Latest / The One Oʻahu Podcast with Mayor Rick Blangiardi / HART CEO Lori Kahikina on the opening of Skyline Segment II, Phase III construction, and Bill 60 (2025)

Transcript

HART CEO Lori Kahikina on the opening of Skyline Segment II, Phase III construction, and Bill 60 (2025) · The One Oʻahu Podcast with Mayor Rick Blangiardi

• 0:15
  Welcome to the One Oahu podcast.
• 0:17
  I'm your host, Brandi Higa.
• 0:18
  And this week we're joined by Hart Executive Director and CEO Lori Kahikina
• 0:22
  Lori, I know
• 0:23
  this is a very busy time for your agency, so thank you for making some time for me.
• 0:27
  Thank you for having me.
• 0:28
  You know, it's been the talk of the town for weeks now.
• 0:31
  Passengers now able to ride Skylines and Middle Street.
• 0:34
  Can you talk about just the work that's gone on to getting you to this point?
• 0:39
  Yes, absolutely.
• 0:41
  And I've been very public about this as well as Mayor, right?
• 0:44
  We always said we were going to open segment to end of 2025.
• 0:50
  And the week before Mayor's State of the city address,
• 0:53
  we were at a function together,
• 0:54
  and he came up to me and he said, I'm going to say October 1st.
• 0:58
  I said, please don't, please don't.
• 0:59
  And of the year, mayor.
• 1:01
  No, no, you're the executive that's going to get it done.
• 1:04
  End of the year, mayor.
• 1:05
  And he says, I'm going to say, I said, you do.
• 1:07
  I'm going to yell back at you. He goes, okay, okay.
• 1:10
  So I mean, as you know, he did that to us on segment one two.
• 1:14
  We kept saying summer, summer.
• 1:16
  And he said, July 1st is like a big gasp in the room.
• 1:19
  And it was me and Rick Rick Keene at the time.
• 1:21
  But you know, I just,
• 1:24
  I admire that man so much.
• 1:26
  I also say this publicly that he is a coach
• 1:29
  and he forces, he pushes people to do to be the best that they can.
• 1:34
  And he's he draws a line in the sand.
• 1:36
  And if you think
• 1:37
  that you can reach this potential, he pushes you to reach even higher.
• 1:41
  And so when he said October 1st,
• 1:44
  it was stressful.
• 1:45
  Like I got it stressful and but we came back, to our team and said,
• 1:49
  he said October 1st, we're going to do our best to make it happen
• 1:53
  without cutting corners or risking safety and security.
• 1:58
  So our team, both,
• 2:01
  each thought, more than just both.
• 2:03
  Multiple people, multiple entities.
• 2:05
  You got DTS?
• 2:07
  He taught you heart, Ohana.
• 2:10
  Getting us to the point where we could open.
• 2:12
  And we wanted to meet that October 1st deadline as we started to go into trial.
• 2:17
  Running.
• 2:17
  Trial running is where we do
• 2:19
  multiple scenarios to make sure that the system is okay.
• 2:23
  There was some delays and so I got really nervous.
• 2:27
  So I asked mayor, you know, could we have a couple of weeks reprieve
• 2:31
  because DTS will be inviting dignitaries from all around the world.
• 2:35
  And what an embarrassment that would be if we can't meet that deadline.
• 2:39
  So he said, that's fair.
• 2:41
  You're not asking for next year's some time.
• 2:44
  I can give you two weeks. Okay,
• 2:46
  so once we
• 2:47
  finished trial running, then we went into system, demonstration.
• 2:52
  And again, that's 26 scenarios with multiple scenarios
• 2:55
  under those 26 categories to make sure that he
• 2:59
  and the system is ready to go for revenue service.
• 3:02
  And I really was anticipating Hitachi
• 3:05
  to take a long time because segment one is in revenue service.
• 3:10
  When we were doing segment one, it was.
• 3:13
  Easy. There was nothing was running.
• 3:16
  We could go 24 seven if we had to, but
• 3:19
  we could only do it during engineering hours.
