They’re already posturing and promising, all those folks gearing up for the popularity pageant that is the race for Honolulu mayor.
What if, for a change, we got a mayor who was qualified to do the job but didn’t really want the job? An experienced manager, a hard worker, someone who has a track record of running big, unwieldy organizations and turning around troubled institutions, but who has absolutely no appetite for politics.
Maybe that person is already running, or is planning to run, but here’s the crucial part of this ideal mayor: That he or she will do four solid, nose-to-the-grindstone years and never run for office again.
What we need is a one-term mayor; a mayor who will go into office on Day One focused only on doing the job, not looking ahead to the next campaign.
That stuff always gets so messy. Kissing up to people and companies that give donations to their reelection campaign and framing every act as a photo-op and self-marketing strategy is an awful way to run the city.
What Oahu needs is a mayor who is going to just be mayor, just one time, and spend no effort dreaming up signature projects or resume-fillers in hope of a second term or ascending to the governorship or Congress. The city needs someone who will make sure the trash gets picked up and the parks are clean and that decent mind-their-own-business citizens don’t fall victim to crime.
We’ve had 30 years of “visionary” city leadership, and where has
that gotten us? Roving homeless camps, high-dollar projects that never get finished, an understaffed police force, federal subpoenas … It’s time for the focus to change from photo ops and “first in the nation” speeches to just making sure the city runs right.
Imagine if the campaign for mayor wasn’t so much of a competition to get the prettiest slow-motion videos across media platforms or be snarkiest in a televised debate. Picture a candidate who dares to say, “Look, it’s not about me. You’re not electing a personality or a celebrity. Here’s what I plan to do…” and then he or she busts out a chore list of the kinds of things that matter most to the residents of this island.
“We’re going to take care of the parks that we already have instead of imagining the parks that we don’t have. We’re going to get some lawnmowers out there, get some bleach for the bathrooms, make sure there’s toilet paper and lock them up at night.
We’re going to take care of roads. We’re going to fix, we’re going to maintain, we’re going to weed-whack the hell out of every inch of city property. You won’t see me at bon dances or cocktail parties or community celebrations. I’ll be too busy doing my job.”
Politics has become less about ability and more about ambition, less about actual achievement and more about image. If Honolulu’s next mayor didn’t want the “status” of the job and treated it like any other gritty, unglamorous, unappreciated but honorable civic duty, that person might make this city make sense again.
