The Kokua Council on Monday livestreamed a debate between Honolulu’s two first-time mayoral candidates: former television executive Rick Blangiardi and business executive and lawyer Keith Amemiya.
The hour-and-a-half-long debate, available on the Kokua Council’s Facebook page, addressed a range of questions from the advocacy group’s members, including how each candidate planned to respond to the COVID-19 pandemic, the future of rail and the need for more affordable housing, among other issues.
Blangiardi, who turns 74 today, is former general manager of Hawaii News Now and has turned around several flailing stations, and has served on the boards of numerous organizations, including the Hawaii Foodbank.
Amemiya, 54, was born and raised on Oahu and adopted by the Kobayashi family in his youth. He worked odd jobs to pay his way through college and law school at the University of Hawaii. He started his career as a litigation attorney and was formerly executive director of the Hawaii High School Athletics Association,
Each candidate was given two minutes to respond to questions, followed by opportunities for a rebuttal or further elaboration.
Kokua Council Vice President Rick Tabor noted that the pandemic has changed everything, including the original strategic plans of each candidate. He asked each candidate to offer his new strategic plan for the first 100 days, first year and first term, with specific policies.
Amemiya said in the first 100 days that he would focus on reducing the spread of COVID-19 across Oahu, because “without healthy people we can’t have a healthy economy.”
He said money is needed to get out to individuals and small businesses quicker than they have been, and that he would focus on increasing services for Pacific Islanders, the most vulnerable segment of Oahu’s population.
“We need to reopen the economy as quickly as possible,” Amemiya said. “A lot of people have been out of jobs, especially in the tourism industry, for about six months or even more. We need to get people back to work.”
Blangiardi said government leaders need to offer the public clear and consistent communication and that this has “not been good at all.”
“First and foremost it’s going to be about who’s going to run City Hall,” he said. It would also be dependent on the budget the city has to work with for 2022 because “the things we say we’re going to do are tied to those numbers.”
The existing issues facing the city have been amplified — including the need to rebuild the economy, keep businesses from closing and keep roofs over people’s heads.
In addition, the $387 million allotted to Honolulu County from the federal relief act has not been parceled out correctly, Blan- giardi said.
“One thing has become apparently clear,” he said. “People need money. So I’m really curious what’s happening in D.C. with the Heroes Act and all that’s pending. I would intend to go to Washington as the mayor of the City and County of Honolulu and fight for as much money as we can possibly get in this piece of legislation because we’re going to need every penny of it.”
Both candidates agreed that the city Department of Planning and Permitting was in need of serious reform and that recommendations from a forensic audit should be implemented.
Blangiardi said it is clear that DPP has been in “a great state of dysfunction” and needs to be fixed, particularly during the pandemic.
Amemiya said DPP needs to add more staff, update its technology and expedite the processing of permits. Both supported the concept of an ombudsman to resolve issues for those living in condominiums.
On affordable housing
Affordable housing also was a key priority for both candidates.
Blangiardi said building more affordable rentals was vital, particularly for kupuna, and that he would be partially open to the idea of rent control.
Amemiya said he did not know whether he would support rent control, but that he, too, wanted to lower the cost of housing. In addition to curbing illegal vacation rentals, Amemiya said he would look at creative public-private partnerships, communal housing or microunits.
On rail
Both candidates said despite delays and cost overruns, they were committed to continuing to build Honolulu’s rail transit project. Blangiardi said public transit is “in a death spiral” in 36 major U.S. cities but that “we’ve invested far too much money now … to abandon that project.”
Amemiya said, “We need to do what we can to finish the rail project all the way through Ala Moana” as well as extend it, if possible, to the University of Hawaii.
“The bottom line is in order to be as great a city as we can be, we need multiple modes of transportation,” said Amemiya, noting the benefits of transit- oriented development.
Both candidates said they believed that the rail project should be completed because of money already invested, the jobs it would bring, and the risk of losing some $800 million in federal funding.
On public trust
To regain public trust, Amemiya said he would form an Office of Community Engagement to actively reach out to every community. Blangiardi suggested each City Council district form a hub to improve engagement with the community.
Both candidates said campaign donations and endorsements would not influence their decisions. Amemiya said he was only beholden to the “everyday citizens of the city.” Blangiardi said he funded half of his own campaign from his personal savings and that there was no “quid pro quo.”
When asked whether either candidate had ethical issues with their opponent, both declined to say anything negative about their rival.
Earlier this week, however, Amemiya urged the state Campaign Spending Commission to resolve a complaint regarding false claims about him made by a political action committee.
On climate change
In addition to recovering from the pandemic, Amemiya emphasized the need to enact a climate action plan.
“Climate change is something that’s being forgotten during this pandemic, but we need to address that now,” he said. “That is a crisis of our lifetime. Unless we address it now, we are leaving our future generations with a lot of issues that might not be fixable by the time they’re our age.”
