Mayor Blangiardi vows to address city’s ‘wicked problems’

During his third State of the City address, Mayor Rick Blangiardi vowed Tuesday to address some of Oahu’s most intractable “wicked problems” by easing homelessness, reducing traffic through better-coordinated signal lights, and overhauling the city’s troubled Department of Planning and Permitting.

Blangiardi also wants to help homeowners address eye-popping property tax assessments with a one-time tax credit now before the City Council that would give 152,000 homeowners $300, which would particularly help owners with smaller mortgages, Blangiardi said.

“If you own and occupy your home, that credit, for the upcoming tax year, amounts to an $86,000 addition to the current homeowner’s exemption of $100,000,” Blan­giardi said. “All told, we’ve set aside $45.5 million for immediate tax relief — money to help you and your families offset the cost of living — and we’re asking the City Council to work with us to make that proposed relief a reality.”

Blangiardi pledged to work with Gov. Josh Green and Lt. Gov. Sylvia Luke, who were in attendance for the more than hourlong speech inside the city’s Mission Memorial Auditorium, on developing more affordable housing and one of Luke’s key initiatives to expand early childhood education.

He singled out and praised city department heads and many of their employees, especially city emergency medial technicians who are dealing with an incredible post-COVID-19 era workload.

Blangiardi got emotional as he talked about a meeting he had with five veteran EMTs who range in experience from 15 to 40 years on the job to understand the volume of calls from their points of view.

“Our EMS (Emergency Medical Services) team received nearly 130,000 911 calls last year, and crews responded to more than 85,000 medical emergencies, all with a city fleet of just 21 full-time EMS units,” Blangiardi said. “In simple math, EMS responded to an astonishing 235 calls per day.

“These increases in call volumes and medical responses are putting an incredible strain on our resources, the most important of which are our colleagues: our EMTs, paramedics and dispatchers,” Blangiardi said.

When he asked the veteran EMTs why they stay on the job instead of leaving for higher pay, the responses were universal and touching.

“Each of them looked me in the eyes and said, ‘We love what we do,’” Blangiardi said. “That is dedication — humbling dedication — in the face of incredible adversity.”

Eight new EMS ambulances are coming, including two in urban Honolulu and a new joint Ocean Safety and EMS station in Kakaako.

Blangiardi acknowledged the presence of January’s winner of the Eddie Aikau Big Wave Invitational, Luke Shepardson, who followed his victory by immediately going back to work as a North Shore Ocean Safety lifeguard.

“The only thing more awe-inspiring than what Luke accomplished in 50-foot surf at The Eddie might be his willingness to rush into those same waves to rescue those whose lives are in danger,” Blangiardi said. “But like with EMS, providing a steady and watchful eye on our beaches has pushed our lifeguards beyond their resource capacity.”

So Blangiardi wants to study whether EMS’ lifeguard and ambulance serv­ices should be separated into individual departments — and whether DPP also should be broken up.

‘Painful’ permitting

The average wait time to get building permits approved takes over 300 days, which Blangiardi called “painful” and “unacceptable.”

DPP oversees regulating short-term vacation rentals, enforcement, affordable housing, transit-oriented development, zoning, land use, plan and project reviews, inspections, historic preservation “and many other issues affecting communities across the city and county,” Blangiardi said. “If efficient permitting is a priority of our people and businesses, then we must consider whether the Department of Planning and Permitting should continue as one department.”

Among changes already underway at DPP, the city now uses an artificial intelligence bot to review plans at night to pre-screen four of the 10 most common errors that add to delays.

“The bot has already reduced the average wait time for pre-screening from an average of five months to an average of five weeks, and we believe the bot can cut that time down even more,” Blangiardi said.

DPP Director Dawn Takeuchi Apuna later told reporters that the bot scans blueprints automatically and works faster and more efficiently than humans.

Plans are underway to have the bot programmed to review the other six common errors that lead to permitting delays, she said.

Along with other changes at DPP, Blangiardi vowed to fix what he called “an antiquated and broken permitting system.”

Bill 6 has been a goal of the building and development industry and would allow building permit applications “to be reviewed outside of the department by qualified and approved licensed professionals,” Blangiardi said. “The bill calls for an expanded self-certification program established through administrative rules and professional training, where licensed engineers and architects will be able to self-­certify their plans for permit approval.”

Taking on traffic

Two years and three months into his first term, Blangiardi used his State of the City address to highlight achievements including truncating the original rail route to come in on budget, which Blangiardi said restored trust with the Federal Transit Authority and resulted in the release of $744 million in federal rail funds after they had been in limbo since 2017.

Rail service is now scheduled to begin in July from East Kapolei to Aloha Stadium. Passengers will be able to ride both TheBus and rail with the price of a single bus fare.

Passengers can ride rail and express buses to get to and from their destinations — including the University of Hawaii — faster than by vehicles, Blangiardi said.

He also announced plans for several workforce housing projects along the rail line.

But for drivers, the city is upgrading “all of our traffic signals islandwide to provide better traffic flow through synchronization and traffic detection,” Blangiardi said. “This year we’ll kick off a project to install new traffic cameras and connected traffic signals from Kapolei all the way to Makaha, providing an incredible new resource to Leeward residents who already spend more time in traffic than almost anyone else.”

Landfill search

Blangiardi also announced that the city will provide free Wi-Fi in city parks and beaches along the Waianae Coast and promised that “the site of the next landfill for the City and County of Honolulu will not be on the Waianae Coast. Let me repeat that: not on the Waianae Coast.

“And, while we’re at it: To Ernie Lau and the hardworking men and women at the Board of Water Supply, if I have it my way, the site of our next landfill won’t be over our aquifer, either.”

Full text of Mayor Rick Bla… by Honolulu Star-Advertiser