Across the Street
By B.J. Reyes
House Finance Chairman Marcus Oshiro was among the more vocal and visible supporters of acting Mayor Kirk Caldwell in the special election for Honolulu mayor.
Oshiro (D, Wahiawa-Poamoho) preceded Caldwell as majority leader when they served together in the state House. He was a spokesman for the Caldwell campaign on primary election night.
Former Honolulu Prosecutor Peter Carlisle won the nonpartisan race by about 8,700 votes.
When the Legislature opens next year, it will be Carlisle and his administration making its case to Oshiro and the Finance Committee for the city’s share of state money.
Even though he campaigned against him, Oshiro said Carlisle — who once had ties to the Republican party — can expect a spirit of cooperation when he comes before the committee.
“After the election, whether he’s a Republican or Democrat, as the mayor of the city and county, I’ll respect that office,” Oshiro said Sunday. “We hope to work with the new mayor of the City and County of Honolulu and we’ll treat him accordingly.”
He also offered a warning.
“I think Peter’s going to have a rude awakening when he realizes the day-to-day affairs of running the 12h largest city in the country is more than just prosecuting criminals — it’s dealing with the issue of potholes, traffic, sewers, water, parks, homeless and balancing the budget in a time of declining revenue.”
For his part, Carlisle said he recognizes the broad scope of the job ahead of him.
“It’s going to be done in increments,” he said. “Clearly, the key issue involving the future of the city is our financial house and Number 2 is transparency. Those are things I think you can move forward with relatively quickly.
“Number 3, instead of micromanaging each department, give them the opportunity to work to create efficiencies and address some of the issues (such as sewers, potholes, homelessness and parks).”
Political Radar
September 20th, 2010 at 7:14 pm
Peter’s strength — he doesn’t think anything is impossible — is also his weakness — he has no clue what he’s up against. And the record of some of those to whom he has delegated authority in the past — to do the impossible about which he has no clue — is not pretty.
From his first First Deputy — Iwalani White — who was not even registered to vote and sublet her City subsidized parking space and kept the proceeds, to administrative assistant Jean Patterson who was suspended for two weeks for dishing out contracts to family members and campaign supporters, to Craig Whang — Patterson’s son — who Carlisle hired as an investigator and who later was indicted and plead guilty to theft of office property (ammo and other law enforcement equipment), his judgment in the delegation department is questionable.
His personnel judgment may already be open to question as mayor-elect. On Saturday nite, Carlisle announced he would put his head together with Bob Fishman and figure out what to do next. An old political hand, Fishman spent timne in the Waihee administration, was head of HTA for awhile, and later served as Jeremy Harris’s MD and — some allege — bag man. An East Oahu resident like Carlisle, he was soundly defeated by Charles Djou for the City Council seat eight years ago and has kept a low profile since.
Let’s hope for our sake Peter can get past his questionable personnel judgments and silly, smug sense of humor (what to do about the homeless? “turn on the sprinklers”) and use his considerable charm and energy to take us away from the prevailing “pay-to-play” environment by giving us transparency — especially when it comes to rail — and fiscal accountability.
To paraphrase Dorothy to Toto in “The Wizard of Oz,” this ain’t the black and white world of cops and robbers anymore, Peter, it’s a whole new world of subtleties and nuance, negotiation and compromise.
To say I’m not holding my breath would be too easy. Let’s just say he gets two years to show us he’s got the chops. We’ll know for sure by then, if it’s not already too late.
September 21st, 2010 at 12:32 am
I think the internal maneuvering in the House between the Oshiros is the more intriguing story than Peter and Marcus (the City’s share of the TAT is likely on the table to balance the State budget again, and if Neil’s folks are at all vindictive, also Kauai’s and the Big Island’s for their mayors’ endorsements of the losing Democratic gubernatorial hopeful). With Roland Sagum losing in the primary (and Jon Riki Karamatsu and Michael Magaoay leaving the House), House Speaker Calvin Say has already lost some loyalists and those seats don’t look appear to lean leadership’s way (Mike’s seat may go to the GOP). Marcus Oshiro is one possible choice who may need to step up to take the Speaker post (like Cal and Joe Souki before him) for the Say folks to remain in control of that chamber — the other choices among the remain Say core don’t seem to resonate unless Blake Oshiro survives the general (dissident alternative Roy Takumi and lone wolf Karl Rhoads face tough races while the dissident trio of K. Mark Takai, Scott Saiki and Sylvia Luke have yet to close the deal on a coup without another Calvin Say).
September 21st, 2010 at 2:39 am
Ohia, I wish that you had told everyone all of this a few weeks ago! Thanks, at least, for telling everyone now. By the way, I do not think that Carlisle was kidding about turning on the sprinklers in the middle of the night to make the homeless miserable and wanting to make it illegal to be homeless.
September 21st, 2010 at 1:32 pm
Yoshi, I told anyone who would listen, including news reporters/editors and other candidates, but it got no traction, despite all of it being true. If the special election had been held in conjunction with the general, maybe it would have. Despite it’s truth, perhaps it’s not the whole story and Carlisle will rise above it. My cup is always at least one drop full of hope, rather than being almost completely empty.