The Federal Transit Administration will not release independent evaluations of the Honolulu rail project’s two most recent financial plans because doing so would reveal information that’s “predecisional and part of the deliberative process.”

Civil Beat had filed a Freedom Of Information Act request in late October seeking all evaluations, reports, notes or recommendations produced by the FTA’s Financial Management Oversight Contractor regarding both the April 2011 and September 2011 draft financial plans.

FTA Office of Management Planning Director Tommy Carter explained the rejection in a Nov. 23 letter that arrived at Civil Beat headquarters last week:

The basis for the privilege is to protect these working documents and to encourage open, frank exchange of opinions and recommendations between government personnel, to protect against premature disclosure of proposed policies before they are finally adopted, and to protect against public confusion that might result from disclosure of reasons and rationale that are not in fact ultimately the grounds for an agency’s action.

Read the full denial letter here.