A week ago, the Honolulu City Council‘s Executive Matters and Legal Affairs Committee debated whether to spend more taxpayer money defending the city against lawsuits challenging the rail project.

Only after that discussion — much of it in executive session — did the size of the request become clear. The city’s asking for $400,000 in new money, bringing the total allocated for fighting the two lawsuits to a cool $1 million.

The dollar amounts are included in Resolution 12-19, introduced two days after the committee recommended the expenditure to the full Council. And while that might sound like a strange sequence of events, City Clerk Bernice Mau said that’s the way the Council works.

The public, she said, had an opportunity to testify on the rough parameters of the conversation outlined on the meeting agenda before the committee went into executive session. (“To Request Additional Funds for the Services of Carlsmith Ball LLP as Special Deputy Corporation Counsel to Represent the City and County of Honolulu in Matters Relating to the Environmental Impact Assessment Process for the Honolulu High Capacity Transit Corridor Project, a Fixed Guideway Transit System Project.”)

Two rail lawsuit plaintiffs, Cliff Slater and Walter Heen, were in the Hale last week. They’ll get another crack at the particulars of the resolution — specifically, the $1 million price tag — before the full Council gives its final approval.

That could happen at the Jan. 25 meeting.