Curb politicking at Honolulu Hale

In the months preceding this year’s elections, it appeared that the relationship between Honolulu Mayor Kirk Caldwell and some members of the City Council could only get better — because it couldn’t get much worse.

Now there’s a plan in the works to start the new calendar year with less bickering and more collaboration — encouraging, if focus can shift from petty politics to cohesive strides against public problems.

A coalition of Council members intends to make Ron Menor Council chairman, ousting Ernie Martin, who has held the post since June 2011. A vote on the matter, which also includes reshuffling committee and other leadership roles on the nine-member Council, is expected during a Jan. 3 meeting.

Menor and the other coalition members are right to push for a better functioning relationship between the city’s executive and legislative branches. To the dismay of constituents, partisan haggling has slowed city progress on addressing countywide problems such as homelessness.

Some of the friction can be tied to years of political rivalry between Caldwell, who was up for re-election this year, and Martin. In June, Martin put to rest two years of speculation that he would enter the 2016 mayor’s race by announcing that he would instead stay put to focus on high-priority matters related to rail and homelessness.

Three months earlier, however, Martin was acting like a mayoral candidate. One display of political theatrics was touched off when the mayor and City Council took up fiscal 2017 funding for efforts tackling chronic homelessness.

Caldwell held a news conference at which he urged the Council to support his plan to create an eight-person Asset Development and Management Division to oversee affordable housing/homeless programs and to manage existing city-owned affordable housing. In response, Martin sarcastically quipped that all he had to offer Caldwell following his “emotional plea” was a box of Kleenex tissues. Martin later followed up with a more serious response, but much tension lingered.

The mayor himself is not shy about grandstanding, alerting the media to more low-priority news conferences than just about any other elected official here. That caused some Council members to grumble about learning of the administration’s ideas on the news — and while the validity of such frustration is debatable, what’s not is the underlying need for better communication between the two branches.

Menor said this week that the coalition aims to maintain a healthy tension between the branches.

“While we intend to be collaborative, the Council will not be a ‘rubber stamp’ for the mayor. The Council will continue to act independently and set our own priorities and agenda,” Menor said. “Where we have differences with the administration, every effort will be made … to arrive at a consensus or ‘middle ground.’”

Menor also said the Council should “operate in an open and transparent manner and to try to streamline legislative operations by cutting unnecessary positions and reallocating resources to areas that need support.” Those are talking points well worth heeding.

Earlier this year, Martin raised eyebrows with two hires: for an assistant city clerk position that had been vacant for 30 years, and for a Council housing coordinator, a dubious move soon after the Council turned down Caldwell’s proposal for an Asset Development division. A union lobbyist and former Martin staffer got the clerk job; the other went to a political public relations specialist with scant background in housing, homelessness issues or social services.

Menor’s coalition includes Council members Ikaika Anderson, Kymberly Marcos Pine and Joey Manahan. Anderson is expected to serve as vice chairman and Transportation/Planning chairman, Pine as majority floor leader and Zoning chairwoman, and Manahan as Budget chairman.

The coalition’s intent is commendable. The collective hope is for better efficiency and success in serving Oahu’s constituency in the new year, and beyond.