During an animated, pidgin-filled and self-deprecating commencement speech to the 2014 graduates of Hawaii Pacific University, Hawaii County Mayor Billy Kenoi recounted his unlikely journey to office before ending with a quote from King Kamehameha the Great on the eve of the Battle of ‘Iao:
"In the face of overwhelming odds and numbers," Kenoi said of Kamehameha, "he looked at all of his warriors and yelled … ‘Go forward, my brothers and sisters, until you drink the bitter waters of battle, for there is no turning back.’"
Eleven months later, there’s also no turning back for Kenoi, the charismatic two-term mayor who now faces his own bitter waters of battle since revelations that he charged outings to Honolulu hostess bars and thousands of dollars worth of perks and personal expenses to his county-issued purchasing card, or pCard.
Kenoi, 46, was considered a rising star in Hawaii politics with a possible future in Congress or even at Washington Place after his current term ends in 2016. Term limits prevent Kenoi from seeking a third consecutive run for mayor.
Instead, Kenoi — a former Honolulu deputy public defender — has retained Honolulu criminal defense attorneys Howard Luke, Todd Eddins and Richard Sing as he faces the prospect of a potential criminal investigation by the state attorney general; an ethics complaint that could be heard in May; an audit of county pCard use by Hawaii County’s new legislative auditor that could come out in June; and the possibility of tough questions about his pCard use on April 22 when the County Council reviews budget requests of both the mayor’s office and the finance department, which processed Kenoi’s reimbursements.
Kenoi had been repeatedly warned about using his pCard for personal expenses, which included $400 that he spent in 2009 at the Camelot Restaurant and Lounge hostess bar on Sheridan Street on Oahu and an $892 tab at the Club Evergreen hostess bar on Kapiolani Boulevard on Oahu in December 2013.
From 2009, when Kenoi took office, to 2015, county records show lavish spending for drinks, dinners, luxury hotels and more than $100,000 on trips to Washington, Las Vegas, San Francisco, Texas, the Philippines and Japan. Kenoi also used his pCard to pay for a $1,200 surfboard, his $565 Hawaii Bar Association dues and luxury stays at the Marriott Waikoloa Beach at $469 per night.
Kenoi previously said he took responsibility and apologized.
Kenoi spokesman Peter Boylan said Friday that Kenoi spent $129,580.73 on his pCard since taking office in 2009 and has reimbursed the county $31,112.59 of that total. On Friday, he repaid another $2,055.12 in travel charges, Boylan said.
County officials incorrectly had said that Kenoi’s pCard was cut up, but that the mayor could still use the account to make travel arrangements.
Instead, the state Procurement Office canceled Kenoi’s pCard account Tuesday.
"That was our decision," said state Procurement Administrator Sarah Allen. Asked why, Allen said, "It’s because of the fact that he’s been in the news for purchasing nongovernmental stuff."
Since the revelations, Kenoi’s office every day receives calls from angry constituents demanding his resignation — along with calls from others who insist that he still has their support.
Exactly how voters respond if Kenoi seeks another public office will depend on what happens going forward. Future events could also overshadow Kenoi’s accomplishments as mayor, which include overseeing an increasingly shrinking county budget and reaching out to disenfranchised constituents, especially in Kailua-Kona where voters felt neglected by decisions in Hilo and had been talking about forming a separate county government.
Through his spokesman, Boylan, Kenoi declined a request by the Honolulu Star-Advertiser for an interview in Hilo to talk about his past, present and future.
Kenoi is the married father of three teenagers who all attend Kamehameha Schools’ Hawaii island campus.
From the perspective of hindsight, Kenoi’s May 15 HPU commencement speech hinted at the troubles that he faces today.
At the same time, a YouTube video that captured the speech reveals why Kenoi needed barely nine minutes to show a Honolulu audience why people on the Big Island twice voted for him.
Kenoi talked about the struggles he overcame to become a lawyer and revealed glimpses of his childhood, where his aspirations received little support, even from his father.
Kenoi, who was born in Kalapana, also grew up in Hilo, where he graduated from Waiakea High School in 1986.
"I had one 1.8 GPA out of high school and when I told guys I was going college they told me, ‘Easy, Hawaiian. Maybe you better throttle back some of that ambition and dreams,’" Kenoi told the HPU graduates and their families. "I’m here fo’ tell you guys: No listen to them, okay? ‘Cause next thing you knoooowwww — anything is possible. … When I told people I was going to be the mayor of Hawaii island, they told me, ‘How do you plan on doing that?’ When I told people I was going to be one lawyer, they said, ‘Bruddah, you need one lawyer. You not going to be one lawyer.’"
Kenoi could not get accepted to the University of Hawaii, he said. But after attending Hawaii Community College, he graduated with honors from the University of Massachusetts at Amherst and was chosen to speak at own his graduation from UH’s William S. Richardson School of Law.
"Even my dad, God bless him, would look at me (and) go, ‘Hey boy, tell me the truth: He cheating or what?’ I’m like, ‘Oh, wow, dad. Fo’ real? Fo’ real?’ … I knew I wasn’t the smartest. I knew I never had any advantages on anybody."
Hawaii island political watchers have been struggling to find a situation equivalent to Kenoi’s troubles.
The only thing that comes close, some of them said, occurred 27 years ago when then-Mayor Dante Carpenter lost re-election to candidate Bernard Akana, who had run and lost nine times before on a shoestring campaign that was widely dismissed as a joke.
