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Lawyers for the city expect the federal criminal investigation of the rail authority will likely result in more subpoenas or other requests for information from other city departments, but members of the Honolulu City Council on Tuesday rejected a request to hire a mainland law firm to help cope with those inquiries. Read more

Lawyers for the city expect the federal criminal investigation of the rail authority will likely result in more subpoenas or other requests for information from other city departments, but members of the Honolulu City Council on Tuesday rejected a request to hire a mainland law firm to help cope with those inquiries.

Four members of the Council’s Committee on Executive Matters and Legal Affairs voted Tuesday to reject a request by the city corporation counsel for permission to spend up to $50,000 on a contract with the San Francisco-based firm Farella Braun &Martel LLP, which has expertise in criminal cases.

That 4-3 vote effectively killed the plan to hire the outside lawyers. Committee Chairman Ron Menor said that means if city employees are served with subpoenas in connection with the criminal investigation into rail, “they’re going to be on their own.” Corporation council lawyers are civil lawyers and cannot handle criminal work, he said.

Council members Tommy Waters, Carol Fukunaga, Heidi Tsuneyoshi and Ann Kobayashi voted against hiring the outside lawyers, while Menor, Ikaika Anderson and Brandon Elefante voted in favor of the resolution. Kymberly Pine and Joey Manahan were absent for the vote.

Menor said the request to hire the outside law firm grew out of “interactions” between city lawyers and federal prosecutors as the city’s lawyers have monitored the federal rail investigation.

“Corp counsel anticipates, again, that federal investigation will extend to requests for information from federal prosecutors that will be directed potentially to city employees and personnel” outside of HART, Menor said. “That’s what they indicated.”

He said federal officials could use subpoenas to seek information about the $9.2 billion rail project, or might request interviews with employees in the city Department of Transportation Services or other departments.

The outside lawyers would have advised city workers on what information should be divulged, and what should be withheld under federal or state law, Menor said.

The Honolulu Authority for Rapid Transportation was served with three federal grand jury subpoenas in February seeking tens of thousands of records, but it is unclear what the focus of the federal investigation might be.

HART officials have said “a handful” of employees also received subpoenas in July in connection with the federal investigation, but declined to identify those employees, citing privacy concerns.

The city corporation counsel last summer asked the City Council for permission to spend up to $300,000 to hire the San Francisco law firm Rosen Bien Galvan &Grunfeld LLP to represent current and former HART employees who received subpoenas, but the Council’s Legal Affairs committee also rejected that request Aug. 21.