So I’d be remiss to let the entire day pass without acknowledging the story that graced the front page of the Honolulu Star-Advertiser today. The one purportedly about rail contracts.

The headline makes it seem like the court ruling impacts rail, but the full context described in the story seems to belie that headline. If so, it wouldn’t be the first time that kind of thing happened, though this time the lede definitely matches the hed.

This is my understanding after reading the full story twice and talking to multiple members of the city administration today:

This was a case about the enforcement of procurement law, which requires the government to rank at least three bidders for professional services contracts — that covers things like architectural and engineering work, but not construction. In 1995 — when Ben Cayetano was governor — the state government established a policy that it could waive the three-bidder minimum in the event that it didn’t get three bidders.

The state was the defendant in this case, and the city was not a party to it. Judge Karl Saka­moto ruled that the state’s rule violated its own law, and threw it out. But he said “that is all the court does” and stopped short of invalidating any of what the winning lawyer said was “at least 26 contracts” awarded under the rule, including two large rail contracts.

So it would be a stretch to portray this as anything akin to a pay-to-play favoritism scandal about the rail project.

Now, of course it’s possible that the ruling is going to open the door for procurement challenges or lawsuits challenging any professional services contracts awarded with less than three bidders in the last 15 years. And if any such contracts were going to draw those kind of challenges, it would be those connected to the controversial rail project, since opponents are pulling out all the stops to kill rail.

But as of today, the contracts were awarded in accordance with a longstanding, often-used and then-legal state procurement policy. And as of today, there’s no indication that the rail contracts will be challenged, let alone invalidated.

Read the full Star-Advertiser story and let me know if you think I read it correctly: Court nullifies rule waiver for rail contracts (subscription required)