Honolulu Rail Board: What Do You Do With A $2.4 Billion Bailout?

Ten days after Gov. David Ige signed a rail funding bill tying an infusion of $2.4 billion of sorely needed funding to greater transparency on spending, the first meeting of the Honolulu rail board featured an ironic twist.

The Honolulu Authority for Rapid Transportation held three separate closed-door meetings — to discuss legal issues, the rail project’s financial plan and the outgoing chief executive’s performance review.

The stated reasons for the executive sessions were legitimate under Hawaii’s Sunshine Law, which governs public meetings.

Still, HART’s new executive director, Andy Robbins, acknowledged the irony when asked about it during one of Thursday’s long executive sessions, when he was waiting in a mostly empty meeting room with a handful of news reporters and HART staff.

Read more: http://www.civilbeat.org/2017/09/honolulu-rail-board-discusses-whats-next-after-2-4-billion-bailout/