Posted on: Tuesday, June 21, 2005

DRIVE TIME

By Mike Leidemann
Advertiser Transportation Writer

When City Hall leaders last week announced changes to the transit tax bill, it was more about the show than the dough.

At an end-of-the-workweek news conference, Mayor Mufi Hannemann and City Council leaders promised that none of the money raised through a proposed excise tax increase would be used on the project until a specific transit plan was in place.

That was going to happen anyway. But it made good politics to say so out loud and to embed the pledge in the tax bill's language.

Even under the old bill, no new taxes would be collected for transit until 2007. By then, presumably, city officials already would have gone through the federal requirements of assessing various transit options and deciding on a "locally preferred alternative" which would include details about the type, financing and route for whatever systems officials landed on.

In early public hearings on the transit tax hike, though, there has been a persistent complaint that city officials were moving too fast to raise taxes without knowing exactly how the money would be used. Or, some people said, whether the new transit was even necessary at all.

It's a fair enough criticism, but that's the way the system operates, at least if you expect to receive any transit money from the federal government. And when you're talking billions of dollars, federal assistance is almost a given.

In Honolulu's case, the Federal Transit Administration is adamant that the city enact a funding mechanism for transit before it even considers a request for federal money.

That's because Washington has been burned three times before, committing money to Honolulu for various transit projects only to have the city back out of the plans when push came to shove.

Privately, city officials said the public didn't have a good understanding of how the labyrinthine federal funding system worked, and the officials didn't have much hope of explaining it.

So on Friday, they did the next best thing: They changed the bill and called a news conference to show that they were listening to the voice of the people.

"We think this new language will be more palatable to the council and to the public," said council chairman Donovan Dela Cruz.

We'll find out if that's true on July 6, when the council holds the next public hearing on the tax bill, which would raise the excise tax 12.5 percent — from the present 4 percent to 4.5 percent.

Of course, there are those who are going to be against the tax increase, plan or no plan, no matter what.

There are those who will fight transit till the end, just as they've done in the past.

The sensible thing, though, is to let city officials develop a new plan of action, then take it back to the public for comment and commitment.

That's how the system works. We should let it do what it's supposed to.

Reach Mike Leidemann at 525-5460 or mleidemann@honoluluadvertiser.com.