Petition seeks halt to Council decision-making

Three Waikiki residents claiming they are being taxed without representation want the Hawaii Supreme Court to bar the Honolulu City Council from taking legislative action until the Trevor Ozawa- Tommy Waters election issue is resolved.

The high court is considering a complaint by Waters that challenges Ozawa’s victory in the November general election. Ozawa won the Council’s District 4 seat by a margin of 22 votes. It remains unknown when justices will rule on the matter.

District 4 runs from Hawaii Kai to Waikiki.

In a petition filed Thursday, Waikiki residents Dave Moskowitz, Kathryn Henski and Douglas Crum said that with the outcome of the District 4 race still in question, district residents have been without a Council member since Jan. 2.

“City and County of Honolulu City Council should be restricted from voting or making decisions that impact directly or indirectly District 4 and restrict committee member meetings held if that Councilmember of District 4 is part of that committee,” according to the petition, which was filed pro se by the three residents.

Henski said the court should prohibit the Council from any decision-making since all nine members are supposed to vote on all bills and resolutions — “anything that affects Oahu,” she said.

“We have 68,845 registered voters in the district and over 110,000 residents, and we’re not being represented by anybody at the moment,” Henski said.

Council Chairwoman Ann Kobayashi said she too has been pondering “taxation without representation.” It’s one of the reasons the Council decided to retain Ozawa’s staff in the interim to respond to constituents’ concerns, she said.

Kobayashi noted that the full Council has not yet acted on any bills this year and that none are up for final vote at Wednesday’s regularly scheduled monthly meeting. That wasn’t done purposefully, “it just happened that way,” she said.

There will be final votes scheduled for next month. “Let’s hope all is resolved before then,” Kobayashi said.

Research is being done on what whether the Council can appoint a temporary representative — if the court does rule there needs to be a revote, she said.

Robert Finley, Waikiki Neighborhood Board chairman, said Ozawa’s holdover staffers are responding to constituents’ complaints adequately. But like Kobayashi, he’s worried about the long term.

“Hopefully, this will all be over within the next week or two,” he said. “I don’t feel that concerned yet unless it goes out for a revote or something like that.”