The people — a few of them — have spoken

The voters have spoken in City Council District 1 — just not very many of them.

The low voter turnout in the most recent special election — 23.46 percent — was not an all-time record, said Bernice Mau, city clerk. That honor went to the 2002 special election following the death of U.S. Rep. Patsy Mink. That year, a paltry 13.2 percent turned out, only some 46,000 out of roughly 348,000 eligible.

But this election drew a lower turnout than any of the previous mail-in elections, she said. Up until then, vote-by-mail convenience seemed a fairly potent voter lure.

Mau didn’t want to venture an opinion on the reason, but it’s safe to conclude that voting ranks at the bottom of the list of holiday traditions.

Heroes among us

Where can you find a hero? In some unlikely places, it seems.

On Dec. 18, police officer Kyle Bishaw-Juario used his patrol vehicle to stop his cousin’s runaway car, which was headed for Kaunakakai, Molokai at an uncontrolled 70 mph.

Then there’s Gerald Arthur, pictured, who pulled an elderly man out of his burning studio apartment Tuesday night. Arthur, who was evicted from the same building, lives in his car — "the Honda Inn," he calls it — which was parked a few hundred yards away.

It’s a reminder that heroes, and heroes in waiting, are all around us.