Ige’s no-drama approach steady but lacks an agenda

It is just more than six months since David Ige took the oath of office as Hawaii’s eighth elected governor. A recent Hawaii Publishers Association breakfast at the Plaza Club served as an outline for Ige’s new thinking about the job.

He comes across as affable, assured and unassuming, what you see is what you are going to get with Ige. Welcome to the no-drama governor.

The more than 60-minute talk covered many of Ige’s favorite subjects, plus the admission that the Mauna Kea telescope protests had not been on his radar upon taking the job and he acknowledged that the debate was like “coming in on the middle of a movie.”

“I have gotten lots of compliments on the course that I took in terms of trying to understand the nature of the protest and seek a process that would allow them to protest and allow us to continue with the project,” Ige said before admitting that things have not worked out that neatly.

“So we are taking the action we need to (so) that the users of Mauna Kea will have safe access,” Ige said, not mentioning that there is already speculation the National Guard will have to enforce order.

On another subject, Ige, like Neil Abercrombie before him, has discovered state government can barely function in its morass of low technology.

The state is a $12 billion-a-year operation running on 60-year-old software, Ige complained, adding that technicians resort to poking through eBay auctions to find some of the antique computer equipment needed to keep things on line.

Unlike Abercrombie who imported a high-tech wizard, Sonny Bhagowalia, Ige said he wanted to grow the state’s own IT department.

“We have hired away a couple of guys from institutions around the state. I have been personally involved in it. We are committed to making working for state government IT, the premier job in Hawaii.

“We are reorganizing and reclassifying all the IT positions in state government so they can be more modern, instead of being based on 50-year-old job descriptions,” Ige said.

Ige is a great fan of public education, adding he intends to also be a great enemy of the public school bureaucracy.

“The thing that breaks my heart is when they take a principal who is doing a great job and promote them into the bureaucracy and then they disappear,” Ige told the publishers.

“I want to shrink the bureaucracy and make sure the bureaucracy is supporting the schools. It is about leadership,” Ige said.

Finally, Ige repeatedly warned all that he will not be the “you can have it all” sort of governor welcoming deficit spending or pump priming.

“We are definitely focused on not expanding government and making choices about priorities, trying to be cautious about expansion,” Ige said, adding that he doesn’t foresee anytime now or in the next two years that the state will take in more money than it collects.

To underline that, last week Ige ordered an across-the-board 10 percent reduction in discretionary spending because revenues do not match expenditures.

Ige’s accounting of the first six months is strong, but what he accomplishes with a steadfast approach, he gives away by not setting Hawaii’s agenda.

Reacting to Hawaii’s problems is good, but putting forward your own plans to solve the problems is better.

Richard Borreca writes on politics on Sundays, Tuesdays and Fridays. Reach him at rborreca@staradvertiser.com.