Traffic and homelessness are top issues for the four candidates vying to replace Councilman Breene Harimoto, who represents Aiea, Pearl City and Waipahu on the Honolulu City Council.
With Harimoto opting to run for the state Senate instead of seeking re-election to Honolulu Hale, voters in the Council’s 8th District will be choosing from a field of competitors who have never won an elective seat higher than a neighborhood board.
Nonetheless, all four have at least once received a paycheck from either the city, state or federal government.
Brandon Elefante, a Harimoto aide who has his boss’ support, and former city Neighborhood Commission Executive Director Baybee Hufana-Ablan have been the most visible candidates, raised the most money and appear to be the favorites. But Russ Grunch, a federal civil servant and retired Air Force colonel, and Brysen Poulton, a small-businessman and onetime city and state worker, can tout their government service.
Meanwhile, Grunch is on the Aiea Neighborhood Board and Hufana-Ablan is on the Pearl City Neighborhood Board, while Elefante was formerly on the Pearl City board.
The city’s $5.26 billion rail transit line is expected to travel from one end of the district to the other when it comes online in several years. The district is home to five future rail stops. But district residents continue to be subject to some of the worst traffic jams on the island, and the candidates are hearing about it.
Elefante, 28, said he wants improved coordination between the various state and city agencies conducting roadwork and utility repairs, and that he’s the candidate best suited to effect that.
Hufana-Ablan, 59, said she’s also hearing from frustrated residents. Besides working on improved coordination on roadwork, Hufana-Ablan wants better synchronization of traffic signals through the corridor’s major thoroughfares and better lighting to help pedestrians.
Grunch, 61, said the district, especially in the Pearlridge area where he lives, discourages rather than invites walking. The upcoming Live Work Play Aiea project at the former Kam Drive In site should build pedestrian bridges connecting with Pearlridge, the cluster of condominiums and townhouses mauka, and the future major rail transit stop makai, Grunch said.
Poulton, a 39-year-old Pearl City resident, said that too often "we’re quick to build other things before we take care of what we already have." He pointed to the terrible condition of Farrington Highway in Waipahu as one example.
All four candidates view tackling homelessness as among the top Oahu-wide issues.
Grunch said he supports Mayor Kirk Caldwell’s two-pronged approach to add laws that would ban sitting and lying on Waikiki sidewalks and urinating and defecating in Waikiki’s public areas, coupled with a multimillion-dollar Housing First initiative to provide permanent shelters for the homeless. "I think it’s unacceptable to be crapping on public sidewalks," he said.
Grunch said the two proposals should be applied in Waikiki first, as proposed by Caldwell, rather than islandwide as some Council members have sought.
Poulton said he also supports Caldwell’s homeless plan and applauds recent efforts by the city to partner with the state and federal government to provide a coordinated effort to help those most in need. He noted that the state’s financial commitment to building permanent housing for the homeless lags far behind the city’s. He said he would press state officials on the issue.
The Council Budget Committee has shelved all sit-lie and urination-defecation bills indefinitely, citing the need for the administration to provide more details about how its Housing First initiatives would dovetail with the enforcement actions.
Both Elefante and Hufana-Ablan said they support the slowdown.
Elefante, like his current boss Harimoto, believes permanent shelter needs to be in place before further enforcement laws are passed. "We need to be humane, we need to have respect and we need to have compassion," he said.
Hufana-Ablan said she’s had conversations with homeless people living at Blaisdell Park, in the heart of the district. "We have to house them first," she said, adding that the city should continue to push for underutilized state properties such as the campuses of deactivated schools to be used as temporary shelters.
