The City Council will welcome four new members in the next two months, three of whom were in the state Legislature only a month ago. The fourth was in the state Senate just four years ago.
"The City Council’s a desirable job, basically. It’s not surprising you get some back," said Neal Milner, professor emeritus of political science at the University of Hawaii. "I think you always get some ex-state legislators, but I think four out of nine is pretty significant."
The newest members are former Reps. Joey Manahan and Kymberly Pine and former Sens. Carol Fukunaga and Ron Menor.
All arrive at the Council through different circumstances but with one thing in common, in that none will need on-the-job training.
"All four incoming Council members have legislative experience," Council Chairman Ernie Martin said in a statement. "The City Council is sure to benefit from their familiarity with the legislative process."
Manahan already is on the job, taking over earlier this month for newly elected state Rep. Romy Cachola. Term limits kept Cachola from seeking the Council seat, but he won a narrow primary for the House, then ran unopposed in the general election. He resigned from the Council at the end of October to prepare for his move to the state Capitol.
Manahan, who won the seat in the August primary, was then nominated by Martin at the Nov. 14 Council meeting to fill the vacancy and begin his term early. He began work the same day, voting on measures that came before the Council, including a proposed ban on smoking at some city beach parks and a resolution urging the governor to investigate possible impropriety at polling places during the general election.
Fukunaga also is expected to begin work early after winning a special election to fill the vacancy created by the departure of U.S. Rep.-elect Tulsi Gabbard, who resigned shortly after winning the Democratic nomination, allowing the city to hold the special election for her seat in conjunction with the general election. The move saved the city about $150,000 that would have been needed to conduct a special all-mail vote. She cruised past GOP activist Kawika Crowley in the general election.
Fukunaga was out of office after losing her Senate re-election bid in the primary to Sen. Brian Taniguchi. The two incumbents were pitted against each other as a result of redistricting. Taniguchi went on to win re-election in the general.
Fukunaga was the top vote-getter among 16 candidates in the special election for Gabbard’s seat. She is expected to be sworn in after a 20-day waiting period to allow for any election challenges to be filed.
Pine gave up a safe House seat in her Ewa Beach neighborhood to challenge Councilman Tom Berg, her former legislative aide known as much for his temper and confrontational style as for his work in the community.
Like many who go from the state to the city, Pine said she felt she accomplished most of what she could for her district at the state level, and wanted to focus more on the everyday needs of the community at the city level. She said she expects the four newcomers to be able to get working immediately for their communities.
"There’s not a lot of big egos in this team," Pine said. "I think everyone really loves and deeply cares about their community, and that’s their main priority. I think it’s going to be one of the best Councils, I think, the city has ever had, to be honest with you."
Menor has been out of office since 2008, after losing in the Democratic primary that year to Sen. Michelle Kidani. He had served 22 years in office, but was undone in 2008 by low turnout and a drunken-driving conviction earlier that year.
During his time in the Senate, he was known as the architect of the state’s failed attempt to regulate gasoline prices by setting wholesale price caps based on oil price trends in mainland cities.
Pine and Menor will take office when the new Council is seated in January.
"I think, basically, you have people who know how to do politics," Milner said. "It’s not like you’re taking workers off the street and teaching them how the city runs or how you build coalitions or anything like that."
He said it’s too early to tell how they might fare as a group and whether their backgrounds will lead to consensus on issues or leadership within the Council.
Councilwoman Ann Kobayashi, who herself came back to city politics in 2002 after serving in the Senate in the late 1970s and ’80s, said the four newcomers should fit quite well. "I think they’ll be good because the people that are coming in were good legislators" at the state level, she said.
Some of the issues might be different, but in the end, taxpayers will bear the effects of decisions, she said.
"You’re used to doing economic development, education, prisons and health care," she said. "At the city we’re more at a local level, so it’s the parks, the roads and sewers.
"So the issues are very different. It’s more like you’re right there in the community."
Outgoing Councilman Nestor Garcia made the transition directly from state to city eight years ago, and said there was one piece of advice he took to heart.
"The most important relationship you need to do when you get there" is make friends with the guy who fixes the potholes, he joked, but added that those are the types of issues that the new members will now face.
"It’s the kind of government service that people really equate government to," Garcia said. "And that’s the kind of essential services that people are used to in the city — lights, picking up the garbage, making sure 911 works, paving the streets, filling the potholes — that’s what county government, city government, is all about."
