The measure passed 5-3 (it would have been 5-4 had Duke Bainum been there) and there was no proviso that the Mayor first get a federal Record of Decision (ROD) that the City had completed the environmental process. Even had the proviso passed, it would still have not assured us of federal funding. We will only know that, in writing, when we have a federal Full Funding Grant Agreement, which is years away.

Notable in the proceedings was the difference between how Barbara Marshall acted in Council versus her replacement Ikaika Anderson. He voted for every tax, fee and fare hike in the budget and for the rail funding and construction with almost no questioning of the Transportation Director.

Marshall was noted for her incisive questioning of the Director. Given the fact that the City had produced no new financial plan, that what the Mayor wanted voted on did not match the existing financial plan, and there was no proviso for a ROD, it is almost certain that Marshall would have voted against the bill. That would have meant that it would have failed 4-5.

At the end of the public testimony, Transportation Director Yoshioka decided to testify last, which meant that no one would be able to rebut whatever he said. He said that the Federal Transit Administration (FTA) had performed "strict scrutiny" on the financial plan and that they had used "strict scrutiny" over every aspect of the rail process to date.

The fact is that, as can be seen from the FTA's own chart to the left, Project Management Oversight only begins with the City's application to go into the Preliminary Engineering (PE) process. We are not in the PE process and that only applied to enter it about three weeks ago. When he was through we tried to rebut what he had said but Council Chair Apo would not allow us to do so and kept talking over us to ensure that the public watching Olelo was unaware of the true state of affairs.

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Transportation & Rail...