Latest / The One Oʻahu Podcast with Mayor Rick Blangiardi / Mayor Blangiardi on fireworks enforcement, a sewer rate increase, and balancing the budget

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Mayor Blangiardi on fireworks enforcement, a sewer rate increase, and balancing the budget · The One Oʻahu Podcast with Mayor Rick Blangiardi

• 0:15
  Welcome to the One Oahu podcast.
• 0:16
  I'm your host, Brandi Higa, and today is Thursday,
• 0:20
  January 15th, 2026.
• 0:23
  We're back with Mayor Blangiardi for the first time in the New year.
• 0:26
  Mayor. Happy new. Year.
• 0:26
  Happy New Year and boy, here we are halfway through the month already.
• 0:30
  I mean, it's been amazing. We just said Happy New Year.
• 0:32
  It seems like five minutes ago, but we're we're off to a fast pace.
• 0:36
  I'm excited about that. Yeah.
• 0:37
  And you know, how did you ring in the new year?
• 0:39
  How do you spend New Year's?
• 0:40
  Yeah, well, I stayed home and I prayed that people would behave themselves.
• 0:44
  Let's be honest with you.
• 0:44
  We're kind of our own first alert.
• 0:47
  And as it turned out, the public did listen to us.
• 0:49
  And I was really pleased with that.
• 0:51
  It was a lot quieter.
• 0:52
  Had a lot of people noticed that.
• 0:54
  I still think it nonetheless, though, there was there was a lot of aerial
• 0:57
  display, and around midnight, it didn't go on that long, afterwards.
• 1:01
  And that's still a concern.
• 1:03
  But I think for the most part, the public listened to our warnings.
• 1:06
  They listened to our pleading, almost, if you will.
• 1:09
  We just didn't want anybody getting hurt.
• 1:10
  As it was.
• 1:11
  We had six EMS incidents.
• 1:14
  Worst perhaps, I think, is the young girl in Kaneohe
• 1:18
  who was impacted by an aerial and I think 20% of her body was burned.
• 1:22
  And that was the worst case since the tragic case in and of itself.
• 1:26
  And this is one thing that we kept saying, let's not hurt anybody, you know,
• 1:30
  but we got through, we got through it.
• 1:32
  And I think that,
• 1:35
  you know, I've had some very candid conversations about,
• 1:37
  with HPD, on the amount of arrests that were made,
• 1:41
  given the fact that there was still yet nonetheless well contained, extensive use.
• 1:46
  I think our enforcement will increase over time.
• 1:48
  I think we had a real learning experience this year.
• 1:51
  So, you know, look, at the end of the day,
• 1:53
  I'm just grateful that nobody died this year.
• 1:54
  We certainly didn't have anything that came even close to our, you know,
• 1:57
  we didn't create any wildfires.
• 1:59
  I mean, I want to look at all the good that came out of it.
• 2:02
  And I want to thank the public, for those people
• 2:05
  who were responsive and for those people who weren't, and that that.
• 2:08
  Well, wait. Nothing happened. I didn't get arrested.
• 2:10
  I will tell you that my challenge to HPD going into next year, even though
• 2:14
  it's a whole year away, will be that our enforcement needs to be there.
• 2:19
  I have full expectations that it will be it be more aggressive than it was
• 2:22
  this year.
• 2:23
  I think they did a lot of things on, you know, New Year's Eve.
• 2:26
  It's the busiest night of the year for EMS and drunk
• 2:29
  and driving and all kinds of other things to be concerned about.
• 2:32
  So overall, I'm just grateful that we got out of a New Year's
• 2:35
  Eve situation without any really,
• 2:38
  ridiculous increase of
• 2:39
  mortalities on, on, on road incidents or for that matter,
• 2:43
  as I said, keeping our neighborhoods and our people safe.
• 2:46
  Those numbers that you did mention from HPD, 29 citations,
• 2:49
  two arrests, what worked?
• 2:53
  Well, I think really what worked was the public itself, you know,
• 2:57
  I mean, for the most part, you know, there wasn't any,
• 3:02
  stuff that was happening to earlier in the evening.
• 3:04
  Like I said, a lot of a good, you know, pretty much was from 1130 on,
• 3:08
  I would say that our 1130 to 1230, I think most things had subsided.
