Choosing between experience and new ideas is at the center of election contests for the two outstanding seats on the Honolulu City Council.
In Council District 4, the East Honolulu seat that stretches from Waikiki to Hawaii Kai, former state Rep. Tommy Waters is citing his experience at the Legislature as a key selling point to voters. His opponent in the Nov. 4 general election, first-time political candidate Trevor Ozawa, said he brings fresh perspective to Honolulu.
The Council District 6 face-off in Kalihi-Halawa Heights between incumbent Councilwoman Carol Fukunaga and former state Rep. Sam Aiona echoes those arguments. Fukunaga is touting her accomplishments on the Council and in the state Senate while Aiona said he would serve as an independent thinker on the nine-member Council.
Both races could also hold islandwide political implications. Waters is being supported by Mayor Kirk Caldwell while Fukunaga has received help from Council Chairman Ernie Martin, with whom Caldwell is often at odds.
The District 4 seat opened for the taking when incumbent Stanley Chang decided to forgo a re-election bid in favor of an eventually unsuccessful run for Congress.
In the August primary, Waters finished with 10,110 votes ahead of Ozawa’s 8,012, pushing them into a Nov. 4 runoff. Natalie Iwasa and Carl Strouble finished third and fourth, respectively.
Both Ozawa and Waters are Democrats, working lawyers and Kamehameha Schools graduates. Waters, 49, has served six years in the state House of Representatives, including time as chairman of the Judiciary Committee. Ozawa, 31, is making his first attempt at elected politics.
Ozawa, whose political experience consists of six months spent as an aide to Chang, contends his limited background serves as a campaign boost in that it shows he is a fresh thinker.
Regarding Caldwell’s support for Waters, he said, "I wish that he would stay out of it."
Waters said he and Caldwell are allies, saying that both entered the House, and politics, at the same time in 2002.
"We worked closely together when he was majority leader," Waters said. Some of Caldwell’s supporters have helped his campaign, but that won’t stop him from thinking independently from the mayor, he said.
Ozawa and Waters differ on "sit-lie" legislation, such as the recently enacted law pushed by Mayor Kirk Caldwell and approved 7-2 by the Council that bans sitting and lying on city sidewalks in Waikiki. Waters said he supports Caldwell’s initiatives to combat homelessness and will make that his top priority as a Council member.
AS A ONETIME public defender, Waters said, he saw homeless people arrested for breaking various laws, receive credit for time served and then return to the streets. Waters said he wants to work with the state to develop transitional shelters where the homeless can get the services they need.
"And if (the homeless) don’t go there, they go to jail," he said. "But you absolutely cannot live on Waikiki beaches and sidewalks or parks. It’s not an option."
Ozawa said the Waikiki sit-lie bill succeeded only in pushing the homeless into other parts of Oahu, and maintains the Caldwell administration has been "piecemealing" a homeless plan.
"It’s not been very comprehensive," he said. Ozawa said he would support a sit-lie ban in Oahu’s business districts if done in concert with a more comprehensive homeless program.
Ozawa said he doubts that the millions the city has poured into the Housing First initiative will be enough to make a dent in the effort to get homeless individuals off the streets.
"We need to have a Housing Second initiative, which would go to solving the problems," he said.
Both Ozawa and Waters said they support the principles of Caldwell’s new affordable-housing strategy that would give developers incentive to build rentals and other homes for lower-income families. Both also said they would have opposed creation of a new Residential A property class, aimed at homes valued at $1 million or more that don’t have homeowners’ exemptions, and would consider changes to the policy if not an outright appeal.
The District 4 race took an unexpected turn in recent weeks when mailers were sent out to voters by a little-known political action committee called Hawaii Solutions that accused Waters of carpetbagging, moving into the district to run for an elective seat there. Waters, who represented Kailua and Waimanalo while in the House, acknowledged to the Honolulu Star-Advertiser that he moved into Kahala earlier this year "about the same time" Chang announced his plans to run for Congress instead of seeking another term on the Council.
But Waters said his motivation for moving into the district was "not with the express intention of running for office."
Ozawa vehemently denied any knowledge or involvement with Hawaii Solutions, which has generally supported politically conservative candidates and views, and described the ad as "pilau politics."
Earle Kealoha, Hawaii Solutions’ treasurer, referred questions to consultant Harvey Hukari, who did not respond to a Star-Advertiser email for comment. Political consultant Dylan Nonaka, who is being paid $312.50 a month to help Ozawa’s campaign, said he helped form Hawaii Solutions but insisted he did not know of the campaign against Waters.
WHEN INCUMBENT Tulsi Gabbard chose to resign from her District 6 seat to focus on her successful congressional campaign in August 2012, then-state Sen. Carol Fukunaga beat 15 other candidates to fill out the remaining two years in her term. The second-place finisher in that race, with nearly 1,400 fewer votes, was former state Rep. Sam Aiona.
Fukunaga again was the top vote-getter in the Aug. 9 primary, this time among four candidates, with 11,412 votes. But that was fewer than the majority of votes cast, not enough to avoid a runoff against Aiona, who finished second with 6,106 votes.
Small-business owner Aiona, 48, has fought hard to distinguish himself from Fukunaga.
"She’s a career politician, and what we really need is people with new ideas, a fresh approach … and someone with a lot of energy," Aiona said.
He maintained that Fukunaga has been complacent and not done enough to help solve the homeless crisis or get the ripped-up roads in their district repaved.
"She thinks government is the solution while I think government is the problem," he added.
But Fukunaga, 66, said her collaborative style has helped to get things done. The $47 million in capital improvements the Council approved for Housing First candidates as well as other homeless individuals will go a long way toward getting people off the streets, she said.
"We are really in implementation mode at this point," she said.
As for the roads Aiona referred to, Fukunaga said, many are privately owned. With most of those issues now resolved, she said, the city now plans to get them fixed by next summer.
Aiona and Fukunaga differ on the sit-lie bills and the city’s Housing First program.
Aiona, a former director of the state Office of Community Services, said he wants to meet with nonprofits that aid the homeless and see what kind of help they can be given rather than "move the homeless people around like they’re pieces of furniture" through sit-lie bills. He said money earmarked to purchase or develop units to house the homeless is being used inefficiently and that the city should instead let the nonprofits — experts in the field — come up with plans that the city can help fund.
Fukunaga has pushed to have the Chinatown and downtown Honolulu commercial neighborhoods included in the bill now going through the Council that would expand the sit-lie bill to certain business districts islandwide. It’s necessary to help businesses that have been hindered by the presence of street people in areas fronting shops and restaurants, she said.
She lobbied successfully to include funding for Safe Haven, a nonprofit that is scheduled to take over Pauahi Hale by the end of the year, and to provide additional services for homeless in the area, even if they are not part of Save Haven’s in-house program. Fukunaga said she wants the city to work with the state to develop more affordable and mixed-income housing to ease the island’s housing situation, especially in the vicinity of rail stations.
Aiona said the plan to create Residential A was ill-conceived and failed to take into consideration the needs of local homeowners. He said he would consider a bill to repeal Residential A in favor of one that taxes only offshore investors.
Fukunaga said she will consider whatever changes to Residential A or other property tax laws are recommended by the city Real Property Tax Advisory Commission, which is currently finalizing its report to the Council.
