The Honolulu City Council District 4 race is the only one in the general election featuring an incumbent seeking reelection.
Current Council Chair Tommy Waters is running against Coast Guard veteran Kaleo Nakoa for the seat that represents Waikiki through Kaimuki to Hawaii Kai.
Nakoa said his main campaign issue is government transparency and accountability.
“There needs to be transparency instead of people hiding behind doors and behind their secretaries,” he said. “We need all the people in these positions to be honest with the people, for the people, not only tell them what they want to hear but tell them the truth.”
The candidate said he also wants better whistleblower protections.
Waters has been focusing on drinking water issues, affordable housing and homelessness, saying those three topics have been consistently raised by constituents at meetings with the candidate.
The drinking water issue came to the forefront as Oahu deals with the aftermath of the Red Hill fuel contamination crisis in which jet fuel from the Navy’s underground storage tank system leaked into its water system.
Waters pointed to the passage of Bill 48, which he co-introduced with Council member Esther Kia‘aina, that requires any entity, including the Navy, to get a permit from the city if they want to store fuel underground when it is over 100,000 gallons.
When it comes to affordable housing, Waters said he wants to see the city make better use of funding the Council dedicated to affordable housing in the budget.
“I’m concerned that the money is not being used, not just buying buildings or buying land,” he said. “Rather than the city building the housing, just turn it over to a private developer, give them a long-term lease and say we want to build it for a certain segment of society. And by the way, I call it workforce housing, and basically that’s 80% of the annual median income and below. That’s really where we should be targeting.”
Nakoa said he is wary of giving land to developers to build affordable housing because of the potential for rising homeowner association fees, which often make what is supposed to be affordable housing no longer affordable.
“I live in a town home and we’ve lived there for two years. And within that two years, our HOA has gone up 100 bucks already,” he said. “It’s not like we have a pool, it’s not like we have an elevator; we don’t have a lot of maintenance going on but for some reason that went up.
“Maintenance fees never stayed the same, they never drop, they only go up. So eventually we’re gonna lose that affordability and then people are not going to be able to stay there.”
Nakoa also favors taxing people who leave their homes vacant and freezing tax rates for people passing down homes generationally.
In regard to homelessness, Waters emphasized the need to house people instead of pushing homeless individuals from one neighborhood to the next. The most recent point-in-time count showed the homeless population in his district increasing, while it has decreased in Chinatown, where the city has made a concerted effort to provide services and programs.
He also emphasized the need to increase the number of spots available at mental health and drug treatment facilities, which he said the Council has provided funding for in the city budget.
“We gave (the city) this money. Go use it, talk to these treatment centers, like Hina Mauka, Sand Island Treatment Center, Ho‘omau Ke Ola. Treatment works,” he said. “And it’s a bed, because a lot of these homeless folks, they don’t want to go into a shelter. They’ve been there. They’re not going to go back.”
Nakoa would like to see expansion of the city’s Crisis Outreach Response and Engagement program, which uses a special team of first responders to address nonviolent homeless emergency calls.
According to the latest campaign finance reports through Oct. 24, Waters raised $322,420 and spent $149,279. His biggest donors were labor unions representing electrical workers, plumbers and pipefitters, and developer the Kobayashi Group. His expenses were mostly for advertising and printing, along with tickets to political fundraisers for candidates including District 8 Council member Brandon Elefante, who is running for a state Senate seat, and District 2 Council candidate Matt Weyer.
Nakoa raised $4,000 and loaned his campaign $2,638. He spent $5,557 on advertising and printing costs.
For more voter information, visit elections.hawaii.gov or call 808-453-VOTE (8683).
