Emails Show HART Leaders Always Wanted To Hire Hanabusa As Consultant … Newly released documents confirm what many suspected: that the contract and its restrictive qualifications were written with the former congresswoman in mind.
Months before a lucrative rail consulting gig went out for public bid, top officials at the Honolulu Authority for Rapid Transportation were determined to award that contract to the board’s former chairwoman, Colleen Hanabusa, internal records show.
HART Board Chairman Toby Martyn declared as early as Dec. 7 that he wanted to hire Hanabusa as a lobbyist who could help with rail’s growing budget woes and would report directly to the board that she used to lead, according to email exchanges that the rail agency released to Civil Beat on Monday via a public records request.