• 3:22
  So the system, I think at the time was between 5 a.m.
• 3:26
  to 7 p.m.
• 3:27
  we could only work from 8 to 4.
• 3:30
  And so I was really worried.
• 3:32
  But they did a phenomenal job.
• 3:34
  Our team did a phenomenal job.
• 3:35
  I want to say 43 days, and they hit that 30 day
• 3:39
  running average of 98.5% in 43 days.
• 3:43
  We were able to get the system safety certified again.
• 3:47
  Hart does not do this in a vacuum.
• 3:50
  So HK, DTS and FTA needed to sign off.
• 3:54
  The system is safe for revenue service.
• 3:57
  The passengers can get on and so
• 4:00
  I just I'm so
• 4:01
  proud of our Hart team, our Hart Ohana.
• 4:04
  They really pushed hard and got us to this point where Mayor Dietz could have
• 4:09
  the grand opening last week, Wednesday and revenue service last week, Thursday.
• 4:14
  Yeah, like you said, right.
• 4:15
  End of the year deadline got pushed up to October.
• 4:17
  You made it. But we did during that time.
• 4:19
  I mean, did you were you getting a lot of sleep?
• 4:22
  No sleep. Who needs sleep?
• 4:25
  Actually no. Yes, yes.
• 4:27
  So much confidence again in our in our team.
• 4:29
  But it felt like every day something was coming out.
• 4:33
  It's like what do you mean.
• 4:35
  And initially.
• 4:37
  So if you remember way back we were having issues with the wheels
• 4:42
  not fitting the tracks that actually had a play in this.
• 4:46
  So for segment one, in order to short term fix,
• 4:50
  we added a weld to the gap in the frogs, the crossovers.
• 4:54
  The long term fix was to swap out the wheels on all of the trains
• 4:59
  to make sure they could work on both segment
• 5:02
  one and segment two, because segment two wasn't going to have the world.
• 5:06
  So we needed to retrofit the wheels.
• 5:09
  And he thought you did that.
• 5:11
  And they had X number of trains.
• 5:14
  I can't remember how much they had a, B or maybe let's say nine trains
• 5:19
  and that's how many trains you need to run segment 1 or 2.
• 5:22
  So if one of them went down now, that's
• 5:25
  what was hampering getting that 98.5% system availability.
• 5:29
  And again, because they're in revenue
• 5:32
  service, if something happens on segment one
• 5:37
  that adversely affects the segment two testing.
• 5:40
  So for example, if somebody spills something on the train
• 5:45
  in segment one, that train needs to be taken out of commission,
• 5:48
  even if it's for 15 minutes for Hitachi to get on there and clean it.
• 5:52
  You've not adversely impacted their arrival time
• 5:56
  because the train is supposed to arrive at the station every ten minutes.
• 5:59
  They have to arrive within a ten second window.
• 6:02
  If they don't make it, they get a they get dinged on their calculation.
• 6:07
  So once they started adding additional trains with the retrofitted
• 6:12
  wheels, that's when their their performance went up exponentially.
• 6:17
  So that's why. But it was rocky in the beginning.
• 6:20
  That's why mayor I need a couple more weeks is like and he granted it.
• 6:25
  But this segment is creating a lot more for us in segment one.
• 6:29
  You know,
• 6:29
  we talk about how it goes to the major employment hubs of airport Pearl Harbor.
• 6:33
  Are you kind of hearing, are you feeling that
• 6:34
  same buzz that everyone's kind of talking about? Yes.
• 6:37
  And I'd like to take credit that. Yes,
• 6:41
  because we have the two major employment agencies, airport and Pearl Harbor.
• 6:46
  But what I believe is really driving
• 6:49
  this is mayor, I want to say October 1st,
• 6:53
  he did full court press of advertising out there.
• 6:57
  And because that's his industry, right?
• 6:59
  He knows he has all the connections.
• 7:02
  And I want to say he's getting a one for three deal
• 7:05
  because he has these connections, these relationships.
