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Small Business News January 2004
By Malia Zimmerman, Hawaii Reporter The Alliance for Traffic Improvement took the Honolulu City & County and the Federal Transit Authority to court last month seeking a Temporary Restraining Order enjoining the City & County of Honolulu from encumbering city funds and beginning construction of the Initial Operating Segment of the Bus/Rapid Transit project. The TRO request, heard by U.S. District Court Judge Susan Mollway, was denied, because the judge says the plaintiff failed to show how it would be harmed by allowing the initial $31 million of the project to be bid out today, Dec. 9, 2003. However, Mollway did have many concerns and questions that went unanswered, and so asked the city to delay breaking ground on construction at least until a Feb. 17, 2004, hearing in her court on a Motion for Preliminary Injunction filed earlier by the Alliance for Traffic Improvement. Though according to the attorneys for the Alliance for Traffic Improvement the city presented documents saying it would begin construction as early as December 2003 if not blocked by the courts, when pressed by the federal judge, city attorneys said they did not expect to begin construction until February. The judge said she planned to hold the city to that date, or would expect to have the city back in the court room before construction begins. The city did not disagree and, with that settled, the judge saw no need to issue a TRO. The plaintiff commented that in a sense, with that request, the judge did in essence grant a restraining order against the city, at least until mid-February. Mollway said she did not want to prevent the city from encumbering city funds prior to the February hearing, saying it would cause "undue harm to the city," because the city would lose the $31 million allocation approved by the City Council in 2002. That would cause the city administration to go back to the current Council for funding, the majority of whom have expressed opposition to or grave concerns about the BRT. Mollway's written opinions on these matters will be issued in a few days. While the judge sided with the city in not granting the TRO, she said she was "troubled" by many aspects of the case. First, the Federal Transit Administration earlier issued a Final Environmental Impact Statement (FEIS). But the federal agency only issued a Record of Decision for the Initial Operating Segment of the BRT and said any future approvals to fund further elements in the BRT Project beyond the Initial Operating Segment would require a Supplemental Environmental Impact Statement (SEIS). This is because the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) process is only complete for the Initial Operating System and not for the Project as a whole. Another concern - affidavits filed by the Federal Transit Administration show the city administration does not have federal funding for this BRT program. This, despite all the public statements and assurances to the contrary given by such city officials as Honolulu Mayor Harris, Transportation Director Cheryl Soon and Planning Chief Toru Hamayasu. Spokesman for the Alliance for Traffic Improvement Cliff Slater, the plaintiff in the federal case, says not only has the city not received federal funding approval, it has not even applied for it, and that any approval of such an application will not occur until 2004. "The city is likely to encumber the $31 million authorized by City Council before the end of the month without any assurance that any federal funds will ever be forthcoming," Slater says. Slater says "the mess" the city created is a result never contemplated by the 2002 Honolulu City Council when it approved city funds for the BRT Project. The Council approval of the BRT was subject to a proviso that prohibited use of city funds until "the environmental processes are complete pursuant to HRS Chapter 343 and the National Environmental Policy Act." Since the IOS had not been heard of until the Federal FEIS was issued in August this year, and since the council members thought at the time they would get a Record of Decision for the entire Project rather than the IOS alone, Slater says "they (council members) are understandably confused." This report originally appeared in HawaiiReporter.com RETURN TO JANUARY 2004 SB NEWS PAGE
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