Rail supporters are celebrating the victory of Kirk Caldwell, believing the project will continue on the right track. Honolulu‘s mayor-elect joined the "Wake up 2day" team Wednesday morning, to talk about his plans.
"I’m looking forward to working with Dan Grabauskas of HART, to be more even more open and transparent addressing all the issues people are concerned about on rail," Caldwell said.
But the more than $5 billion project will continue to be met with challenges. Caldwell‘s opponent, Ben Cayetano, is still involved in a lawsuit against rail. Last week, a federal judge ruled the City needs to work on three areas of the project, which came to a halt in August. Caldwell believes they are technical issues, while Cayetano says the lawsuit is more complicated than that.
"And it may in fact have pretty serious consequences for the rail project at least in terms of delaying it further," Cayetano said.
Although rail was a significant issue in the mayor’s race, both say, it wasn’t necessarily the deciding factor. The former governor says the attack ads by the Pacific Resource Partnership, had a huge impact.
"To me, that made the difference, otherwise, I don’t think the race would be close," Cayetano said.
Work will continue on Cayetano’s libel lawsuit against PRP and numerous others. PRP has yet to comment on the lawsuit and Cayetano’s defeat.
Caldwell, who won by almost 23,000 votes, expected a much closer race. He says this race was about much more than rail.
"It’s all the other issues, your sewer, your water, your road repaving, cutting the grass at parks, taking away your trash, those issues remain and people started saying, I want a mayor who’s going to address those issues," Caldwell said.
See the original article at: KHON2 Local News