• 7:08
  And like you said, you're going to have to be living
• 7:11
  under a rock to not know about skyline and its benefits.
• 7:15
  And so even my dad, he was watching sports this weekend
• 7:19
  on the C, or C 16 or something.
• 7:22
  And he goes, hey, I see a commercial. Unreal.
• 7:25
  Is that you?
• 7:25
  I'm like, that's not me, that's not me, that's mayor, that's mayor.
• 7:28
  And just letting people know the system is out there.
• 7:32
  Try and make use of it.
• 7:34
  My own son, I was shocked. My own son.
• 7:37
  It was on Friday.
• 7:40
  On Friday of last week.
• 7:41
  You had to go out riding for his job.
• 7:43
  And he took a video of himself on the train.
• 7:47
  He's like, I just got off at the airport, mom, I'm heading out to. Hopefully.
• 7:49
  I was like, well, wait, are those like people?
• 7:53
  Because it's a novelty and they wanted to ride the train.
• 7:56
  He goes, no, they have briefcases.
• 7:58
  They have lunch boxes. So these are commuters.
• 8:01
  So like, oh, that's incredible.
• 8:03
  And has been giving us the numbers.
• 8:05
  So it was about 10,000 on Thursday and Friday, which was still
• 8:09
  you needed to be a paying customer.
• 8:11
  Saturday Sunday skyrocketed to 20,000.
• 8:14
  And I know is because it was free and it was the novelty
• 8:18
  yesterday we're back down to 10,000.
• 8:20
  But still, you know, we were at about 4000 a day.
• 8:24
  So to go from 4000 to 10,000 literally overnight, that's a good thing.
• 8:29
  And hopefully as people start, well, how can I use this myself to get to work?
• 8:35
  A couple of our own employees, they get on at,
• 8:39
  I want to say, hopefully.
• 8:41
  And then before they would get off at the stadium,
• 8:45
  catch the a train, a bus to downtown.
• 8:48
  Now they're getting off at Lagoon Drive, hitting number one
• 8:51
  and then getting over here much quicker. Yes.
• 8:56
  But there's more good news.
• 8:58
  Not just that people are riding this, but as we opened phase two,
• 9:02
  you were also on hand just prior to break ground for phase three, correct?
• 9:07
  Yeah. For those who are familiar, what is. Yes.
• 9:10
  Good. Good question.
• 9:11
  So segment two ends at Middle Street and then segment
• 9:15
  three starts at Middle Street.
• 9:17
  And we'll go all the way to the actual what we call Civic Center.
• 9:20
  So that's at the cross streets of Hollywood,
• 9:22
  Willow and South Street where circle is.
• 9:25
  And we've already done
• 9:27
  we're working on the utility relocations on Dillingham and downtown.
• 9:31
  Downtown should be done wrapping up by the end of this year.
• 9:35
  Dillingham should be wrapping up by the end of next year.
• 9:39
  Those contracts are moving all the utilities underground
• 9:42
  out of the way for the columns where the columns will come.
• 9:45
  We did the groundbreaking.
• 9:47
  To your point, I want to say in August with Tutor Perini,
• 9:51
  and we started to change the traffic on Nimitz.
• 9:57
  I was a little nervous about that, but I wanted them to put it in place
• 10:00
  before the Back to School jam before you started in August.
• 10:05
  And I was, like I said, a little nervous watching this.
• 10:08
  And Scott and Dietz
• 10:10
  were right there with us to make sure everything is done properly.
• 10:13
  And you can see the traffic, patterns on Nimitz.
• 10:18
  It's much cleaner than on Dillingham.
• 10:21
  And different work.
• 10:23
  Different work. So they're not doing utilities.
• 10:25
  But now you can see they've already started the first drill shaft over there.
• 10:29
  The casing is actually going in.
• 10:32
  And before the end of the year, you start to see columns coming up
• 10:36
  in the downtown area.
• 10:38
  So that's that's really exciting.
