Carlisle holds head high upon exit

When he campaigned for mayor two years ago, Peter Carlisle pledged to get the city’s finances in order and end politics as usual at Hono­lulu Hale.

As he prepares to leave office next week, after a scant half-term in office, Carlisle contends he has accomplished both, even if it came at the expense of winning a full four-year term.

"I don’t believe in empty promises that you can’t keep and then making excuses for them afterwards. I don’t believe in telling false facts. I don’t believe in any of those things," Carlisle said in an interview last week in his office, which was in the process of being packed up.

"Being Mr. Mayor is good, but I also want to be true to those things I believe, and I do not believe in phony experts, phony facts, waffling in terms of what you’re going to do or setting the stage so you can blame somebody else for what happens down the line," he added. "That’s not atypical of politics these days, and it’s not something that I want to be a part of.

"I’ve never seen myself as, really, a politician, and I would say it’s fairly apparent from this race that I’m not a very good politician and that’s something that I’m very happy about."

Still, when asked what he feels is the biggest disappointment about his years in office, he replies:

"That they’re not continuing."

That much has been known since the August primary election, after he failed to win enough votes to get into a runoff in the November general election.

In what was seen as a referendum on the city’s $5.26 billion rail transit project, Carlisle finished third behind anti-rail candidate Ben Caye­tano, the two-term former governor, and Kirk Caldwell, who went on to win the election in November by uniting the rail supporters who split between him and Carlisle in the primary.

Carlisle, who also finished third in campaign fundraising, did not campaign particularly well, analysts said, exposing his flaws as a politician.

"He was up against two much more skillful men in Ben Caye­tano and Kirk Caldwell," said political analyst Dan Boylan, professor emeritus of history at the University of Hawaii at West Oahu.

Carlisle had no transition period to get acclimated to the job, taking over former Mayor Mufi Hannemann’s administration in midterm. He initially kept on many of his predecessor’s Cabinet members before eventually surrounding himself with more department heads of his own choosing.

He took over at a time when the biggest public works project in state history was progressing but hardly a done deal.

On his watch the rail project obtained various federal approvals that led to a groundbreaking, the start of construction and, last week, the signing of a full funding grant agreement with the Federal Transit Administration, providing the city with $1.55 billion in New Starts funding over time.

Although the project has been stalled by recent court decisions, the city insists the delays are only temporary, and Caldwell has vowed to work to ensure the project continues.

"I don’t think there’s any question that his legacy will be that he kept the rail running," Boylan said. "Carlisle kept it going and moved it along. That wasn’t necessarily a sure thing when he entered office, but he did and here we are."

But where he succeeded in pushing the rail forward, one of his biggest missteps — in the area of public opinion — centered on his cost-cutting moves curtailing bus service on various routes.

The decision was made more curious because of the timing — coming during the summer, just months before the primary election.

"I think definitely the cutting of the bus service, just before election, certainly didn’t help him," said City Council Budget Chairwoman Ann Koba­ya­shi. "There were thousands of people who were just so angry."

Council Chairman Ernie Martin agreed.

"The mayor’s claim to fame was that he was apolitical," Martin said in an email message. "In the end, it proved to be his downfall as he made policy decisions that he deemed were necessary, sometimes in spite of public protests such as the cut in city bus service."

Politics and the impact the decision may have had on his re-election never entered his mind, Carlisle said.

"No, no, no — you have to do that," he said. "We cannot … be fiscally sound by having empty buses run. That’s plain and simple.

"Frankly, that’s something I would defend at any time because if you spend money unwisely in these times … then you’re going to start seeing the debt mount and mount and the debt service mount and mount."

Carlisle also faced criticism of having a "hands-off" style of managing, frequently going on trips to promote tourism or sister-city relations and leaving the daily management of the city to top aides such as Managing Director Doug Chin and department heads.

"His ‘hands-off’ management style was perceived by many as too lax for the chief executive of one of the major metropolitan cities in the United States," Martin said.

Carlisle has no regrets, saying his management style was one of hiring good people and getting out of the way.

"If they’re not doing it in terms of the overall scheme, I’ll tell them what the scheme is and then they need to figure out how to get us there," he said. "But will I end up being some micromanager or some power and control nut? It’s not going to happen."

Now Carlisle, 60, prepares for what he hopes will be a new job in the private sector that will allow him to build on some of the tourism and sister-city relations he worked on as mayor.

"What I hope to be able to do is to have the opportunity to continue those things that I’ve felt have enhanced Hono­lulu here as well as internationally," he said, without identifying his new employers. "I’ll let them say it when they’re ready."

He said he might take another run at office, particularly the one he has held the past two years.

"Now, that’s not a guarantee," he said. "If I go off on this other tangent, which I hope to, there may be benefits in doing the type of work for this firm that I might say, ‘Hey, this is how I want to finish out my career.’"