Council member Tom Berg writes in Midweek that all the discussion about what an anti-rail mayor can or can’t do to stop the project will be moot if he doesn’t have four like-minded folks on the Honolulu City Council.

Berg miscounts the number of seats up in the 2012 election (it’s actually five, not four) and lays out a hypothetical that would clearly violate the Charter:

An anti-steel wheels on steel rails mayor sends a budget to the City Council for approval, and that budget does not include any funding for the Honolulu Authority for Rapid Transportation (HART). Subsequently, assuming the majority (five out of nine) City Council members support the rail project, the council counters the mayor and restores the funding for rail. The council then sends the budget bill back to the mayor containing funding for HART. The mayor responds with a veto of the budget bill. It takes two-thirds, or a total of six councilmembers, to override the mayor’s veto.

Thereby, if the council were to have four members in agreement with the mayor, and these four members voted to sustain the mayor’s veto, the budget bill override would be defeated; funding for the rail would come to a halt. The mayor cannot stop the train unless he or she has a minimum of four councilmembers agreeing to that position when it comes to the budget season.

The first problem is that the mayor’s budget must include HART’s budget, “without alteration or amendment,” according to Charter Section 17-106. So it would have to be the Council actively removing the HART line item from the budget. That would take more than four votes.

That point aside, when Civil Beat looked at what a mayor could do to stop rail, I noted there are lots of other ways a mayor could make trouble for rail:

He could use his bully pulpit and hold regular press conferences criticizing the project and the actions of rail supporters. He could punish project proponents politically, by vetoing any legislation they put forward. He could hold up permits, at least to some degree. He could stop planners from working on transit-oriented development, a key component of the project.

Berg’s piece could be seen as self-serving. He’s often the lone dissenting voice on rail issues — Ann Kobayashi expresses concerns, but often votes to move forward — and facing a tough re-election campaign this year. If he can convince voters he’s vital to stopping the project, that could help his chances.

Read Berg’s full piece: Mayor Alone Cannot Determine Fate Of Rail