Carlisle must win voters with action, not just words

With his State of the City speech last week, Mayor Peter Carlisle served notice on election opponents Ben Cayetano and Kirk Caldwell that he’ll be no pushover in his fight for re-election.

Speaking with the polish of an experienced trial lawyer delivering his opening argument, Carlisle made a game defense of the $5.27 billion Oahu rail project that has become his signature, painting himself as the hope for the future and his critics as gridlocked relics of the past.

He boasted about a successful APEC summit, the city’s A bond rating, energy and technology initiatives, 263 lane miles of roads paved, 122 wastewater projects done and 275 affordable-housing units built.

He claimed to have the city on a utopian path of being able to pay for rail, sewers and other major infrastructure while chipping away at unfunded health and pension liabilities for public workers, reducing borrowing and keeping taxes in check.

Break it into 30-second sound bites and you have the framework for the well-funded TV ad blitz the Carlisle campaign will run.

His challenge will be selling the rosy narrative after 16 months of unusually low visibility that have left an impression of a disengaged mayor with a suspect work ethic.

He’s seldom seen except mugging for cameras at ceremonial events and delivering occasional hyperbolic retorts on controversies such as rail and his plan to have city trucks haul raw sewage sludge around the island.

The speech was Carlisle’s first real attempt in 16 months on the job to present a cohesive vision for the city, and it’s telling that it came after polls showed him running behind Cayetano.

Moving into the campaign, he’ll need to be more conscious that voters are watching what he does as much as what he says.

As he promised in his address to promote "transparency and fiscal accountability" on rail, a Star-Advertiser story the same day reported that his administration quietly suspended debt guidelines to allow heavy rail borrowing without notifying the City Council or public.

On the day his speech promised core values of honesty, he renewed his fight with the Ethics Commission over its demand that he repay $3,300 for taking his wife on an official trip to China and Taiwan.

The dispute draws attention not only to the issue of his wife, but also to the ethics of Carlisle’s frequent junkets to Asia that are paid for by his hosts.

His speech trumpeted how APEC showcased Honolulu’s leadership in the Pacific, but when our elected officials travel with their hands out scrounging freebies from their hosts, it makes us look more like beggars than leaders.

Carlisle gave a fine speech, but in the end, actions will speak louder than words.

———
Reach David Shapiro at volcanicash@gmail.com or blog.volcanicash.net.