Honolulu mayor Mufi Hannemann says $10,000 is a small price to pay for a speech expected to reach 75,000 people.Hannemann delivered his state of the rail speech this afternoon in front of 200 invited guests.
The mayor says the speech, which will be shown later tonight on two local stations, was needed to bypass any filtering by the media.
"When I call a press conference like this you're not going to go back and report on everything that I say. You edit, you take out what you want to write about,” said Hannemann.
During the speech Hannemann announced he's willing to delay groundbreaking for the $5.4 billion dollar rail project by a month, so that state and federal agencies can complete work on the final environmental impact statement.
The city has spent $5.4 million on its public involvement campaign.
