Republican candidate calls for Ige to quit over false alert

Republican gubernatorial candidate John Carroll has dubbed Democratic Gov. David Ige as “Doomsday David” and is calling on him to resign in the wake of Saturday’s ballistic missile false alarm.

“Doomsday David Ige has got to go now,” Carroll said Wednesday in a news release. “The public has completely lost faith in this failed governor and he has forever lost their trust. Let’s be honest, this unprecedented breakdown in state leadership requires a new person to assume the governorship immediately.”

Ige has apologized after a Hawaii Emergency Management Agency employee mistakenly sent a missile threat alert to cellphones across the state and it took 38 minutes to correct.

Glenna Wong, communications director for Ige’s re-election campaign, said Ige “has no intention of resigning. He is our governor. He has taken steps to fix and improve HI-EMA, and the best person for the job is already on the job.”

Carroll, 88, is a longtime Republican who served in the state House and Senate in the 1970s. He announced he is running for governor this year, and previously staged unsuccessful campaigns for governor in 2002 and 2010. Carroll described himself as a retired lawyer. However, records on file with the state Supreme Court show he asked to be allowed to resign from his law practice last year in lieu of disciplinary action.

>> For the Honolulu Star-Advertiser’s full coverage of Hawaii’s missile alert scare, go to 808ne.ws/Hawaiimissilescare.