Mayor says work on roads 'timely'
By Johnny Brannon
Advertiser Staff Writer
Honolulu's roads have been maintained well with the limited money available, and the city has paid off debts related to sewer repairs on a timely basis, Mayor Jeremy Harris says.
He staunchly defended his administration's record on road and sewer repairs Friday after a week of hearings in which City Council members sharply questioned whether work had been unwisely deferred.
HARRIS
Harris said it's hypocritical for council members to suggest the administration has scrimped on such duties after repeatedly warning that tax increases would not be supported.
"You can't have it both ways," he said.
The council cut $10 million from the current year's budget for road repairs performed by private contractors, and none of the remaining $30 million will go unspent, Harris said.
"It's unfair to continually try to catch us in this bind that the City Council does, where they come out and say they're not going to increase any real-property taxes before we send the budget down, and whatever we do send down they end up cutting," he said.
He said its unclear whether better maintenance and more frequent resurfacing would have prevented many of the wheel-jarring potholes that appeared on Honolulu's streets following harsh winter rainstorms.
"Whenever you have that kind of flooding, you're going to have problems," he said.
The proposed budget for road repair by city workers would decrease $160,000 next year only because the current year's spending plan included extra money to fight the invasion of salvinia molesta weeds at Lake Wilson, he said.
The amount earmarked for road work would actually increase $338,000 and allow the city to fill all jobs in the Road Maintenance Division, Harris said.
More than $2 million for road repairs went unspent last year because jobs were kept empty. City budget director Ivan Lui-Kwan said it's unclear why, but that the administration did not freeze hiring.
He said the Department of Facility Maintenance budget would increase $1.3 million next year to allow more vacant positions to be filled. More than 220 of the department's 778 jobs are vacant.
Harris said average monthly sewer charges would increase 64 percent by 2010, going to $54 from $33. But it's important to remember that the last increase was in 1993, he said.
Sewer bond payments are projected to more than double by 2010, going from less than $40 million per year to more than $100 million. Council budget chairwoman Ann Kobayashi questioned whether the city could have paid the debt off more aggressively if fees were raised by smaller amounts earlier.
Harris said it doesn't make financial sense to pay debt off quickly when interest rates are at a historic low.
Reach Johnny Brannon at jbrannon@honoluluadvertiser.com or 525-8070.