• 10:41
  To start to see us coming down here into the downtown corridor.
• 10:47
  And so that's slated to be open in 2031 timeframe.
• 10:51
  So right now we're still on schedule for that.
• 10:53
  But we just started.
• 10:54
  And the public will have a chance to at least be informed, weigh in there.
• 10:59
  There's all kinds of ways for them to get involved.
• 11:01
  Can you talk about the neighborhood design workshops that are coming out?
• 11:05
  What is. That? Yes.
• 11:06
  So we are required,
• 11:09
  to allow the public to have some say in what the station designs look like.
• 11:13
  I do caveat that with some of the things
• 11:17
  the feedback from the community cannot have structural impacts.
• 11:20
  That is done.
• 11:21
  The contractor actually, I want to say before the end of the year,
• 11:26
  there are really going to start laying the foundations
• 11:28
  of the six stations coming into a city center.
• 11:32
  So things like, okay, well, we want to have escalators that
• 11:35
  that changes the structural,
• 11:38
  design of the station because
• 11:40
  you have to put additional concrete in order to support that.
• 11:44
  But more of the esthetics.
• 11:45
  What is it going to look like?
• 11:47
  I'm sure Chinatown wants it to look a certain way downtown.
• 11:51
  You know, it's it's like leading into the, you know, a
• 11:55
  grand entrance, I say, into downtown.
• 11:58
  The esthetics is more where we need feedback from the community.
• 12:02
  And I want to say each station will have two design workshops.
• 12:05
  From that, the community can give input.
• 12:08
  I want to say coming into town, they're not going to look
• 12:12
  the same as on the west side, for example.
• 12:15
  We probably are not going to do the canopies.
• 12:18
  Not a fan of that.
• 12:20
  It is an open, difficulty for us.
• 12:24
  It's high tensile strength fabric.
• 12:26
  So to take it down to maintenance or cleaning of it, it's very difficult.
• 12:30
  Specialized equipment, specialized manpower.
• 12:33
  We did take we were
• 12:35
  we were very prescriptive on the West Side that they had to have these canopies.
• 12:40
  They're beautiful. Right.
• 12:41
  They're supposed to emulate the hokule'a, but just not practical.
• 12:45
  So all we did in our contract with tutor Perini was you have to have X number
• 12:51
  of square footage coverage for the riders to protect them from the elements.
• 12:55
  But how you do it, we're flexible with that.
• 12:58
  So we're not quite sure what what they're going to propose.
• 13:01
  I'm a fan of PV to help power the stations, but it's up in the air
• 13:06
  right now.
• 13:07
  There are also segment three project updates.
• 13:10
  What kind of things can people expect if they attend that meeting up?
• 13:14
  So the project updates? Yeah, that that
• 13:17
  attendance has been low in the past for,
• 13:20
  for segment two understandably were started to wrap up the construction.
• 13:24
  But if they have concerns about
• 13:26
  well when are you going to be in my area, what kind of work are you going to do?
• 13:30
  So they can both businesses and residents
• 13:33
  can come in and voice their concerns or get information.
• 13:36
  The contractor themselves, Tutor Perini, runs those meetings and you can
• 13:41
  they can ask.
• 13:42
  And we're also open to doing additional,
• 13:46
  presentations.
• 13:47
  For example, Tudor and I went to Harbor Court
• 13:50
  Fair because right in front of the building is our
• 13:54
  our big rigs of wait, wait, what are you guys going to be doing?
• 13:57
  Am I going to hear noise?
• 13:58
  Is there going to be doors or what time are you going to work?
• 14:01
  What are you going to be out of the way?
• 14:02
  So all those type of questions, that's where they can get
• 14:05
  information at those business meetings, of course, on our website.
• 14:09
  Or they can contact us directly.
• 14:11
  Yeah. It's hard to miss. Right.
• 14:12
  But there's a lot of talk right now with federal funding.
• 14:14
  And if things could be at risk for us here in Hawaii,
• 14:17
  here in Honolulu, are there concerns that you have right now at this time?