• 3:12
  I think that, we had a lot of police presence
• 3:16
  and maybe that caused people in my, in my debrief with the police,
• 3:19
  you know, they would be there.
• 3:21
  And then all of a sudden things weren't happening.
• 3:23
  You know, I candidly speaking,
• 3:27
  I thought from an enforcement standpoint, we'd be stronger.
• 3:30
  But I've listened to the police side of that.
• 3:32
  I think that they understand that there is maybe, perhaps a need.
• 3:35
  I think that, you know, again,
• 3:38
  it's not so much the two arrests, the 29 citations.
• 3:41
  Quite honestly, we gave more citations for the 4th of July.
• 3:45
  And there was much more use this year.
• 3:47
  I think we we try to keep it under control and I so I think that what worked
• 3:53
  and the analysis is and I want to be positive here but not naive.
• 3:58
  What is that compared to a year ago it was much better.
• 4:02
  In fact, I had some of my neighbors who all have dogs and stuff
• 4:05
  say this is the quietest they could ever remember.
• 4:07
  They were so grateful. Right?
• 4:09
  So I think what really worked was a lot of cooperation from the public
• 4:14
  and even those people
• 4:15
  who used illegal fireworks, they can chain themselves, they control themselves.
• 4:20
  And so I go back to the public hearing that,
• 4:23
  I'm going to say it again, though, at New Year's, at 1218, around 1145
• 4:28
  through 1230 especially,
• 4:29
  I think, you know, it was a heightened use, still dangerous in effect,
• 4:33
  if you think about what happened at all, you Amano, it happened after midnight.
• 4:37
  So it's not like, okay, well, it's just safe to do that.
• 4:41
  There was a lot going on.
• 4:42
  And, you know, we had some elderly people get hurt.
• 4:44
  You know, it's just unnecessary stuff.
• 4:46
  I think that's the whole thing.
• 4:47
  We're trying to, you know, nobody should try to be a killjoy
• 4:49
  and nobody wants to threaten anybody.
• 4:51
  But as we said before, these are dangerous explosives.
• 4:54
  This isn't the the fireworks of yesterday.
• 4:57
  This isn't a cultural thing that we for those of us
• 5:00
  who've been in Hawaii for a long time, I mean, I've been here 60 years.
• 5:03
  Remember what used to be like, it's become a very different,
• 5:08
  deal.
• 5:09
  And and again, Ali and Monroe was a wake up call.
• 5:12
  And so I think we got a response from the Ali Monroe effect.
• 5:16
  I think that that's that worked, if you will.
• 5:17
  The people saw how dangerous things were, but we could get a lot better.
• 5:21
  And I'm hoping that we will get a lot better.
• 5:23
  That said, what did it work?
• 5:25
  What are your expectations?
• 5:26
  You kind of alluded to this a how we're going to get.
• 5:28
  Yeah.
• 5:28
  Well, I would have liked to have again this is going to sound awful.
• 5:31
  I realize that,
• 5:33
  but I would of, like to have seen known for a while there
• 5:37
  some real flagrant violations out there that those people who just word
• 5:41
  didn't listen to us, didn't care.
• 5:42
  We're going to do what they were going to do
• 5:43
  and did the, the in those cases where that did happen like that,
• 5:48
  that we, we had some legal action there that
• 5:51
  because that's exactly because, you know, at the end of the day,
• 5:55
  people are always going to test limits, you know, and we went into this,
• 5:59
  like I said, not wanting to threaten anybody, begging
• 6:01
  and pleading with the public, you know, not to,
• 6:04
  you know, not to hurt not only hurt themselves,
• 6:06
  but look, come on, you decent people don't break the law. Why?
• 6:08
  Why are you knowing we want to go and do that?
• 6:10
  We we had that kind of sensibility about us.
• 6:13
  And so what didn't work
• 6:16
  is as people who go, no matter how nice we try to be about it,
• 6:19
  no matter how convincing we try to be, no matter how presenting a powerful.
• 6:23
  The argument was about what happened to Ali Amano.
• 6:26
  Like, yeah, not going to happen to me.
• 6:28
  Well, it's always invariably
• 6:30
  those kind of people who get reckless like that, and then they go afterwards.
• 6:33
  They're full of lament and sorrow.
• 6:36
  It's it's that we haven't quite got there yet.
• 6:40
  And maybe we will.
