HONOLULU — Honolulu officials will allow $44 million from the city’s general fund to be used to finance the city’s 20-mile (32-kilometer) rail project.
HONOLULU — Honolulu officials will allow $44 million from the city’s general fund to be used to finance the city’s 20-mile (32-kilometer) rail project.
The Honolulu City Council approved measures Tuesday that were needed to meet the demands of the Federal Transit Authority for the more than $8 billion project, the Honolulu Star-Advertiser reported .
City officials told council members that the administration is examining financing options that are transparent, do not put the city in financial risk and get the funds into a Honolulu Authority for Rapid Transit account by the federal agency’s Nov. 20 deadline.
The FTA had demanded for the city come up with $44 million to help fund administrative costs for the project, setting a Nov. 20 deadline to submit details as part of a project recovery plan.
The FTA had committed $1.55 billion for the rail project, but held up about $745 million pending a new recovery plan, which the agency required when project costs soared from the $5.26 billion number given several years ago.
An option for financing would be a short-term commercial-paper form of borrowing, which would be the “least invasive,” said Gary Kurokawa, Mayor Kirk Caldwell’s chief of staff. Another would involve reopening the operating budget for next year to find the amount in unused funds. This option “is not the most optimal,” Kurokawa said.
City officials are expected to present a plan to the council at its meeting scheduled for next week.
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Information from: Honolulu Star-Advertiser, http://www.staradvertiser.com
This over taxation for that $10 billion dollar and counting white elephant drain pit is just a preview of more of your hard earned taxes benefiting the corrupt who couldn’t care less about you or your kids who will be stuck paying more each year while getting NOTHING in return.
Just wait until this massive money drain monster begins to creep into downtown areas disrupting many services like cable, electric, water and sewer infrastructures that has to be dug up and moved making way for this eye sore of obsolete heavy noisy rail. Many business downtown will go bankrupt when customers no longer have access to their facilities, this creating a void that taxpayers will have to be burdened to pay even more.