Honolulu city officials are taking to the airwaves to argue in favor of a planned $3.7 billion rail system linking east Kapolei to Ala Moana.

Starting this month, the city is buying an hour every Tuesday afternoon on the Mike Buck show on KHVH AM-830.

The live show, which airs from 3 to 4 p.m., is meant to counter anti-rail radio programming, according to city officials.

Some of that rail rhetoric occurs during the morning drive time hours on the same station, which hosts morning radio personality Rick Hamada and regular guest City Councilman Charles Djou. Both frequently criticize plans to build the 20-mile elevated commuter rail line.

The radio show is a small part of the city's public relations effort to inform residents on the planned rail system. The city says it spent $1.4 million from August 2005 through February 2008 on the effort.

Those funds paid for a variety of education efforts, including holding several hundred community updates and speakers bureau presentations, regular publication of a project newsletter, maintaining a project Web site and hot line and dealing with the news media on a regular basis.

Some of those public outreach efforts are mandated by the federal government, which is expected to pay for a portion of the mass transit system.

Others, such as the new "Honolulu On the Move" afternoon radio show, are more discretionary. The show, which is labeled as a paid advertisement, is meant to counter inaccurate information being spread about the proposed mass transit system, said Toru Hamayasu, chief of the city's transportation planning division.

"Other people are using the radio to distribute so much wrong information so if it's the same listeners, we want them to hear the truth," said Hamayasu, who was a guest on the show's first episode March 6.

The city will spend $2,400 a month for the radio show under a 12-week contract with KHVH.

QUESTIONING THE NEED

Mayor Mufi Hannemann hopes to break ground on the commuter rail late next year with the first East Kapolei to Leeward Community College segment opening in 2012. The transit system is expected to reduce urban sprawl while giving commuters an alternative to increasingly congested highways.

Critics contend the project is too costly and won't prevent traffic from worsening along the busy H-1 commuter corridor.

Buying radio time "clearly shows the weakness of the rail proposal that they actually have to spend taxpayer money to convince people that they're spending taxpayer money wisely," said Djou.

Djou has been given free air time to discuss rail on KHVH at least a dozen times.

He questioned the city's need for paid programming. "I would argue the problem isn't communication. The problem is their message," he said.

PRIOR INSTANCES

It's not the first time the city has bought ads to get its message to the public. The city purchased print advertising to counter concerns raised by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency that the Honouliuli wastewater treatment plant needs $400 million in upgrades to meet national water quality requirements.

Councilman Todd Apo said such government efforts should be limited to major public policy issues such as wastewater treatment and mass transit.

"It's reasonable for government to educate or advocate at times," he said. "I wouldn't say you should do it all the time."

Tom Brislin, a media ethicist at the University of Hawai'i, agreed that government has the right to advocate, so long as it doesn't interfere with opposing voices.

"Normally government has a voice and it's very easy for them to express that voice through the normal publicity channels," Brislin said. "The media, so to speak, exist for the public to voice alternative views.

"When it gets to the point where government uses its power either in an authoritarian way, to try to blunt those views, or in an economical way, if they're buying all the available time, then we would start to worry," Brislin said.

For KHVH owner Clear Channel Communications, government money is no different than private sector cash.

"We don't discriminate," said Chuck Cotton, Clear Channel's local general manager. "Anybody with a checkbook can buy time."

Reach Sean Hao at shao@honoluluadvertiser.com.