoing mortgage and financial banking collapses, as well as unnecessary government regulation of cruise ships, are responsible for the poor tourism figures.

But committee Chairwoman Gladys Baisa said she’s received numerous e-mails from north shore business people who said their downturn predates the shutdowns by ATA and Aloha Airlines, as well as the banking crisis.

Pa’ia business owner Patti Pottorff wrote the Land Use Committee to say that her customers, many of whom are windsurfers, have told her that without accommodations close to the beach, they are instead opting for vacations in Mexico and the Bahamas.

The committee Thursday took public testimony for about an hour and discussed the bills itself for less than an hour.

The administration proposed the ordinances to streamline the short-term rental application process and further regulate where they are allowed. In the meantime, Tavares ordered her administration to crack down on illegal vacation rentals.

Tavares has maintained that the dramatic increase in nonpermitted temporary vacation rentals in recent years has contributed to a long-term rental housing shortage and has damaged the character of some residential communities.

Jocelyn Perreira, executive director of the Wailuku Main Street Association, said she prefers that the county keep its conditional-use permitting process for vacation rentals. The administration and operators want to get rid of it, calling it cumbersome and slow. However, Perreira said that short-term rentals still need greater oversight.

“We’re all in for the fight of our lives,” Perreira said. “Businesses should focus on local population as the meat and potatoes, and the visitors are the gravy.”

Dave DeLeon of the Realtors Association of Maui called on the committee to bring short-term rentals back on line in time to save local businesses.

“We’re making progress, and every time we meet we move a little bit ahead,” Baisa said. “We’re inching along.”

But the committee took no action Thursday.

Council member Jo Anne Johnson did introduce an amendment that says that in order for a bed-and-breakfast to be allowed in an agricultural district, the applicant must first prove that its state farm plan has been fully implemented, and that it complies with Hawai’i law regarding allowable uses in on agricultural zoned property.

Johnson said she has concern about whether state law even allows temporary vacation rentals and bed-and-breakfasts to be operated within agricultural districts.

“I’m looking at trying to be a little more restrictive,” Johnson said. “We are literally trying to save the family farm.”

Her amendment also prohibits bed-and-breakfasts where restricted by private community association bylaws and in an agricultural district with a condominium property regime.

“Most of the people that have filed under CPRs are very sophisticated,” Johnson said. “Two owners can go on one lot and create a setting where in some cases they are not even doing any farming.”

Johnson said she is trying to prevent the county from opening itself to litigation by those who oppose short-term rentals on agricultural land.

“I just don’t want to see more pressure on the development of our farmlands when we have an opportunity to create sustainable farms,” Johnson said.

Jim Smith testified that putting bed-and-breakfasts on ag land discourages the farm lifestyle that needs to be preserved.

“What we’re talking about is an economic engine versus our moral values,” Smith said. “The bill is a failure.”

Credits: Honolulu Advertiser

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Our four point plan to secure a bright economic future for Honolulu may be summarized as follows:

• 1. Bring our infrastructure to world-class standards. A city in the current state of disrepair like ours simply cannot have a serious discussion about economic growth until our sewage is properly contained and treated, our water is clean and stays in the pipes, our roads provide a reasonably speedy service and are free of bumps and potholes, our trash is recycled, re-used and controlled; and our taxes are reduced so that businesses stay in business and low income folks are not forced into homelessness.

• 2. Develop sustainable energy supplies to secure a low-cost expansion that is largely free of fossil fuels. Hawaii is blessed with abundant solar, wind, geothermal, and wave energy that can free us from the shackles of imported oil and coal. We had a tradition of sugar cane agriculture; sugar cane is the preferred source for making ethanol. Where is the wisdom in importing ethanol from Iowa?

• 3. Reposition our tourism to serve established and emerging niche markets. For example, specialize in hosting professional and specialty conferences that bring in millions of high-value visitors from around the world. Many conferences can showcase Honolulu as the city of the future, a city that is ethnically integrated like no other, a city that is clean and in good repair, a city that is cooled and powered with green energy. We can lead the world in true eco-tourism by demonstrating what real sustainability looks like.