• 14:21
  There's always a risk.
• 14:23
  When everything started happening at the federal level,
• 14:26
  we have a federal liaison that is in DC that's very worked very closely
• 14:30
  with FTA, with the administration, with our delegates.
• 14:35
  And, oh,
• 14:36
  I want to say, just a few months ago, this report came out from one of the Congress
• 14:41
  men or women on all these
• 14:45
  federally funded projects that are on the naughty list, let's say.
• 14:49
  And we were on that on the criteria was,
• 14:51
  if you're over 5 billion or 2 billion over,
• 14:56
  over, budget and maybe five years late, which we are on both counts.
• 15:03
  And so what we were really worried.
• 15:05
  And of course, Trump is taking funds away from high speed rail.
• 15:09
  And I think recently Chicago.
• 15:12
  So there's always concern FTA when we talk to them.
• 15:16
  Our federal is on is saying we are different from those projects
• 15:20
  in that our funding has never increased.
• 15:24
  Yes, we are delayed.
• 15:25
  Yes, the costs have gone up, but the federal amount has never changed.
• 15:29
  The original full funding grant agreement is 1.55 billion.
• 15:33
  It's never, never increased.
• 15:35
  So that's one thing different. And
• 15:38
  you can
• 15:39
  see the progress we have made over the last five years.
• 15:42
  FTA and even the our delegates have put deadlines on us.
• 15:47
  We want to see this by this date.
• 15:49
  We haven't missed one.
• 15:51
  And so when we were being questioned,
• 15:55
  it was actually FTA and
• 15:59
  our senator shot his office, was defending us
• 16:03
  and said every deadline that we have put on hard,
• 16:07
  they have not missed at least a new, hard administration.
• 16:11
  So we shouldn't be
• 16:13
  we shouldn't be taking any funds away from Hart.
• 16:17
  So back in 2017,
• 16:19
  that was the last moneys Hart ever received from FTA.
• 16:24
  We received about half of the 1.55 billion, about 800 million.
• 16:28
  The remaining 744 they were holding on to because they lost all confidence in Hart.
• 16:33
  There were other senators that were trying to claw back those funds,
• 16:38
  but it has been appropriated to us since we did the recovery plan
• 16:43
  and amended the full funded grant agreement in those documents.
• 16:48
  It spells, when the release of the remaining 744
• 16:52
  in tranches is given to us when we amended the full funding grant agreement,
• 16:57
  we received $125 million.
• 17:00
  When we awarded the City Center Guide, we contract, we received $250 million
• 17:06
  when we opened Segment two,
• 17:10
  we will be eligible for another $125 million.
• 17:13
  So the concern is that with the federal shutdown,
• 17:17
  there's going to be probably a delay in receiving the funds
• 17:21
  we need to submit the invoices in order to get reimbursed from the feds,
• 17:25
  and that will be a delay, but we'll be okay.
• 17:28
  We have enough cash reserves
• 17:30
  within our account that they normally take two months anyway.
• 17:34
  So if it's delayed another two months, if we don't get it,
• 17:37
  we would like to get it by the end of this calendar year.
• 17:39
  But we'll be fine if we don't.
• 17:41
  If we don't get it until the end of this fiscal year will be okay.
• 17:47
  When we finished
• 17:48
  the Dillingham Utilities, next year,
• 17:52
  we will be eligible for another $125 million in the last $119 million.
• 17:58
  Is there's no milestone tied to it other than a date to 2027.
• 18:03
  We are eligible to apply for that last.
• 18:05
  And that is the last of the four for any grant.
• 18:08
  The matter where you are in the.
• 18:09
  Matter, where there's nothing, you just as a date.
• 18:12
  So January 1st we.
• 18:17
  Yes. So we should be okay.
• 18:19
  But you never know.
• 18:21
  We don't count our chickens until their hatch. Right?
• 18:23
  So we're just keep keep our head down.
• 18:25
  Keep plugging away.
• 18:27
  Try not to get on the radar of the federal administration.
