2020: A Year To Forget

From the chaos of the global coronavirus pandemic to the continued troubles of the planned rail line, here are the top stories of 2020.

On March 5, Gov. David Ige declared a state of emergency for Hawaii after the death of a passenger from California on a cruise ship that visited the islands. The next day, Ige announced the state’s first confirmed COVID-19 case: a Hawaii resident who traveled on the Grand Princess cruise ship in February.

Hawaii was the first state in the nation to order returning residents and visitors to undergo a 14-day quarantine, dealing a crushing blow to Hawaii’s tourism industry. On March 25, Ige ordered nonessential workers statewide to stay and work at home, further stifling the economy and causing businesses to close and lay off workers.

Due to its dependence on tourism, Hawaii experienced some of the highest unemployment rates in the nation at over 20% at various points of the pandemic.

Caught off guard, health officials scrambled to assess the extent to which the coronavirus was spreading in the community, while struggling with a shortage of test kits, personal protective equipment and other supplies. It took months before the Department of Health established adequate testing and contact- tracing programs. By then, the virus had spread on Oahu, peaking during the summer at more than 300 new cases per day.

In addition to travel and stay-at-home restrictions, the counties placed controls on virtually all aspects of everyday life and commerce, mandating mask wearing and social distancing, limiting gatherings and business operations, and curtailing outdoor activities.

Private and public schools and University of Hawaii campuses switched to online-only instruction in March, optimistic in being able to resume in-person classes by April. For most campuses, it wasn’t to be. Distance learning was still in place when the Department of Education opened the new school year Aug. 17.

On Aug. 27, a second stay-at-home order took effect in Honolulu and was “highly effective at reducing the number of positive COVID-19 cases in the city.” By the fall months, the virus had reached Hawaii’s most vulnerable populations: nursing home residents and those in rural communities such as Kalaupapa on Molokai and on Lanai, while also infiltrating Hawaii prisons and other group settings.

As cases rose, criticism of the Health Department centered on the leadership of Health Director Bruce Anderson and Dr. Sarah Park, the state epidemiologist blamed for failing to build a robust COVID-19 testing and contact-tracing program. Park was placed on paid leave Sept. 4, just four days after Anderson announced he would retire.

A sign of hope came in December, when Hawaii received its first shipment of Pfizer’s COVID-19 vaccine and immunizations of health care workers and first responders began, with long-term-care residents and staff next on the priority list.

As of Wednesday, the Department of Health had confirmed 21,209 COVID-19 cases statewide since the start of the outbreak and a death toll of 285.

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A TALE OF RAIL

A year ago this week, officials with the then-$9.2 billion Honolulu rail project said confidently that they expected the first leg of rail to be open by the end of 2020.

A year later, with the East Kapolei-to-Ala Moana line still not operational, rail officials are again hoping operations can get underway — sometime after the midway point of the new year.

The past 12 months have been among the most tumultuous chapters in the bittersweet tale of the now $11 billion-plus (including financing costs) project. On the one hand, the rail is facing more questions about its financing than ever before. On the other hand, all signs point to the project’s first leg — from East Kapolei to Aloha Stadium — finally being on track to open in 2021.

And the year appears to have ended on a good note: On Monday, the Federal Transit Administration formally announced the city will have an additional year to come up with a satisfactory financing plan that will allow $250 million in promised funding to finally be delivered.

Also Monday, HART Board Chairman Tobias Martyn announced the agency had selected longtime city Environmental Services Director Lori Kahikina as its interim director, replacing much- maligned Executive Director and CEO Andrew Robbins, whose $317,000-a-year contract was not renewed.

Robbins, first appointed in 2017, has had a rocky relationship with a majority of the board, Mayor Kirk Caldwell and Honolulu City Council leaders. Among the key points of contention was his role in HART’s pursuit of a public-private partnership to build the final 4.1-mile, Middle Street-to-Ala Moana segment, as well as a major transit center at Pearl Highlands, and then operate the line for the first 30 years.

In September, the Caldwell administration announced it was withdrawing its support from the public-private partnership process and urged Robbins and the HART board to switch gears and proceed with a more traditional design- build delivery model. Despite pressure from an increasingly vocal majority on the board, Robbins wanted to stay the course.

Details of the two private partner proposals that had been submitted were finally released at the beginning of December and both were found to be more than $1 billion higher than the $1.4 billion HART officials had anticipated.

Meanwhile, HART and city leaders are facing the financial uncertainty of the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, since the bulk of rail funding relies on state general excise and hotel room taxes. Caldwell in mid-November said his experts are telling him the project will now cost $11 billion, with financing, and that it could be as late as 2033 before the last Ala Moana station is completed. Officials acknowledge the remainder of the rail project likely will have to be built in segments as funding permits.