Carpenter was hardly in the same position as Kenoi. Back in 1988, Big Island voters merely were offended by the perception that Carpenter was arrogant and dismissive and voted him out of office.
Voters supported Kenoi despite an arrest on drug charges decades before during the island’s notorious Operation Green Harvest raids on marijuana growers. The support continued through more recent traffic violations in Honolulu and on Hawaii island — even as mayor — for driving while using a cellphone; speeding; failing to possess a driver’s license, insurance card and safety check; and for not wearing a seat belt, according to Kenoi’s court records.
"We don’t usually get too much controversy on the Big Island," said Todd Belt, a political science professor at the University of Hawaii-Hilo. "There’s always a group that’s not satisfied with his (Kenoi’s) leadership, particular in the environmental fold. But this is the first big thing that Billy’s done. Until now, there’s been no major dings."
But Kenoi critics are emerging.
Councilwoman Margaret Wille, who had her own county-issued pCard canceled in March, called Kenoi "very forceful and charming and persuasive."
"But I consider him very vindictive and retaliatory," she added. "He played a major role in supporting the decision to (try to) defeat me."
The rest of her Council members "have been silent on the mayor’s violation of the rules governing the use of the credit card," Wille said. "He’s very much into a team mentality: ‘You stand by me. You’re on my team.’"
Wille said she faced Kenoi’s anger last year when she tried to kill his plan for a waste-to-energy incinerator.
"He was livid," she said. "‘How dare you challenge me?’"
Former Mayor Harry Kim has a long and complicated history with Kenoi.
Kim coached 9-year-old Kenoi in Pop Warner football and later as the varsity football coach at Waiakea High, where Kenoi played linebacker and was the defensive team captain. Kenoi later served in Kim’s administration as an executive assistant.
Years later, Kim came out of retirement in 2012 to challenge Kenoi’s ultimately successful re-election bid. Kenoi spent $600,000 compared to Kim’s $20,000 campaign.
Asked about his reaction to Kenoi’s current situation, Kim demurred several times.
When pressed, Kim finally said, "I don’t want to kick the guy while he’s down."
At Waiakea, Kenoi was always popular with both students and teachers, Kim said, and was already talking about becoming a lawyer despite his poor classroom performance.
"He would say, ‘Some day I want to be a lawyer and maybe be in politics,’" Kim remembered. "He was very popular because of his personality. Every teacher I talked to recognized the potential in this boy."
Kenoi worked as an aide for both houses of the state Legislature and interned for U.S. Sen. Daniel Inouye en route to becoming a deputy public defender in Honolulu.
In 1999, Kenoi reached out to Kim from Honolulu to offer help with Kim’s first mayoral campaign.
Their styles could not have been more different. But they complemented one another.
"I had one sign and would not take contributions over $10," Kim said. "Every reporter on the island thought, ‘Harry has no chance.’ Billy was very concerned because he wanted me to win. He said, ‘You’ve got to do more than that. You need committees. I can take charge of fundraisers, get-togethers.’ I said, ‘Thank you very much. I’m not going to do that.’ He left flabbergasted."
After winning the mayor’s race, Kim hired Kenoi as an executive assistant and welcomed Kenoi’s connections, especially with Inouye.
"I told many people, ‘This young man knows more about politics than I’ll ever learn,’" Kim said. "And I meant that positively."
Kenoi’s first assignment was to tackle the Big Island’s war on crystal methamphetamine, or "ice," which allowed Kenoi to use his relationships in Honolulu and Washington, D.C., for resources. Then Kenoi took on the Big Island’s coqui frog infestation and again reached out to powerful friends for help.
The two assignments earned Kenoi the nicknames "Ice Man" and "Frog Man."
"Nothing had changed from high school," Kim said. "He was a tremendous speaker. And dealing with the ice epidemic meant working with the community, working with the feds, working with the state, working with county departments like the police and prosecutors. I am not a social guy. He was an asset to my administration."
In 2004, Kenoi went into Kim’s office and said he "‘had a minor scuffle with a guy in a bar on Banyan Drive called Shooters and police were involved,’" Kim said. "I said, ‘Let me know what happens.’ Later on, he said he got a lawyer because of an assault charge for ‘a little scuffle,’ which is the way he put it. Time passed. Much, much later he said the case had been dropped. In my mind it was nothing, pau."
In 2008, Kenoi won his first four-year term despite widely circulated anonymous emails about what purportedly happened at Shooters. Following revelations of Kenoi’s pCard spending, new, unsourced details about the Shooters incident have emerged on the Internet.
"For the most part there is a real sadness for all of us," Kim said. "Guilt or innocence, there is a sadness at all that has happened. I want people to trust their government. I want them to be proud of their government. Obviously this adds to distrust."
Asked about the enthusiasm of Hawaii island voters for any future Kenoi political campaigns, Kim said: "People were saying he was a bright star with a promising future. That was all true. How forgiving will they be? I find that to be a very difficult question to answer. They were very unforgiving of Dante Carpenter. Why did he lose to a joke?"
Ted Hong, Hawaii County’s corporation counsel under former Mayor Stephen Yamashiro, said voters were convinced that Kenoi "had matured and started walking the straight and narrow" after the Shooters incident.
"People were pretty convinced that he wasn’t going to put himself in those kinds of situations again," Hong said.
Even with Kenoi at the center of so much scrutiny today, Hong believes that Kenoi enjoys support across the Big Island.
"The general consensus in the circles I run with is they want to see how this all shakes out," Hong said. "But voters here are very forgiving."