• 18:30
  Just if we do, if we could explain our case
• 18:35
  and just hear us out and look at our track record over the last five years.
• 18:39
  Councilmember Tyler dos Santos term has a bill
• 18:42
  making its way through City Council right now in Bill 60.
• 18:45
  For those who are familiar,
• 18:46
  what would Bill 60 do and do you support that measure? Yes.
• 18:50
  So Bill 60, it's a joint also with, Radiant Cordero and
• 18:55
  this was completely unsolicited by heart.
• 18:58
  So I want to make that absolutely clear.
• 19:00
  We didn't petition the council members to put this bill together.
• 19:06
  And what it is going to allow Hart if it passes
• 19:09
  to do work on extensions beyond all the monies.
• 19:15
  Right now, the minimal operable segment
• 19:18
  is from East Kapolei to Ala moana center.
• 19:23
  If people and there's been quite a bit of stir and all that,
• 19:26
  we're open of segments one and two, well, how come you guys are going to come?
• 19:30
  McNally, why didn't you start over there?
• 19:32
  If I could remind everyone, heart was first.
• 19:35
  There was nothing out there.
• 19:37
  Or how come you guys are still stopping it on the morning?
• 19:39
  You know, you need to get to you.
• 19:42
  Heart is only authorized right now to do the most city council and administration.
• 19:47
  Any extensions to the MLS
• 19:50
  has to come from city council and administration.
• 19:53
  So what's probably going to be, proposed by city council
• 19:59
  is to extend the MLS to match the locally preferred alternative, which is you.
• 20:05
  University of Hawaii at Manoa to West couple Lu west couple.
• 20:08
  It does include McKinley.
• 20:10
  So I'm not authorized with all the board approval to take a stance on it,
• 20:17
  but it will be on the board agenda this Friday.
• 20:21
  Me personally, of course, and we would love to support this bill
• 20:27
  to at least allow Hart to, you know, right now
• 20:30
  if somebody asks me, well, how much would it cost to get to U-H?
• 20:34
  I'm not
• 20:35
  authorized to even do an analysis on that without city council and administration
• 20:40
  giving us that approval, or how much is it going to cost to go further west?
• 20:44
  I need this bill to go through to give me that authorization.
• 20:48
  So it would be helpful for us if if this bill does pass,
• 20:53
  and hopefully on Friday, the board will authorize me to testify.
• 20:59
  What is our stance on this?
• 21:01
  In front of city council?
• 21:02
  I think they're going to put it on the agenda next month.
• 21:05
  You mentioned the board, but your own team, you've had
• 21:08
  you had some changes since the last time that I sat down with you for this podcast.
• 21:11
  You've been reunited with Mike O'Keefe,
• 21:14
  your deputy director here at heart, but you worked with him previously.
• 21:17
  I did talk about that dynamic for your relationship.
• 21:20
  Yes. What you expect out of that man.
• 21:22
  And so.
• 21:23
  So Rick Keene was my deputy from from day one.
• 21:28
  And when he came in, the two of us came in the beginning of January of 2021.
• 21:33
  He promised me, okay, I'm retired for like the third time.
• 21:37
  I'm like, I want to be with you 12 months, 18 months max.
• 21:42
  I said, okay, and then the time just kept.
• 21:45
  There were so many things that Rick and I needed to accomplish, you know,
• 21:50
  including the recovery plan and the full funding grant agreement.
• 21:54
  Writing the ship here at heart.
• 21:56
  And so he stayed on much longer.
• 21:59
  So he really wanted to retire, spend time with his wife, is retired.
• 22:03
  So he finally said, okay, I'm going to retire at the end of April.
• 22:07
  But he did not want to leave me hanging.
• 22:10
  So he says we need to find somebody that could slip right in,
• 22:16
  to take his place.
• 22:17
  And so I'm racking my brain, both of us racking our brains.
• 22:20
  And Michael Keefe popped into my head.
