No need to delay mayoral election
The City Council has scheduled a meeting Thursday to decide whether to call a special mayoral election to replace Mufi Hannemann in the Sept. 18 primary election or wait until the general election Nov. 2, but there really shouldn’t be much to decide.
The last time there was a similar vacancy in 1994, the special election was held in the primary and it worked fine.
There’s no good reason to leave the city in limbo under interim leadership while sucking more campaign donations out of the economy for an extra month and a half by waiting for the general election.
As in 1994, when Managing Director Jeremy Harris won, this year’s major candidates — Kirk Caldwell, Peter Carlisle, Donovan Dela Cruz, Panos Prevedouros and Rod Tam — are known quantities to voters.
They’ve already been campaigning for months in anticipation of Hannemann’s resignation to run for governor and have plenty of time before Sept. 18 to drive their points home.
Let’s get on with it and not delay in putting somebody permanently at the helm to deal with the pressing issues facing our city.
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Fans of Doug White will be happy to hear he’s relaunching his Poinography blog after a year’s absence.
Tags: Election 2010
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July 21, 2010 at 7:34 pm
I’ve bever even heard of Doug White, let alone read his blog before.
What’s his background?
Re tomorrow’s City Council hearing. I was going to attend, but I now have a conference call at 10 so will miss the hearing. You’re right – especially since it will generate more time to build up support for Prof PP.
July 21, 2010 at 9:01 pm
Whoops!! ..never even heard….
July 22, 2010 at 6:57 am
from Dave:
“There’s no good reason to leave the city in limbo under interim leadership while sucking more campaign donations out of the economy for an extra month and a half by waiting for the general election.”
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Don’t want to give an opinion? My opinion, which is only a guess but I don’t think I am wrong is that Mufi and company have grave concerns Caldwell will NOT be elected mayor and the automatic rubber stamp of Mufi will be gone from power in City hall. What is Mufi & company worse case scenario? Panos is elected Mayor and tries to put some serious brakes on Mufi’s Aloha train to nowhere! Since we don’t live in a dictatorship, ending free elections is not an option so all that is left is to extend Caldwell’s interim term 2 months and buy a little time to see if Caldwell with the Council’s help, can push measures and finalize contracts as much as he can before November 2.
July 22, 2010 at 12:58 pm
@Capitol,
I guess you didn’t run into Doug when he worked at the Legislature.
July 22, 2010 at 5:21 pm
For whom did he work or in what office? I may know him “by face” but I don’t recognize the name. Also, I often only got to know most people working in legislators’ offices by first name.
I’ve been a policy advocate on a regular basis since 1999.
The Special Election will held Primary Election Day on September 18. Hopefully, Rod Tam will not run now that he’s facing the possibility of criminal charges. Wow!! Our very own Blago
July 23, 2010 at 12:32 pm
He probably just ignored her.
July 27, 2010 at 5:36 pm
I would not want the police to endorse me if I were running for elective office. There is no place for political endorsements in collective bargaining for police. Some police officers are rude and uncaring. Now, I am supposed to vote for their preferred candidate.
I am glad that the police did not endorse Carlyle. The prosecutor is not and appendage of the the police department. Carlyle took the best cases that the police could bring forward. I want the police and the prosecutor separated by a glass wall. The prosecutor cannot do the bidding of the police…that is akin to facism. No police endorsements for me.