6 Months On The Road

Midway through his first year as mayor, Mufi Hannemann gives his team an A for effort, an A-minus for accomplishment

Later, Hannemann returns to his corner office to meet with former City Councilman John DeSoto. DeSoto briefs the mayor on a variety of topics: Hawaiian Electric’s new power plant in Campbell Industrial Park, the visual impact of HECO’s proposed windmills, the status of the Waimanalo Gulch landfill.

The discussion turns to the problem of the Waianae Coast homeless. DeSoto talks about the high percentage among them who are addicted to drugs and steal to pay for their habit.

“How many homeless are there on the Coast?” says Hannemann. “Two thousand,” says DeSoto.

“Wow!” says Hannemann, striking his forehead with the flat of his hand.

They talk about establishing a task force to look at what can be done.

With DeSoto’s departure, Hannemann, accompanied by longtime aide and supporter Trudi Saito,walks to the mauka side of the building to meet with the Department of Environmental Services. There director Eric Takamura and deputy Ken Shimizu have yet another lunch waiting for their boss.

Hannemann doesn’t eat, but he works through a list of questions he’s prepared for the two. Curbside recycling, now stalled by a challenge to the recycling contract, is on the mayor’s mind.

“What are we going to do with the recycling bins?”

“How many of them are out there?”

“How much did the city pay for each one of them?”

Hannemann takes calls on his cellphone, including one telling him that he has an appointment with a magazine photographer in Kapolei Hale’s parking lot.

And so it goes — day after day for the past six months. Mufi Hannemann has been on the road, in meetings, at events — getting a sense of the city he will govern until at least 2008.

Hannemann insists it’s not about him. “It’s a team of good people who work for the city,” he says. “I appointed some of them, but I don’t hover over them. I hold them accountable, but they make the city run.”

But of course it is about him.

So how’s he doing? The mayor himself thinks he’s doing … well, a near perfect job. Asked to grade his first six months, Hannemann says: “I’d give us an ‘A’ for effort. All I said during the campaign we’d do, we’ve set out to do.

“I’d give us an ‘A-’for performance. We haven’t gotten all we wanted. We’re still unclear about what the obligations incurred by the previous administration are going to cost. It’s hard to put the numbers together, and I like to be definitive about these things.”

Hannemann insists that he’s not whining about the administration of Mayor Jeremy Harris: “I’m just being factual.”He points to Brunch on the Beach and the Sunset on the Beach as two Harris programs he intends to continue.

“They both have good, wholesome benefits to the community.” Hannemann cites specifically the recent salute to the military at Wahiawa’s Sunset in the Park.

But Hannemann believes that private companies and organizations rather than the city should pay for them. He admits that finding those sponsors constitutes “a major sales job.”

He also mentions the trees planted by the Harris administration on Kuhio Avenue as an example of a program he just wants to make better. “Too many were planted, and I don’t want to compromise public safety,” he says. “The Outdoor Circle agreed with me.”

That said, the Hannemann-appointed city auditor came out with two reports last week, one of which blamed the Harris administration for redirecting city transportation workers to assist with the Sunset in the Park events, taking them away from the more important task of filling potholes on city streets.

In his 2004 campaign for mayor, Hannemann emphasized the need to forego new park construction, movies in the parks and tree-planting for pothole filling and sewer repair. To fill the potholes and repair the sewers,Hannemann sold the City Council on raising the vehicle weight tax and doubling sewer fees.

He dismisses the suggestion that he should be known as “taxes and fees Hannemann.”

“Call me ‘pragmatic Hannemann.’The people want the basic services done, and the bills have to be paid. I remain a fiscal conservative. But the era of robbing Peter to pay Paul is over around here. Taxes and fees raised for specific purposes will be spent for those specific purposes. The Council understands that. I went to them, explained what we’re doing, and they approved.”

Hannemann did not initially enter politics ambitious to fill potholes and repair sewers. He began as a prestigious White House Fellow, working for a year as an intern to then Vice President George H. W. Bush. There he caught a bad case of Potomac fever.

The disease led to his first run for political office in 1986. Hannemann wanted Washington, so he bypassed the normal entry-level political offices — the state Legislature and the City Council — and ran for the first district congressional seat vacated by Cec Heftel’s run for governor in 1986. Hannemann won the Democratic primary election but lost the general to Republican Pat Saiki.

Four years later, after a stint working for C. Brewer and Company on the Island of Hawaii, Hannemann ran for Congress again, this time for the second district seat vacated by Dan Akaka’s run for the United States Senate. He lost a close Democratic primary to Patsy Mink.

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