Mayor Mufi Hannemann said yesterday he is disappointed Gov. Linda Lingle plans to veto a county tax option for mass transit, but he has not given up on a compromise that might rescue a Honolulu rail project.

"I'm not going to give up," Hannemann said in a telephone interview from Tokyo, Japan. "I've been working at this very hard and it ain't over until it's over. And I have to believe that everyone who is in a position to make this happen has got to realize that this, once again, is our last chance."

Hannemann was in Japan advertising Honolulu's centennial celebration and was scheduled to go to Salt Lake City, Utah, for a mayors' conference. But he cut his trip short and returns to Hono-lulu today to talk with state lawmakers.

House and Senate leaders meet tomorrow morning to assess their options after Lingle said she would veto the transit tax by Tuesday's deadline. The governor said lawmakers could still win her signature if they amend the bill so counties, instead of the state, collect the tax revenue.

"I think if they keep focused on the issue of dealing with traffic on O'ahu they will recognize that their opportunity is between now and noon on Tuesday to make a decision to do the right thing for the people here on O'ahu and make this one change," Lingle told reporters yesterday.

In private, aides to lawmakers and city staff traded telephone calls and charted all the possible scenarios that could happen over the next few days. As of last night, it still appeared doubtful lawmakers would override a Lingle veto or immediately agree to her changes, but aides cautioned that the situation was fluid.

Lawmakers are still expected to come back into session Tuesday to consider veto overrides, but had not agreed on which bills would be up for review.

Hannemann thought he had made progress with Lingle after a meeting on Thursday and said he was "mystified" by her veto announcement. He said the city may be willing to collect the tax and wants to work with the state on minimizing the costs.

The bill authorizes counties to increase the state's 4 percent general excise tax to 4.5 percent to help pay for transit projects, most likely a Honolulu rail line. But it requires that the state collect any tax and distribute the revenue back to the counties. It sets aside 10 percent of the new revenue for state collection costs, provisions Lingle has opposed.

Hannemann has asked that Lingle let the bill become law with the understanding that lawmakers would consider changes next session, before the tax is collected in 2007. The mayor and House and Senate leaders sent Lingle letters Friday saying they would address her concerns.

"I did everything humanly possible, I feel, to get her at a comfortable state so she could go forward with this," the mayor said.

Tax and rail opponents were delighted, but fear lawmakers may still meet the governor's concerns and save the bill.

"I have no way of knowing what politicians are going to do," said Dale Evans, president of Charley's Taxi. "I'd tell them that they should be honest with the public and make sure the public understands what we're getting into."

A Lingle veto of the transit tax could be her most consequential one since she took office in 2002.

In previous veto showdowns with the Legislature, the Republican governor had clearly defined policy differences with Democratic leaders. The governor also knew Democrats had enough votes to override her vetoes.

With the transit tax, it appeared Lingle, a former Maui mayor, would support the bill as consistent with "home rule" for counties. At no time during the session did the governor specifically warn lawmakers that state collection of the tax would be unacceptable.

Lingle said lawmakers failed to listen to her tax director, Kurt Kawafuchi, who did raise objections about state collection. But her advisers acknowledge it was not until early June — a month after session — when she explicitly cited it as a problem.

Linda Smith, the governor's senior policy adviser, has said the governor's staff needed time after the session to thoroughly review the final version of the bill. But some lawmakers believe the issue should have been raised by Lingle from the start if it were important enough to draw a veto.

"We went though a whole discussion on this for five months," said Sen. Brian Taniguchi, D-10th (Manoa, McCully). "Why wasn't it raised then?"

Although Lingle has said Democrats have the power to override her veto — as they have 13 times before, and will likely do on other bills Tuesday — it is no secret they may not have enough votes for the transit tax.

The Senate approved the bill 19 to 6, but eight senators voted with reservations, a sign of weak support. The House vote was 32 to 19, short of the two-thirds' vote necessary to override a veto.

The possibility the bill may already be law because of clerical error in Lingle's initial veto warning is also being kept alive by House and Senate leaders. But the question would likely have to be resolved by the courts, provided that someone challenges the legality of the veto.

Jon Van Dyke, a constitutional law professor at the University of Hawai'i at Manoa, said courts could strictly interpret the law and find the error caused Lingle to miss a constitutional deadline to inform the Legislature of possible vetoes. But the court could also find that the error — in one part of her veto message — did not obscure the fact the bill was on the potential veto list and that the governor met her obligation, as the state attorney general has argued.

"I think it's probable that it will be challenged," Van Dyke said.

Even before Lingle announced her intentions Friday, Hannemann had publicly warned that a veto would probably kill a rail project. U.S. Rep. Neil Abercrombie, D-Hawai'i, said commuters stuck in future gridlock would blame "Lingle lanes," while other Democrats privately compared the governor to Rene Mansho, the swing vote in a 1992 City Council decision to scrap a transit tax for rail.

Some Republicans said the jabs may have backfired but even they did not know which way the governor would go until Friday afternoon. "If you're going to a poker game ... you want Linda Lingle as your partner," said Sen. Sam Slom, R-8th (Kahala, Hawai'i Kai).

Asked Friday whether the decision was any tougher than others, Lingle acknowledged the intense public interest.

"I guess because it's gotten so much attention it always makes it more difficult, more people are interested in it," the governor said. "But the concept to me was always so straightforward, and that is: give the county the responsibility, the authority, but then they're going to have to carry it out."