Last month, Gov. Linda Lingle quietly extended for another year her use of emergency powers to deal with the homelessness problem on the Leeward Coast of O'ahu.

Lingle said the emergency powers allow her to move quickly to shelter the homeless. Her critics, however, contend the powers let the governor skirt contract-award statutes.

The state recently awarded an $11.5 million nonbid emergency contract to begin building transitional housing in Ma'ili to a newly-formed company owned by developer Stanford Carr.

Carr's company, SCD Ma'ili LLC, was incorporated on the same day last month that the governor signed the yearlong extension of the Leeward Coast homeless emergency proclamation.

Carr is a regular contributor to the political campaigns of the governor, lieutenant governor and the Hawai'i Republican Party. He has also contributed lesser amounts to Democratic politicians and Democratic candidates, including State Senate President Colleen Hanabusa.

Carr and the Lingle administration deny there is any connection between Carr's donations and the awarding of the contract for the Villages of Ma'ili project.

"There is absolutely no connection," Carr said. "We're doing this at cost. In fact, I'm losing a lot of money on this. We stepped up and said what can we do to help."

Lingle spokesman Russell Pang added, "Stanford Carr is working with the state as part of the comprehensive solution to the homeless problem along the Leeward Coast. He is not making any profit from this project."

And state Comptroller Russ Saito said, "Stanford Carr is doing this in a spirit of community mindedness." Carr's firm, Saito said in an e-mail, has the experience "to produce a quality village-style transitional project in a cost-effective manner."

Still, Hanabusa and Speaker of the House of Representatives Calvin Say, both Democrats, criticized the Republican governor's extension of emergency powers to award such a nonbid contract.

"To me, it's an abuse of her powers," said Say, D-20th (St. Louis Heights, Palolo Valley, Wilhelmina Rise).

Say said use of emergency powers by the governor to award the Carr contract is "basically a circumvention of our procurement laws."

"I've asked the Finance Committee staff to look into this," he said.

Hanabusa said the pending contract award "looks wrong."

PROJECT OPPOSED

The project itself is also not without controversy. "There is a great deal of community opposition to this particular project," Hanabusa said.

At a community meeting last night attended by about 150 people at St. Philip's Church in Ma'ili, Kamaki Kanahele, chairman of the Hawaiian Homestead Associations, said his organization is opposed to the project because the land is supposed to be used for Hawaiian homesteads.

Area resident Donna Gate Wood complained that residents have not been given adequate information about the project. She expressed concern about roads and infrastructure improvements for the project.

But people who have stayed at the state's homeless shelter in Wai'anae spoke at the meeting of how it had improved their lives, and urged construction of the transitional housing project.

Kaulana Park, the state's Wai'anae Coast homeless solutions coordinator, promised to discuss Kamahele's concerns and to meet further with area residents about their objections.

Park said there have been two environmental studies and archaeological analysis of the transitional housing site.

80 UNITS PLANNED

The $11.5 million contract given to Carr's company calls for the building of a two-story transitional housing facility that will consist of five buildings with each building containing 16 units for a total of 80 units. Also, there is the community learning center building with administration offices for the service provider, adult classrooms, kitchen, dining room, and child care classrooms. There is a separate joint-use laundry building and tentative plans for a receiving home for abused and neglected children.

Carr said his budget for the transitional units is actually around $15 million, although Kamehameha Schools is underwriting the costs of one portion of the project, the community outreach building.

FEW CONSTRAINTS

The emergency proclamation exempts state agencies working on the homeless problem from wide variety of state and county laws, including land use regulations, zoning ordinances, environmental and water pollution statutes and government purchasing procedures.

Hanabusa, D-21st (Nanakuli, Makaha), whose senatorial district includes a large swath of the Leeward Coast, said earlier this week, "I don't think she (Lingle) can demonstrate a need to extend the (emergency) proclamation. I'm going to have our lawyers look into it."

Ira Rohter, a University of Hawai'i political science professor, said, "Normally, you invoke emergency powers to deal with things like tsunamis and hurricanes. This is an intriguing and, I think, clever use of executive power."

The state Department of Accounting and General Services filed a public notice Aug. 1 stating that the Ma'ili transitional housing contract was being awarded as an "emergency procurement."

NO WEB POSTINGS

In signing the emergency proclamation July 5, 2006, the governor identified the problem of homelessness on the Leeward Coast as a "major disaster and catastrophe."

She has supplemented the proclamation three times since then. The first two supplements, on July 17, 2006, and Sept. 8, 2006, added new legal exemptions to others listed in the original proclamation. The original proclamation and the first supplement have been publicly posted on a proclamations page contained in the governor's official website. The most recent two supplements, including last month's year-long renewal, were not posted on the governor's Web site.

Hanabusa and Say did not know about the yearlong extension until asked about it by The Advertiser last week.

"I asked Kaulana Park this week why he didn't tell us this had happened and he said, 'It wasn't in my powers to tell you,' " Hanabusa said.

The extension was signed July 3 and is now set to expire June 30, 2008.

"Homeless numbers have risen statewide, with the biggest growth being on the Leeward Coast," the extension said, in part because of temporary beach park closures by city officials and in part because of better tracking and outreach efforts by the state.

"Even with these concerted outreach efforts, the actual number of homeless individuals is anticipated to be higher as not all individuals were captured in this effort," the proclamation said.

SHELTERS NEEDED

The administration's efforts to alleviate the problem "have been successful in assisting a large number of homeless on the Leeward Coast, but many more individuals remain in need of shelter and assistance," the newest proclamation said.

"Various other shelter projects and opportunities are in the process of being developed, but more time is needed to allow for completion," the proclamation said.

Since mid-2006, the state has used the legal exemptions to fast-track several projects, with the largest being development of a $6.5 million emergency shelter in Wai'anae that began operating in March and is open 24 hours a day.

Park has said that the next phase of a five-year plan to address the homeless issue would be construction of the transitional housing village in Ma'ili on 30 acres of land off St. John's Road obtained from the federal government.

He estimated that the project would eventually cost $34 million and would include 80 transitional units and 240 affordable rental units.

He predicted the site's transitional units could be completed in about a year.

Reach Jim Dooley at jdooley@honoluluadvertiser.com.