• 6:41
  I realize that it's seemingly it seems to be that somewhere
• 6:45
  somebody thinks we're asking a lot of the public to curtail this.
• 6:49
  We're really not.
• 6:50
  We're asking people not to do things early.
• 6:52
  We had laws change for a very specific reason, and
• 6:55
  we and I would have liked to see those laws more enforced.
• 6:58
  So I think if you ask me,
• 7:00
  it would have been, which resulted in maybe more arrests and more,
• 7:04
  people facing some serious prosecution
• 7:07
  for just being so different, you know, to remember the other side of it.
• 7:10
  The other side of it is there's a lot of people who don't do
• 7:15
  and participate in illegal fireworks for, for a lot of reasons.
• 7:18
  And some of that had to do with even concern of property, concern
• 7:21
  for their animals, just the very fact that they find it a little bit terrorizing
• 7:25
  with all of the noise.
• 7:26
  It's gone on and so on.
• 7:28
  You know what it was you know,
• 7:30
  those that extended those aerial bombs that people were setting up.
• 7:34
  I mean, that that's very disturbing to a lot of people.
• 7:36
  And so this whole thing comes on that realm of public safety.
• 7:40
  What do you all the general public versus the minority
• 7:43
  who chooses to do things knowingly that are dangerous and illegal?
• 7:47
  You need to you need to I mean, society says you respond to that.
• 7:51
  And that's I think that what we try to do,
• 7:53
  but at the same time, we try to urge everybody to
• 7:56
  to be decent about it, you know, for all that we talk about,
• 7:59
  about who we are as a people and the pride that we take in that
• 8:02
  and how we take care of each other, and always the generosity of spirit
• 8:07
  and the generosity of giving here is unlike anything I've ever known anywhere.
• 8:11
  And, and and we know that.
• 8:13
  Yet this seems to some to you when you look at it kind of runs
• 8:17
  counter current to that.
• 8:18
  And I think that that's what we're looking to say.
• 8:21
  Come on, we're better than that.
• 8:23
  You did mentioned, you know, EMS also deals with drunken driving, car crashes.
• 8:28
  So does HPD. We have. Correct.
• 8:30
  And we have had a bunch of fatal crashes on our roadways so far this year.
• 8:34
  You know, and that's on the heels of a record year
• 8:37
  when it came to traffic deaths.
• 8:39
  If we go at this clip, you know, a handful of months,
• 8:41
  we're going to match that again.
• 8:43
  What is going on?
• 8:45
  You know, you talk to the police officers.
• 8:47
  I mean, there's just a lot of people distracted.
• 8:49
  And I'm not saying it's all on cell phones.
• 8:51
  It's a lot of just people not recognizing the fact that,
• 8:56
  you you get behind the wheel of a car is a tremendous responsibility.
• 8:59
  It's also can be we don't even think about being dangerous.
• 9:02
  I mean, I'm in and out of a car all day long,
• 9:04
  but you got to recognize the fact that you start going at high speeds.
• 9:07
  Are you distracted? You're not paying attention.
• 9:09
  Worse yet,
• 9:10
  people are drinking and driving too high and drive at different things like that.
• 9:15
  You don't have to be going very fast to get yourself killed
• 9:17
  in an automobile or, let's say, you know, electric bike,
• 9:22
  or moped or,
• 9:25
  it's a we if you're going to if you are commandeering
• 9:29
  any kind of a motor vehicle at any kind of a speed
• 9:32
  when you're involved in that activity, it could be dangerous.
• 9:36
  And you, if you're the innocent person, I mean, you have to be full there.
• 9:38
  I mean, how many times have people got
• 9:40
  killed a head on crashes where they're just completely innocent, doing nothing.
• 9:44
  So people just need to be really aware.
• 9:46
  And I think that as we talk about it,
• 9:48
  with, with law enforcement, it's just, you know,
• 9:52
  and nobody's actually saying it because you can't you're not there
• 9:55
  the moment before the accident, you know,
• 9:58
  but it seems to be, you know, when they especially
• 10:01
  they have things going at higher speeds, people are driving faster.
• 10:05
  They're distracted,
• 10:08
  over something.
• 10:09
  It's not paid attention.
• 10:11
  It's like that.
• 10:12
  I mean, look, we're going to try to enforce as much as we can
• 10:15
  this year, you know, but we don't have police officers everywhere.
