It’s encouraging that the city has attracted a dozen bidders offering a variety of technologies to build Honolulu’s $5 billion transit system from Kapolei to town, but the rush to make a decision and the secrecy of the deliberations are alarming.

The City Council last week authorized a panel of mostly outside experts to choose the technology from proposed systems that include steel rail, rubber tires, monorail and levitation. The Hannemann administration says the panel will meet in secret because it will be dealing with proprietary information.

Councilman Donovan Dela Cruz objects to the secrecy and has asked the state Office of Information Practices for a ruling, but it’s doubtful that a resolution will occur before the panel is scheduled to make its decision by the end of February.

With legislators threatening to suspend the half-cent excise tax to pay for transit if the city doesn’t choose the technology by June, it’s questionable how much meaningful public participation will be possible when the matter moves from the panel of experts to the council for final action.

Citizens wishing to provide input apparently won’t have access to all of the information considered by the experts in secret — or much time to process whatever information is released to justify the pivotal decision on technology.

“I don’t think that’s democracy,” said Dela Cruz.

The rushed decision-making and the secrecy are unnecessary and damaging to the credibility of Hawai’i’s most expensive public works project ever.

With all the community controversy and mixed opinion surrounding transit, you’d think the administration and council would want to maximize public participation and buy-in instead of constantly leaving the impression that transit decisions are being railroaded to a predetermined outcome.

I was a bit embarrassed when somebody suggested Gov. Linda Lingle’s proposal to buy Turtle Bay to curtail development on the North Shore was an attempt to duplicate the legacy that former Gov. George Ariyoshi left when he had the state acquire Waiahole-Waikane.

I had to admit that when the subject of Ariyoshi’s legacy came up, Waiahole didn’t exactly leap to the front of my mind. In fact, I had to wrack my brain a bit just to recall the deal.

I had the excuse that I was working on the Big Island and in Washington, D.C., when the purchase went down, but I wasn’t the only one to suffer a memory lapse; Lingle was quoted as saying she wasn’t familiar with Ariyoshi’s Waiahole-Waikane purchase.

It got me thinking about governors and their legacies and I realized that I had no clear visions of the major accomplishments that most of Hawai’i’s chief executives left behind.

In the case of John A. Burns, the answer is pretty obvious — he built a state. But in the cases of Ariyoshi, John Waihee III, Ben Cayetano and now Lingle, the picture gets murkier.

Their accomplishments have been less groundbreaking than those of Burns, and in some cases the memories are negative as much as positive.

Your turn: What strikes you as the major legacies of our governors? What will they be remembered for most in the end?

While you’re pondering that, I have some further thoughts about Lingle’s North Shore initiative in my column in the Opinion section of today’s Advertiser, “Turtle Bay idea should be judged on its merits.”

It’s been a tough couple of weeks in court for the City and County of Honolulu.

First, the U.S. Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals revived a lawsuit against the city for pulling the plug on condominium leaseholders who had already begun the process of buying the land under their units when Mayor Mufi Hannemann and the City Council repealed Honolulu’s leasehold conversion law in 2005.

And now, a Circuit Court jury has awarded $3 million to Nancy Olipares, former head of the Oahu Workforce Investment Board, who claimed she lost her job in 2003 because of her whistle-blowing against the administration of former Mayor Jeremy Harris.

Immediately affected in the leasehold case are the 36 owners at Discovery Bay who sued, but the ruling could impact some 160 owners in various buildings who had begun fee negotiations when the city repealed the law.

It could end up costing the O’ahu taxpayers millions of dollars if the court ultimately rules that the city must pay owners the difference between the leasehold and fee values of the land or otherwise make them whole.

It’s unfortunate because there were warnings at the time that it would be legally problematic to abruptly change the rules on those already negotiating in good faith to buy their fees, and there didn’t seem to be any valid reason not to let those already in the pipeline complete their transactions.

The Olipares case is more on Harris than Hannemann, but the Hannemann administration has been criticized for rejecting her offer to settle for $75,000 and then insulting her with a counteroffer of only $5,000.

We certainly don’t want city attorneys and the elected officials who direct them rolling over to everybody who sues, but neither does it serve us when they lack the wisdom to know when to take the prudent path and cut their losses.

One of the most bizarre twists in local politics in this young year is the pointless fight Gov. Linda Lingle picked with the Board of Education over funding drug tests for public school teachers.