• 22:24
  And of course, like you mentioned, he was my left hand man
• 22:26
  at, Department of Environmental Services.
• 22:30
  And so, of course, we know he knows how difficult I can be.
• 22:34
  I'm a very hard, taskmaster.
• 22:38
  And I know exactly what his skill set is.
• 22:41
  And it paralleled what Rick had, even though
• 22:44
  if you look on paper, his background is planning.
• 22:47
  He has a strong financial understanding.
• 22:50
  When we're back at EMV, he ran our financial model.
• 22:54
  And Ian, this program is just as big as hard.
• 22:57
  So when we have to float bonds or dual
• 23:00
  financial model, he knows how to do this already.
• 23:03
  And that is probably my weakest point in the skill sets that I have.
• 23:08
  I'm fine with contracts, construction, that type of thing, but the finance,
• 23:12
  the the, the finance model, I do not have that skill set like him and Rick do.
• 23:19
  And just like knowing he's he's been in the city for over 20 years.
• 23:24
  So he knows that was one thing Rick did not have experience at is
• 23:28
  how do you deal with city, especially air things,
• 23:31
  and how do you deal with procurement and budgets and all of that.
• 23:35
  So having Mike here, this is the first time
• 23:39
  I haven't had to get personally involve putting the budget together.
• 23:45
  I just handed it to him.
• 23:46
  I said, you know, how to do budgets
• 23:48
  and he's running with it and I have full trust in him.
• 23:52
  It wasn't easy to to to steal him.
• 23:56
  He's very loyal to EMV as I am.
• 23:59
  It took me over a year to convince him to come over multiple reasons.
• 24:04
  Again, loyalty to envy.
• 24:07
  Envy is in the process of of doing certain things,
• 24:11
  and he wanted to wrap up those projects before coming over
• 24:14
  and I was going through some year with the board at the time.
• 24:19
  And he says, I'm only going to go over to heart
• 24:21
  if you're there, if you're not there.
• 24:22
  Lori, what what what point is there?
• 24:24
  And so once my contract was secured with the board, then
• 24:28
  he said, okay, now we could seriously talk, brought him over,
• 24:32
  and there was a long transition between him and Rick.
• 24:36
  And also he was here part time because,
• 24:38
  again, he wanted to finish projects for envy.
• 24:42
  And I said, Mike, remember one thing,
• 24:45
  you're not going anywhere.
• 24:48
  We're still here at the city.
• 24:50
  I'm still very loyal to envy.
• 24:52
  If I can help them in any way, if there's any questions,
• 24:56
  we're here, they can always reach out to us.
• 24:58
  And so I think that gave him some comfort.
• 25:01
  So he started full time here at heart, August 1st.
• 25:05
  And he's been he's been wonderful.
• 25:08
  And Rick was very confident once I mentioned his name, he's like,
• 25:13
  I can
• 25:13
  leave in peace knowing that, you know, he's not leaving me hanging.
• 25:17
  I mean, I'm in good hands.
• 25:18
  And so we just had dinner with with Rick.
• 25:21
  Earlier, or last week, last week.
• 25:24
  And so it was nice to, for all of us to get together and and reminisce.
• 25:29
  Well, Lori is there anything that we missed?
• 25:34
  No, I don't I don't think so.
• 25:37
  I hope your, your viewers main thing
• 25:41
  when people say that we're going to bankrupt the city
• 25:45
  with this project, that is absolutely not true.
• 25:49
  People don't understand that this project will be completely paid off
• 25:53
  by the time we open that third segment in 2031.
• 25:58
  All of our funding is 100% taxpayer, whether it's federal, city or state.
• 26:02
  And we cannot float bonds unless we can show BFS
• 26:06
  that we have the capability to pay it off.
• 26:09
  So all of our bonds, everything will be paid off by 2031.
• 26:13
  So yes, it's a very expensive project and we try to maintain they know my heart.
• 26:19
  Ohana knows our culture here at heart.
• 26:22
  Open, honest, transparency and always
• 26:25
  make good decisions in the taxpayer's best interests.