• 10:19
  And, you know, we have now,
• 10:20
  you have cameras where people can get tickets for speeding.
• 10:22
  And look, I'm the first guy to admit I've gone through yellow lights before.
• 10:26
  I mean, you know, you try not to do it,
• 10:28
  but it just happens to all of us when you're driving.
• 10:30
  And I just think you have to be ultra, ultra aware of that.
• 10:33
  And, to anything that's, that's dangerous, you know, and I will tell you,
• 10:37
  and we all see it, everybody who drives
• 10:39
  you get on the road and you see people doing things yourself.
• 10:42
  I mean,
• 10:43
  you go, wow, you know, the weather.
• 10:45
  I mean, that could end up in the evening news.
• 10:48
  I had some real that day. I was on a side street.
• 10:50
  I forget where it was.
• 10:51
  And they just put passing me and
• 10:53
  and they were all going like maybe 20, 25 miles an hour.
• 10:57
  And we just was.
• 10:58
  And they just they just went, it's when I wish I had a police thing on my own car.
• 11:02
  We go after they were like 50 miles an hour and a little sassy.
• 11:05
  I mean, that just lent itself to it could have been really bad, you know,
• 11:11
  you don't understand why people do that.
• 11:13
  And I think what's happening now with these increased stats is
• 11:17
  we should be a warning to everybody.
• 11:18
  I mean, you know, in some, you know, and
• 11:21
  and dying is one thing people forget about the fact
• 11:24
  that sometimes people get injured in these things.
• 11:25
  This is exactly like we talked about with the burn victims as well.
• 11:29
  And again, I don't want to, you know, harp on that, but,
• 11:32
  you know, there's residual things that happen to people who didn't just die
• 11:37
  from something they suffered and sometimes suffer
• 11:40
  lifelong injuries, it early ages or stages of their lives.
• 11:44
  That's really sad.
• 11:45
  And so again, it's just really a public appeal,
• 11:49
  to people to, to be aware, be more aware.
• 11:51
  The fact that we're off to such a fast pace on road fatalities.
• 11:56
  Is this to be cautionary?
• 11:58
  People need to embrace that, say, hey, wait a minute.
• 12:00
  We all have to be asking the same question.
• 12:01
  Should just be me in the mayor's role.
• 12:03
  All of us say, hey, what's going on here?
• 12:05
  And what can I do? Do about it?
• 12:07
  You know, we we always talk about, you know, climate change.
• 12:09
  And one individual doing one little thing can help make a difference.
• 12:12
  And sometimes people believe that, sometimes they don't.
• 12:15
  But, you know, everybody's asked to contribute.
• 12:17
  Well, this is about life. And death in the short term.
• 12:20
  Forget about global warming here.
• 12:22
  You know, you can go out on any given night,
• 12:24
  get yourself killed if you do something stupid.
• 12:26
  So I mean, I just I try to appeal the common sense of decency, which I believe.
• 12:32
  I still really believe it because I believe there's a lot of
• 12:35
  goodness in people.
• 12:36
  I just think that sometimes we need a wake up call.
• 12:39
  We need to just understand the the dangers of stuff.
• 12:43
  And that's what we're trying to appeal to.
• 12:45
  A few weeks into 2026.
• 12:47
  But, mayor, what are the expectations that you set for your cabinet?
• 12:51
  Very high.
• 12:52
  I want
• 12:53
  I want to tell you right now the tone this year and you're going to hear from us
• 12:56
  and everything we do is one of challenge and one of confidence.
• 12:59
  You know, we have a really good team. I like the team that we have.
• 13:02
  It's taken us five years to get to where we are.
• 13:04
  We said a year ago that we were going to shift from planning to execution.
• 13:08
  We did. We picked up the pace, got a lot of momentum.
• 13:10
  There's a lot of stuff on the threshold.
• 13:12
  We have a huge responsibility in this job.
• 13:15
  As the leadership of the city and what people expect from us,
• 13:19
  there's a lot of deliverables out there we're going to start to.
• 13:21
  And we already have,
• 13:23
  begun to deliver those things in ways that I think are going to add
• 13:25
  to the quality of life for people.
• 13:28
  This team here is
• 13:29
  capable of doing stuff that,
• 13:33
  I know for a fact is, is already the case that they haven't been done
• 13:36
  before where solving problems that people had just given up on.