Lingle made a big issue of including random drug tests for teachers in last year’s contract, saying she wouldn’t agree to pay raises unless drug testing was part of the deal. Then inexplicably, she refused to include $400,000 to fund the program in her 2008 budget.

The governor said the DOE could find money from elsewhere in its budget to pay for the drug tests, but the school board refused to do so in a 7-0 vote last week, saying it wouldn’t divert funds from the classroom to pay for drug tests that are entirely Lingle’s thing.

Lingle retorted that the board’s refusal to implement the drug tests would invalidate the contract and threaten the 11-percent pay raises that teachers were to get over the next two years.

The poor teachers are caught in the middle. Clearly they resent drug testing, but by all accounts, the teachers’ union has acted in good faith to prepare to honor testing requirements that go into effect June 30.

The teachers have no control over whether or not management funds the drug tests and shouldn’t be the ones to suffer from the political infighting.

“If they want us to fill a cup, we will,” said Roger Takabayashi, president of the Hawaii State Teachers’ Association.

The Legislature sees it as Lingle’s fight and won’t likely provide funding unless she asks for it — and at this point, lawmakers may take it as an opportunity to give her a hard time if she does request the money.

It seems beyond petty for the governor to further inflame an already incendiary situation for no good reason. There is significant opposition to random drug testing among teachers and in the community at large, and the ACLU is pursuing a lawsuit on constitutional grounds.

Lingle took the lead in forcing drug tests into the teachers’ contract, and it’s up to her to take the lead in funding the contract she negotiated.

Provoking so big a fight over so relatively small an amount of money is senseless, and the governor would be well-advised to clean up the mess she’s made before the school board meets again in February.

The news this week was dominated by some of Hawai’i’s most disturbing crimes ever, which turned our stomachs, made us cry for the victims and for the sickness in our society, and provided absolutely no fodder for even twisted humor.

So as usual, we’ll have to turn to the world of government and politics to find stories that amused and confused in Hawai’i’s week that was:

• Gov. Linda Lingle wants the Legislature to approve $500 million to buy the Turtle Bay Resort and save the North Shore from future development. I’m not sure she has enough political capital left to get the Democrats to buy her a pond turtle at Petland.

• The governor’s State of the State speech to legislators was translated into a record six languages. Unfortunately, applause was muted when she failed to speak the language lawmakers understand best: What’s in it for us?

• Mayor Mufi Hannemann insists the first shovelful of dirt will be turned for O’ahu rail transit next year despite concerns in the state Senate that the project is moving too slowly. This is what happens when people who are expert at breaking wind try to communicate about breaking ground.

• The city wants to do away with one-month senior bus passes and instead offer only one- or two-year passes. Isn’t it a bit unfair to demand long-term commitments from folks in their 70s and 80s?

• The City Council voted to impose a $25 penalty on indigents who panhandle too aggressively near Waikiki ATMs. I hope they’ll have special ATMs in District Court where they can beg for money to pay the fines.

• Former state labor negotiator Ted Hong will run for a Big Island Senate seat against union favorite Dwight Takamine. Instead of having a debate, they’ll just yell at each other across a bargaining table.

• More than a fifth of Hawai’i’s public school teachers may be unqualified by federal “No Child Left Behind” standards, but they don’t have to worry. Their union contract guarantees that no teacher is left behind.

• The Coqui Frog Working Group will hold the First International Conference on the Coqui in Hilo next week. Bullfrogs and tree frogs will also be allowed to participate, but bufos will be turned away at the door.

• Two former Moanalua Golf Course employees were indicted for allegedly stealing a player’s dog with the intent of eating it. It’ll have a whole new meaning from now on when a golfer asks his caddy, “Dogleg left or dogleg right?”

• Off-duty lifeguard Bouvey Bradbury jumped into rough, shark-infested waters near Yokohama Bay and pulled a bleeding swimmer more than a mile to safety. This is one of those incredible stories that makes you think about how loosely we use the word “hero.”

And the quote of the week …

… from Kaua’i Sen. Gary Hooser on the Legislature’s commitment to fixing dilapidated facilities at the University of Hawai’i:

“It represents building on the foundation that we’ve started in prior years and working on the infrastructure of the future.”

Who says politicians can’t arouse the citizenry with stirring rhetoric anymore?