By PETER SUR By PETER SUR ADVERTISING Tribune-Herald staff writer Harry Kim wants his old job back. The former two-term mayor made his decision around 8 a.m. Monday morning and will file his nomination papers before today’s deadline. Pronouncing himself
By PETER SUR
Tribune-Herald staff writer
Harry Kim wants his old job back.
The former two-term mayor made his decision around 8 a.m. Monday morning and will file his nomination papers before today’s deadline.
Pronouncing himself in better health than when he first took office in 2000, Kim, 72, is taking on his former executive assistant, Billy Kenoi, and the chairman of the County Council, Dominic Yagong.
Other candidates who have filed their nomination papers are Daniel H. Cunningham and Rand T. Walls. Sherryanne Christie, the wife of Roger Christie, has pulled nomination papers.
Kim retired from a 24-year career as administrator of the Hawaii County Civil Defense Agency and served from 2000 to 2008 as mayor.
He defeated Yagong to be re-elected in 2004 and was prevented by law from seeking a third term in 2008. Kim has kept a low profile since leaving office.
Kim agonized over the decision to run again, spending hours talking with family members and former associates, and called his deliberations over the last few days among the toughest days of his life.
Speaking at the elections office, he said the decision “just came down to what I feel is right for me to do.”
Kim has said the state’s recent move to waive environmental assessments on geothermal exploration was one factor that got him thinking about running.
He won’t accept any corporate donations and contributions larger than $10. He won’t hold any fundraisers, and he won’t have a splashy campaign headquarters.
“I cannot change what I feel is right for me. I will campaign the same way,” he said. Kim’s low-key approach puts him at odds with Kenoi’s campaign, which had reported raising $333,733 at the end of 2011, the last period for which data are available.
“I know this campaign is going to be tough and I will campaign the only way I know how,” he said.
If there is any daylight between the current and former mayors, they aren’t showing it.
“I have nothing but love and aloha and respect for Harry Kim,” Kenoi said Monday. “We look forward to a positive, spirited campaign.” Kenoi won’t point out any differences the two might have, preferring to focus on his own campaign.
“We had expected Harry to run all along. He’s been putting out feelers,” Yagong said. A fiscal conservative, Yagong suggested his campaign would focus on the growth of county government on Kim’s watch during the boom years of the last decade.
Between 2000 and 2008, Yagong said, the county added 442 jobs, and the county payroll rose from about $56 million to $79 million.
“There’s no question that during the boom years, when Harry was in office, government grew by leaps and bounds,” Yagong said.
That growth was helped in part by property tax increases — charging more for certain homes built on agricultural land, and raising the $25 yearly tax that thousands of homeowners used to pay to $100. On the other hand, he secured the passage of legislation to protect homeowner-class properties against rapidly rising tax assessments.
Kim said the tax rate hikes were in response to some “very, very unpopular things” that his predecessor, Stephen Yamashiro, had put into place, including freezes in hirings and promotions, for all departments, including police and firefighters, during the recession of the late 1990s. Kim felt the budget had been cut as much as it could have been.
“We were short something like 60 firemen,” Kim said. As Civil Defense administrator at the time, he was aware of the impact of those cuts, and he realized that at some point people have to pay their fair share.
The $25 payments were “about as unfair as you can get,” Kim said. So he said, “I want to raise the minimum tax from $25 to $100, and if we do that, we can balance the budget.”
So what does Kim think about his opponents?
“We have different styles, management styles, and we have different priorities,” the former mayor said. He has only taken a public stance once since leaving office. He testified before the County Council against Kenoi’s proposal to end funding for the Hawaii County Band. The band survived.
When Kim was mayor, Yagong led a successful charge against Kim’s proposal to pay Wheelabrator Technologies $125.5 million to design, build and run a waste-to-energy plant that would have replaced the landfill.
Yagong said this would have added $9 million to the county’s annual debt service.
Kim strongly opposes the creation of another landfill in East Hawaii and says the county should take another look at waste-to-energy, along with other ways of reducing the amount of trash islanders produce.
Kim said his administration started the practice of making employee retirement pre-payments and socked away money in a rainy day fund. But he declined to state his position on the dispute between Kenoi and Yagong on the GASB payments.
“For an outsider, which I am now, to make speculative comments on the budget, it’s not only difficult, it’s not even fair,” Kim said.
“It just gives the people a real clear choice,” Yagong said. When voters go to the polls on Aug. 11, they can choose a mayor that represents “the past,” “the current,” or “hopefully … the future.”
Email Peter Sur at psur@hawaiitribune-herald.com.
