VIDEO: Grassroot Institute writer discusses audit of rail fiasco

Longtime journalist Mark Coleman talked recently about his article “Honolulu rail clearly a fiasco” with ThinkTech Hawaii host Tim Apicella, and suggested that now would be an ideal time to subject the over-budget, behind-schedule project to an independent forensic audit.

In particular, Coleman suggested that state legislators use their upcoming special session to order such an audit, which would allow them to avoid extending or raising any state taxes until they have better information about why the city’s rail project has veered so far off track — while yet so much of it remains to be built.

The timing is apt, he told Apicella, because the City Council just approved selling bonds to fund construction of the rail through to next year, thus taking pressure off the Legislature to consider  anything before it starts its regular session in January 2018.

Coleman said transportation experts warned city officials years before the rail project was even started that it would be a “gigantic white elephant,” and by now it’s clear that just about everything that could have gone wrong with the project has — though nobody has a definite explanation as to why.

Watch the full video below: