Honolulu Hale: The Election

This was inspired by a comment I made on a previous thread about Jeremy Harris and his "old job" at Honolulu Hale...

This year's race for Mayor of Honolulu has gotten quite interesting for the most part, especially with two city councilmen and a former Lieutenant Governor kicking off their campaigns throughout the community.

For some reason, this hits home especially for otherwise apolitical ol' me - while my `ohana out here is pretty close to Mazie Hirono (sis' Japanese in-laws, especially), I've also heard scuttlebutt about most major sectors of the Filipino community pledging their full support for Duke Bainum, who seems to be the least felonious of the bunch currently running the Council at Honolulu Hale.

(Speaking of Aunty Mazie: I've noticed that her new campaign offices are at the old Moa Mua Tei, right next to the Convention Center on the same block as Club Rock-Za. Discuss.)

Any thoughts?

Comments

I agree that Duke is one of the few councilmembers -- maybe the only -- to stay clean (so far).

But over the years, I've come to the conlusion that the city administration needs to concentrate on infrastructure issues -- physical, financial and services.

Given this focus, both Mazie and Mufi would do the trick in City Hall. They would both appoint competent administrators to run the departments.

The larger and more critical issue is the members of the new council. The city must develop a stronger legislative body to set policy and challenge an executive branch that has and continues to be too powerful and arrogant.

I encourage voters to look closely at their candidates for the council and also for the entire composition of that body.

Ann Kobayashi's budget leadership on the council, challenging the assumptions and propaganda by the administration is an example of how strong legislators improve resulting policies.

I am, however, disappointed that she gave in and restored much of the budget cuts she proposed earlier.

I agree with Keith K. that Duke gets points simply for coming out of this last Council term mostly in one piece. (Survivor: City Hall!) But he's been too wishy-washy on some basic elements of the future of Waikiki — failing to properly address either the visitor industry or regular residents (I'm a former Waikikian myself) — for me to support him as head of the entire county.

Coming from a political family, and knowing some of the folks working with Mufi, I can't vote for him either. He genuinely means well, but particularly in "appoint[ing] competent administrators," I have my doubts. He's spent way too much political capital in the last few campaigns to not have an overwhelming number of debts to pay off.

I guess, so far, that leaves Mazie. She won handily (representing my district, replacing Andy Mirikitani), and — despite her shaky performance the last time she ran for mayor — I like what I've seen so far. (Her falling back on her hard-line budget stance doesn't disappoint me as much, perhaps because I figure everyone sees the dance as a game, and "compromise" is just part of the process.)

To be frank, though, I'll take anyone over Harris. The man has built monuments to himself all over O`ahu that the rest of us will now have to pay for. And that new, "please forget Fasi!" rainbow paint scheme for TheBus is, for me, just the latest nail in the coffin...

Post a Comment