City Councilman Charles Djou is asking for a federal investigation to determine if Mayor Mufi Hannemann's administration did anything wrong in replacing one public relations consulting firm with another as part of the city's $10 million contract with a nationwide firm to plan a mass transit system for O'ahu.

"I'm not accusing the mayor of doing anything illegal, but we were never given an explanation as to why the change was made," Djou said yesterday during a news conference in front of the federal building.

Parsons Brinckerhoff Quade and Douglas Inc. was selected in May, via a request-for-proposal process, to plan Honolulu's latest rail transit project. The Parsons Brinckerhoff proposal listed Communications Pacific as the subcontractor to do the community input portion of the planning study.

Without explanation, Djou said, Communications Pacific was later replaced by Community Planning Inc., whose chief executive officer is Joseph Pickard, who Djou said is a Hannemann supporter and political confidant.

"The city is about to undertake the largest public works project in the history of Hawai'i, financed by the largest tax increase in state history," Djou said.

Djou, who represents East Honolulu and Waikiki, voted against an excise tax increase on O'ahu to pay the local share of building the transit system.

He said the manner in which the public input consultant was changed leaves a "dark cloud" hanging over the first large-scale contract to be awarded on the project.

Bill Brennan, a city spokesman, said Parsons Brinckerhoff was chosen because of its qualifications and experience. When the city met with Parsons Brinckerhoff in August to finalize the details of the study, it was decided that Pickard's firm should do the bulk of the community relations work because it is essentially an engineering firm with a community planning arm as opposed to merely a public relations firm.

Brennan said Communications Pacific and two other firms that hoped to share in the mass transit planning project may still be awarded some of the work, albeit in the case of Communications Pacific, far less work than it had hoped for.

Parsons Brinckerhoff and one other planning company responded to the request for proposals, but neither firm competed on the basis of price, Djou said.

Djou said he wants to ensure that the selection of the contractors were proper and done above board so that the federal Department of Transportation doesn't object and demand its money back. The department is paying for 80 percent of the planning study.

Djou asked the inspector general's office of the federal Department of Transportation to look into the matter.

Reach David Waite at dwaite@honoluluadvertiser.com.