Who will run for mayor of Honolulu?

The Honolulu mayor’s race is slowly taking shape as three seasoned politicians appear to be positioning themselves for potential challenges to incumbent Kirk Caldwell.

Former Mayor Peter Carlisle, who Caldwell unseated two years ago, is sounding like a candidate, and two of City Council Chairman Ernie Martin’s public meetings sponsored by his campaign committee are being held outside his Council district.

As of last week Caldwell was the only person who’s held elective office to pick up nomination papers. The deadline to plunk down $500 and file is June 7.

But potential Caldwell challengers still have time to jump into the race with Election Day just a little more than four months away.

Carlisle said last week he is close to taking the plunge.

“I’m at the point where I’m thinking about it strongly but need to get the permission of Mrs. Carlisle,” he said. “A happy wife is a happy life.”

Carlisle, who was the incumbent mayor in 2014 when he lost the mayor’s race after finishing third in the preliminary round behind former Lt. Gov. Ben Cayetano and Caldwell, said he’s frustrated by the political bickering he’s seeing in city government.

“I’m unimpressed by the partisan haggling between Ernie Martin and Caldwell,” Carlisle said. “It doesn’t seem to be productive on either of their parts.”

He added, “The inordinate amount of time spent on, really, basically catering to and pampering in many different ways the homeless population has been counterproductive and expensive.”

A plan shepherded by his administration to sell the city’s affordable-housing buildings was botched by the Martin-led Council and Caldwell, he said.

Carlisle acknowledged he has no funds in his campaign account at the moment. “The one thing I seem to have going is there seems to be a few people who recognize my name,” he said.

Martin, meanwhile, said he is holding two community meetings this week aimed at gathering input from the public about their budget priorities as the Council continues to deliberate on the city’s 2017 budget spending bills.

The Council chairman has acknowledged that he wants to be mayor, but said Friday he hasn’t yet decided on challenging Caldwell this year.

A meeting is slated for 6:30 tonight at Moanalua Community Village Center. Another is set for 6:30 p.m. Thursday at Castle High School. Neither meeting location is in Martin’s district, which runs from Mililani to Kahaluu.

An email blast announcing Martin’s “2016 Talk Story Tour” came from an email address dubbed “Friends of Ernie Martin.” The announcement includes links to the Friends of Ernie Martin website, and the bottom of the email said it was being paid for by Friends of Ernie Martin.

Martin, however, said the meetings are being held in his capacity as Council chairman. Noting that the Council is in budget deliberations, he said, “We have a bunch of tough decisions to make with a limited amount of resources.”

The first meeting was held several weeks ago in Wahiawa, within his Council district. While Castle is outside his district, neighboring communities including Kahaluu and Ahuimanu are part of his district. The Moanalua meeting is taking place because Moanalua Villages residents invited him to talk about development issues there, he said.

“I’m going to focus on my district. But should I get a request to go outside into another area, especially if the area Council member would not object or even accompany me to that particular meeting, I would go outside the district,” he said.

Martin said he’s using his campaign resources to sponsor the meetings because he doesn’t want Council staff members to be at the night meetings. “They work hard enough,” he said.

Martin has been holding fundraisers, and disclosure forms he is required to file say he is running for Council even though he is barred from running for a third straight Council term in 2018.

“I’m keeping all of my options open,” he said. If he were to run for mayor, he said, he believes the state’s resign-to-run law would only require him to resign from his Council post when he files nomination papers, not after any public proclamation. The deadline to file to run for 2016 races is June 7.

Meantime, former Lt. Gov. James “Duke” Aiona, who also has discussed the possibility of challenging Caldwell this fall, said he anticipates announcing a decision on his 2016 political plans soon.

“I haven’t set a date yet,” Aiona said. “Should be within a month or so.”

The announcement will likely be made during his weekday morning radio talk show on AM 940.

“What’s tugging at my heart, really, is the fact that there aren’t enough, how do I put, competitive races out there for a lot of races,” Aiona said. “And that’s what bothers me.” He declined to say which offices, other than the mayor’s, he is eyeing.

Whether Carlisle or Martin enter the fray won’t effect his decision, he said. Aiona’s campaign account, as of Jan. 1, had $18,872 in it.

Campaign spending reports show that at the beginning of 2016, Caldwell had $1.6 million in his campaign account while Martin had $492,510.

Caldwell is not only the first major candidate to announce a run for mayor in 2016; he’s first out of the gate with an advertisement. In a radio commercial a young Kirk Caldwell spells the word “infrastructure” at his school spelling bee and then runs on explaining why it’s important.

The Hawaii Poll, conducted for the Honolulu Star-Advertiser in late December and early January, showed Aiona on top in a three-way race with Caldwell and Martin behind him. Aiona took 43 percent of the poll’s picks; Caldwell, 38 percent; and Martin, 8 percent. Carlisle was not included in the poll.

As with all other nonpartisan, elected City and County of Honolulu elections, the mayor’s race is held in two parts.

A special election will be held Aug. 13 in conjunction with the state’s primary election slate. If the top vote-getter receives more than 50 percent of the votes cast, that candidate would become mayor in January. Otherwise, the top two finishers would advance to the second special election, Nov. 8.