Housing adviser’s strength should be policy, not politics

City Council Chairman Ernie Martin’s appointment of Peter Boylan as the Council’s housing coordinator is a worrisome sign that Council members intend to continue playing politics with Hawaii’s homelessness crisis.

Boylan, who will be paid $84,000, is smart and capable, but his specialty is political public relations, not policy; he’s worked since 2009 as a spokesman for politicians such as the late U.S. Sen. Daniel Inouye, former U.S. Rep. Colleen Hanabusa and Big Island Mayor Billy Kenoi.

A former reporter for The Honolulu Advertiser, he has no significant background in housing, homelessness issues or social services.

The unavoidable appearance is that Martin has parked Boylan in the Council offices for involvement in his anticipated run against Mayor Kirk Caldwell in next year’s election.

Martin’s creation of a Council staff position to coordinate housing policy was dubious in the first place, after the Council turned down the Caldwell administration’s request for additional staff to accelerate the city’s urgent Housing First program.

Council members said they didn’t want to "grow government" in the case of the administration’s request, then refused to apply the same concern to their chairman’s empire-building.

And it isn’t Martin’s only recent appointment with political overtones as he pads the Council staff despite tight city finances.

In June, he decided out of the blue to hire an assistant city clerk — a position that had been vacant for 30 years — and gave the six-figure job to Kimberly Ribellia, a union lobbyist and former Martin staff member.

Retired City Clerk Bernice Mau testified that the position wasn’t needed and expressed outrage that if it was to be filled, qualified senior employees in the clerk’s office weren’t given a chance to apply.

With the housing coordinator, also unadvertised, Martin only bolstered worries that it’s expensively superfluous by failing to hire an expert who could bring substantial and relevant experience to the table as the city struggles to solve its most pressing problem.

Sadly, a housing adviser who is better equipped to give political advice is well in line with the Council’s course of responding to homelessness with political pandering, such as overreaching "sit-lie" laws that make the problem worse and expose the city to steep legal liability.

Martin, like Caldwell, is a member of the leadership committee appointed by Gov. David Ige to coordinate the response to homelessness and get solutions on a faster track.

As Ige worked with Caldwell to hold back on sidewalk enforcement in trouble spots like Kakaako until appropriate shelter for those displaced is found, Martin and the Council paddled in the opposite direction with yet another legally questionable expansion of the sit-lie law.

Boylan could best prove his worth by persuading his bosses that playing politics on this issue is bad politics.

Reach David Shapiro at volcanicash@gmail.com or blog.volcanicash.net.