Guests in a hospitality room at the Hawaii Congress of Planning Officials Conference on Kauai got an impromptu earful they hadn’t planned on — courtesy of Hawaii County Mayor Billy Kenoi.
Guests in a hospitality room at the Hawaii Congress of Planning Officials Conference on Kauai got an impromptu earful they hadn’t planned on — courtesy of Hawaii County Mayor Billy Kenoi.
A Facebook video posted by planning consultant and Hawaii Land Use Commission member Jonathan Likeke Scheuer showed an apparently inebriated Kenoi — who’s facing felony theft charges and scheduled for trial Oct. 10 — delivering a profanity-laced testimonial to Kauai Mayor Bernard Carvalho on Wednesday night during a social gathering at the Grand Hyatt Kauai Resort and Spa in Koloa.
The video, one of two orations by Kenoi posted by Scheuer — and deleted — was accompanied by the notation: “Mayor Kenoi felt moved to make another speech at the hospitality suite. ‘Everybody shut the (f—) up’ #imuabillykenoi.”
The Tribune-Herald made a screen shot and extracted the audio portion of both videos before Scheuer removed them from the social media website.
In the almost four-minute video, Kenoi gets the attention of the crowd, which included Carvalho, by shouting, “Hey everybody! Everybody shut the f— up!” The mayor followed that with a monologue partially lost in the ambient noise but containing the phrase “knock you out in front of everybody.”
“We’re here on the beautiful Garden Isle of Kauai. We’re not just here to f—— have a good party. We’re here because it’s one beautiful island managed in a beautiful way,” the mayor said. “So everybody, when you party, and you’re having a good f—— time, try take a pause and just sit back and appreciate where you stay and what you’re doing. I not being disrespectful; I just tell everybody f—— be real. OK? Just be real.”
Kenoi told those assembled he was “here to say aloha to a man who I’m proud to call my friend. His name is Bernard Carvalho.”
“And he no act; he no forget. And he cannot make like somebody he is not,” Kenoi said. “… I been mayor of Hawaii Island for eight years. This man Bernard Carvalho has been mayor for eight years. The longest you can be president is eight years. Barack Obama cannot be eight years and one month. Barack Obama can only be eight years. Pau. Me and Bernard Carvalho, we’ve been mayor (through) three governors. Three governors. They come and they go.”
Carvalho, who appeared to be somewhat uncomfortable, and Kenoi engaged in a brief conversation inaudible in the video recording before Kenoi said Carvalho has been “a good man” and “a humble man.”
“You guys, I not standing here pretending like I some badass bruddah, but I goin’ tell all you guys right now, I one badass bruddah,” Kenoi said, and one male voice in the room responded, “We love you for that!”
Kenoi concluded that Carvalho “brought everybody through a Great Recession; he brought us through one great, national disaster …”
While there was some applause and howls in the room, that mood did not appear to be unanimous.
In the other video, posted first, Kenoi, standing next to an ice bucket with several liquor bottles, introduced Carvalho to the room. Holding a glass containing a dark liquid, Kenoi described himself as “a young, humble Hawaiian boy” and extolled the virtues of Kauai and its chief executive, as well as “friendship, laughter, love — maybe some wine,” eliciting laughter and hoots from the room, which contained a mix of elected officials, appointed officials, private developers, land-use attorneys and planning consultants.
“All of you in this room tonight, we’re not here because of your money, or your title — for some of you,” Kenoi quipped, again prompting laughs. “We’re here tonight because the Garden Isle of Kauai is a beautiful island. And the only way this island stays beautiful is beautiful people gotta work hard every day to keep it beautiful.”
That pronouncement was met with a smattering of applause and cheers.
Scheuer acknowledged posting the video but declined to otherwise comment. He is consulting for the National Park Service in its effort to designate the Keauhou aquifer in Kona a state water management area. The NPS claims the state is better equipped than the county to safeguard the water resource, on which Kaloko-Honokohau National Historic Park and its cultural practices depend.
The county, and Kenoi, oppose the park service’s 2013 petition to put the aquifer under state control.
During a Dec. 10, 2014, meeting of the state Commission on Water Resource Management, Kenoi bristled at the implication the county couldn’t protect the water resource.
“This island no exist in a national park. This park sits in our community,” Kenoi said, according to West Hawaii Today. The paper reported that of 30 speakers, only five testified in favor of state control of the aquifer.
The debate about what entity will control the water still hasn’t been settled.
Kevin Takata, a deputy state attorney general prosecuting Kenoi, said in court documents the mayor used a county-issued credit card, or pCard, to purchase “exorbitant amounts of alcohol” during the time frame of the charges, which span 2011-15. The charges stem from Kenoi’s misuse of the card, since revoked, which was acknowledged in a county audit issued last year.
Kenoi’s attorneys, Todd Eddins and Richard Sing, replied that Kenoi’s hosting congressional staff and others for dinner and drinks and picking up the tab with the pCard was a part of normal county business as mayor.
“Alcohol consumption among business and government officials indisputably serves the goal of developing closer and more meaningful relationships,” they wrote.
A Kauai County spokeswoman said in an email she understood the video “was taken at an informal social gathering that was held after the formal program of events.”
“Billy had good intentions to express his gratitude and appreciation to those who work hard to serve the community, and I appreciate him coming to Kauai to support the conference and recognize the good work of our Planning Department and planners throughout the state,” Carvalho said in a written statement.
The conference ends today and a Land Use Commission Meeting is scheduled for 1 p.m. at the Grand Hyatt Kauai.
Multiple calls to Kenoi’s office Thursday to ask if the mayor was on Kauai representing Hawaii Island in his official capacity and if taxpayers paid for the trip weren’t returned by press time. Also unreturned was a call to Kenoi’s cellphone seeking comment.
Email John Burnett at jburnett@hawaiitribune-herald.com.