• 4. Reverse the brain drain through the knowledge gained by giving this city the infrastructure and energy alternatives it deserves. Our university graduates will study, work in, and export sustainable technology to cities around the world, cities that will come to Honolulu to model what we have created in:

Renewable energy, trash and recycling factories, point to point fuel cell buses on high occupancy reversible expressways, intelligent transportation systems, green buildings, telecommuting and the integration of culture and the arts into technology and infrastructure.

Indeed trash factories and reversible lanes can be designed with beauty and cultural sensitivity in mind. See for example what the Figg Bridge company has done in Indian reservations and national parks.

We have solutions which combine form, function, efficiency, results, and state of the art technology. It’s worth staying home and making this beautiful place truly great.

Credits: Hawaii Reporter

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On the eve of Oahu’s Mayoral election, which may well decide the future of the current mayor’s proposed rail project, I took some time to review the 600+ page estimate prepared for this project by Parsons Brinkerhoff Quade & Douglas (PB), dated October 23, 2006.To many of you, I am the guy who you depend on to crunch numbers, reconcile costs and scopes and make sense of budgets. With that in mind, I took a look at the fixed rail mass transit system now being proposed for our City. If implemented, it will be the largest public works project in the State’s history.

This report is a compilation of the cost estimates of many proposed alignments and spurs. One of the issues that had been concerning me was that of the estimated cost of $3.7 billion for this project that has been stated by the Administration and its consultants.

I went looking for this number in the 600+ page cost estimate and I asked the City Council for help. Nowhere in the report does anything add up to $3.7 billion dollars. Not only that, but the current alignments being promoted are not even in this document. Why, after spending hundreds of thousands of dollars, can the City and their consultants not show us a clear, concise estimate based on a clear and concise alignment?

Ron Tober, the City’s lead consultant for this project, led a similar effort in Charlotte, N.C.. There, the costs went from a projected $221 million to over $462 million. By Mr. Tober’s own admission, “We got beat over the head with the 1998 numbers and the new numbers.”. When is the Mayor going to fess up to the “new numbers”? Maybe it’s time for Mr. Tober to take his own advice and show us the “new numbers.”

The other issue with this cost estimate is its age. The report states, “All construction and capital costs are expressed in 4th quarter 2006 dollars.”. If the $3.7 billion had been derived from this report, then clearly some escalation needs to be added. Not just to bring the estimated cost to today’s dollars, but to properly allow for escalation during the period of design and construction.

The University of Hawaii Economic Research Organization (UHERO), reported that construction costs rose 8% in 2007 and predicted a 4-5% rise in 2008/09. This was before the steep increases in steel and oil we have seen thus far this year and does not include the unrest caused by the current turmoil in the World’s financial markets.

Using a liberal 8 percent for 2007 and 4 percent for 2008, the $3.7 billion should be $4.2 billion. Add escalation to the midpoint of a ten year design and construction at 5 percent per year and the number we should be talking about is closer to $5.5 billion in today’s dollars.

I asked myself that perhaps, even at this cost, does this project make sense? If you read the reports carefully, you will see that there will be no appreciable reduction in traffic congestion with rail. This conclusion is not reported by the City or its consultants, but it is in the report if you look hard enough and do a little homework. It seems that the public has heard the promise of a reduction in traffic congestion so many times, it has morphed into the truth.

I am convinced that this system will not significantly reduce traffic congestion and will cost significantly more than advertised. I believe that our City will be bankrupted by this project and that many primary City services and innovations will go begging because of it. Will we again see our Police, Fire and Emergency Medical Technicians leave the islands because we cannot keep up with salaries elsewhere? What about solid waste disposal? Water? Sewage? When the coffers are strained by the cost of this project how will we operate smoothly?

I ask that you consider my opinions carefully and vote for anyone but the current administration who appears hell bent on pursuing this project and bankrupting our beautiful City.

Credits: Hawaii Reporter

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