New Gov. David Ige plans to spend the next few days with his closest advisers looking over resumes and reviewing the state’s fiscal situation as he fills out his Cabinet and puts together the executive budget to submit to the Legislature in three weeks.
He also plans to take a few deep breaths as he prepares for the next four years.
"We are two hours into the new term, and we both have been slightly busy with various transition activities," Ige said Monday in his first news conference in the executive chambers just hours after he and Lt. Gov. Shan Tsutsui took office.
Asked whether he and Tsutsui had a chance to hash out priorities and delegate responsibility, Ige said they were working on it.
In calling for Hawaii and its citizens to move forward in a collaborative fashion from the divisiveness of the past four years, Ige — a low-key electrical engineer from Pearl City — was sworn in as the eighth governor of the islands in a ceremony at the courtyard of the state Capitol.
He said his first priority was to fill out his Cabinet. The administration’s call for applications has yielded a good crop, he said, though some bypassed the opportunities because of more lucrative ones in the private sector.
Some directors and deputies from the administration of former Gov. Neil Abercrombie will be held over during the transition to ensure continuity, Ige said. So far, Ige has named former state Sen. and Hawaii Tourism Authority President Mike McCartney as his chief of staff, longtime transportation administrator Ford Fuchigami as director of transportation, and Healthcare Association of Hawaii Vice President Rachael Wong as director of human services.
"It really is about finding the leaders who share our core values of being open and honest in communicating, being willing to listen and hear our views and then, most importantly, doing the right thing the right way," Ige said. "We are looking for transformative leaders that can help us reshape government."
The Cabinet will have to finish the upcoming two-year executive budget in short order. The proposal — most of which will have been crafted by Abercrombie — must be delivered to the Legislature by Dec. 22.
Ige, former chairman of the Senate Ways and Means Committee, said he is familiar with the budget and would be making the appropriate changes to ensure the proposal reflects his administration’s ideals.
"I’ve always believed that the budget document is the most important statement of priorities, and as we work through it with the new Cabinet, we’ll be looking to put our imprint on the budget moving forward," he said.
"We need to live within our means, so that’s the challenge before us: How do we identify those priorities that we want to fund as the new administration going forward and then looking at the available funds?"
Ige said Abercrombie has been gracious and helpful in assisting with the transition.
He also said his family was working on moving to the governor’s residence. The couple’s three children all attend college on the mainland and are expected to return home later this month after finals.
"Moving our home is a big challenge, and so we’ll probably be moving in phases," he said. "I think we’ll probably be living out of a suitcase for a couple of weeks until we can decide."
Ige appeared comfortable at the news conference, just hours after taking the oath of office, sticking to his main points and not straying in an efficient 21 minutes.
Amid overcast skies and a chill from the island breezes, Ige and Tsutsui were administered their oaths by Chief Justice Mark Recktenwald.
The ceremony, titled "Honoring the past and charting a new tomorrow," reflected Ige’s public-education background — with performances by students from public schools, including his alma mater, Pearl City High.
Hawaiian artist Raiatea Helm sang the national anthem and later was called to perform an impromptu three-song concert when the pre-ceremony program ended about 15 minutes before 12:01 p.m., the time set in the state Constitution for the governor’s swearing-in.
The 57-year-old Ige, a veteran state Democratic lawmaker, began with a moment of levity for someone who was little known outside his own district when the campaign began over a year ago.
"Let me begin this morning with an introduction," he said. "My name is David Ige."
Ige stopped short of making specific policy statements, saying the state was at a turning point to make great strides, and ticked off a laundry list of issues that he sees as priorities: nurturing a sustainable economy; taking a more active role in growing small business and diversifying the economy; tackling poverty such as homelessness and the lack of affordable housing; and collaborating with business, labor, community groups and public workers.
Ige, whose wife, Dawn, is vice principal at Kanoelani Elementary School in Waipio, also said he would place an emphasis on improving education at all levels and empowering schools.
Shifting to health care, Ige said he would ensure that seniors would be taken care of with dignity and called on government to seize on the pioneering experience of the state’s Prepaid Health Care Act and not let bureaucracy get in the way of improving the state’s much-maligned Hawaii Health Connector marketplace established under the federal Affordable Care Act.
His administration would work to be responsible stewards of the environment while also trying to strike a balance with economic development projects spurred by the Abercrombie administration, he said. Such work also includes harnessing renewable energy to reduce the state’s dependence on fossil fuels and supporting local agriculture through the diversification of local crops and support of farmers.
Ige also recognized the divisiveness of the recent past, including issues that have split communities such as same-sex marriage and the regulation of genetically modified organisms.
"As important as those issues are, they really don’t define us as a community or as a people," he said. "Outside money that seeks to divide us on passing issues; hurtful and personal attacks that have nothing to do with the issues themselves; emotional appeals that feed on prejudices and stereotypes … they all have nothing to do with who we are."
Eula "Skippy" May Sweet, 85, of Kaneohe attended her first inauguration Monday representing the Daughters of Hawaii and expressed high expectations for Ige.
She hopes Ige and his administration "reflect the real heartbeat of the citizens," Sweet said before the ceremony. "I hope they would not adhere to the dinosaurian traditions of the past administration and they would visualize without any prejudice."
Tsutsui, appointed by Abercrombie two years ago after his predecessor, Brian Schatz, was named to the U.S. Senate after the death of Daniel Inouye, echoed the call for unity.
"I’m confident that together we will navigate through contentious issues and that together we will move our state forward and continue to build that better, brighter future that our ancestors before us were seeking," he said during the ceremony.
House Speaker Joe Souki, who worked with Ige when both were in the state House, said in an interview after the ceremony that Ige struck an appropriate tone without getting into specifics.
"It was a nice, warm and fuzzy speech, and I think he spoke about opportunities," Souki said. "I liked that he didn’t go and condemn the outgoing governor."
Souki said he expects much more in the way of policy when Ige delivers his State of the State speech next month.
"As far as working personally with Abercrombie, I think he and I worked pretty well together, but he was kind of reticent working with the rest of the leadership. Ige wants to change that," Souki said.
Sen. Will Espero, vice president of the Senate, said he and his colleagues look forward to working with their former Ways and Means chairman.
"What the governor said is that we all have to work together — it’s about taking care of each other, taking care of the citizens and residents of our state," Espero said.
Rep. Aaron Ling Johanson, among the top Republican leaders in the House, said the minority caucus also looks forward to what Ige presents.
"I think it’s encouraging to hear that he wants to work to address many of the things that everyone in Hawaii can see need some improvement and some help," Johanson said.
Star-Advertiser reporter Dan Nakaso contributed to this report.