• 26:29
  And so we have the money that we think
• 26:32
  we're going to have based on projections, and we have to stay within our means.
• 26:36
  And so this project will be paid off by the time we open.
• 26:40
  If there are extensions, that's a different story.
• 26:44
  We need to look at the finances,
• 26:45
  make sure whatever income we're going to have coming in again,
• 26:49
  we have the budget for it and we stay within in the means of that.
• 26:53
  And just finally, I know I've said it before,
• 26:58
  I get
• 26:59
  all of the the credit for what's going on.
• 27:02
  You know, we're opening segment one and two, but
• 27:05
  Heart Ohana, I'm just so, so proud of the team
• 27:09
  that we have to get what we put together and just so much confidence in them.
• 27:13
  They they have not let us down.
• 27:16
  They have not let me down.
• 27:17
  They've not let mayor down in, the deadlines that he's put on us.
• 27:21
  So just very, very proud and thankful for them.
• 27:24
  To say that out loud.
• 27:25
  Well paid off by 2031.
• 27:27
  Open segment one and two.
• 27:29
  I mean your own son.
• 27:30
  You can't knock for you know,
• 27:33
  this is just experience it for the first time to use it. Yes.
• 27:36
  But what.
• 27:37
  Have you gotten a chance to sit back yet and like.
• 27:39
  Oh no, it's okay, hurry up, hurry up.
• 27:43
  We got to get over. We got to get to opening and then,
• 27:46
  you take a
• 27:47
  sigh of relief that day, and then now we're still running.
• 27:50
  We still have to do segment three.
• 27:52
  And every day there's something that comes up.
• 27:55
  But our mantra is
• 27:58
  when something comes up, we work together collaboratively to solve problems
• 28:02
  with our contractor and our consultants, with our external
• 28:05
  and internal stakeholders.
• 28:07
  So no, there is hasn't been a day.
• 28:09
  When I sit back, you look at everything that you've been able to do.
• 28:12
  Oh, there's no time for that.
• 28:14
  Just got to keep running, keep moving.
• 28:17
  Lori guys, you know, so on.
• 28:20
  But, you know, while this is about policy and current events, the one on
• 28:23
  I podcast is actually a chance to get to know
• 28:24
  the leadership here in the city and County of Honolulu.
• 28:27
  So on a lighter note, let's see, Lord, next week is Halloween.
• 28:31
  What is your favorite Halloween candy?
• 28:33
  Oh, you know,
• 28:36
  I of course, any chocolate milk.
• 28:39
  Chocolate here was a cookie. Did it?
• 28:40
  I did my cookies right there.
• 28:41
  Happy did I? Am I? I have a sweet tooth.
• 28:44
  Chocolate is always my favorite milk chocolate.
• 28:46
  But one of our directors are planning director right outside his office.
• 28:50
  He has. Is it Smarties? The little.
• 28:53
  Yeah. Those. Yeah.
• 28:54
  I go to his office at least once a day.
• 28:56
  They're like, I went to lunch last night to buy them a huge bag of Smarties.
• 29:01
  But, you know, I haven't given it to him yet.
• 29:05
  I would have to say chocolate and Smarties.
• 29:08
  And will you and your staff for dressing up this year?
• 29:11
  I think so.
• 29:12
  So we every month we have a heart.
• 29:13
  Ohana. Potluck. Okay.
• 29:16
  And so now the person that's coordinating that,
• 29:18
  she just sent an email out and said, we're going to have a, contest on costumes.
• 29:24
  And I think you get like, gift gift card if you win.
• 29:27
  So, yes, we will be dressing up for your how.
• 29:30
  Are you able to share your costume or is it a secret?
• 29:32
  I don't even have one.
• 29:35
  Man, I gotta think of a good one. Yes.
• 29:39
  Well, Lori, can I get a thank you so much for your time.
• 29:41
  Thank you for having me. Thank you.
• 29:43
  And thanks to all of you for listening.
• 29:45
  And until next time, Aloha.