• 13:40
  And, and I think it's, you know, building back a sense of hope and trust,
• 13:44
  in, in not only local city government, but about how things can happen
• 13:48
  and they can work and somebody cares enough to make it work.
• 13:51
  If it wasn't in.
• 13:52
  So we're not going to let up.
• 13:53
  We got three years left.
• 13:55
  This team, is going to get better each of those next three years.
• 13:59
  That's my expectation.
• 14:01
  This is sort of like
• 14:01
  since we're the umbrella football playoff seasons, there's the guys and I can feel
• 14:05
  this is an old coach, but this is a coaching job.
• 14:07
  Being mayor because you're trying to inspire
• 14:09
  human performance and people to do their best work.
• 14:13
  At the end of the day, when
• 14:14
  you're coaching a team that you expect can win, know that they should win.
• 14:18
  Know what they're capable of.
• 14:22
  It's like that.
• 14:23
  And so because they're so good and and because the need
• 14:27
  is so great, our responsibility is not insignificant.
• 14:31
  We're going to keep the bar up way high, and I think everybody benefits.
• 14:34
  I've told this team over and over again, this work
• 14:37
  that we're all doing because leadership is situational.
• 14:41
  This work right now is while
• 14:44
  it may not be for anybody involved and,
• 14:47
  you know, professional ambitions and careers
• 14:49
  and whatever may not be the most lucrative of their lives,
• 14:53
  because of the situation and working in public service.
• 14:56
  Clearly this work could be the most gratifying of all of our lives,
• 14:59
  because if we are capable of having the impact that I know
• 15:02
  that we can have and we're already having and have made,
• 15:07
  when we walk away from this,
• 15:08
  when it's all said and done, everybody can keep their head up.
• 15:10
  And I.
• 15:11
  And so in that regard, for all of us and for the sake of the city,
• 15:15
  I'm going to keep the bar very high from a leadership standpoint.
• 15:18
  And we've talked about this multiple times on this podcast, but it's this month
• 15:22
  that all residents and businesses will see that 6% rate hike on their sewer bills.
• 15:28
  For those maybe who forgot or just weren't paying attention,
• 15:31
  why is this so important?
• 15:32
  Well, it's important because we've had an aging infrastructure,
• 15:34
  we've got a lot of pipes.
• 15:35
  And so as and whenever that, you know, 100 years ago sounds like a long time
• 15:39
  when you say 100 years ago, but when you start thinking about
• 15:41
  that was 1924, 1925, in the modern era, if you will.
• 15:46
  You know, we have an aging infrastructure and quite honestly,
• 15:50
  you have to invest in these things.
• 15:51
  You know, there's tremendous amount of money,
• 15:54
  both federal and and monies that have been raised
• 15:57
  that we're putting into our wastewater treatment plants.
• 15:59
  You know, when you look at what we're doing out in the sand
• 16:01
  on this island, as well as or for that matter, Honolulu
• 16:04
  or the new treatment plant in Kailua that we just put on.
• 16:07
  These are huge undertakings, that are all designed to, deal with the water issue.
• 16:12
  I, you know, most people are just stunned by the fact that how much, you know,
• 16:17
  when we talk about wastewater, which is it's
• 16:19
  one of the better way to describe it, what you flush, that's 100.
• 16:23
  That's a hundred million gallons a day of what goes on and stuff
• 16:25
  in the sewer systems and we get then you get rainwater,
• 16:29
  you get runoff water and stuff, and it's stuff that goes in the sewers,
• 16:33
  which is, you know, storm, but that's the storm water. Right?
• 16:35
  So you got to be able to take care of that,
• 16:37
  because if we're not taking care of that, everything starts to back up.
• 16:40
  So here we are, island dwellers, surrounded by water
• 16:42
  and then the maintenance of our water, whether we're talking about wastewater,
• 16:45
  a storm water and sewers is a huge thing on how we live together.
• 16:51
  A million, million people on this island.
• 16:53
  Actually, it's over a million people.
• 16:54
  When you consider the fact
• 16:56
  the population, which doesn't get count in the census of between our military
• 16:59
  and our tourist, you know,
• 17:00
  there's a, you know, there's a million to or so every day on this island.
• 17:05
  Taking for
• 17:06
  granted, as we all do, all of this stuff.
• 17:09
  Right.
• 17:09
  So but time comes where, quite honestly,
• 17:14
  and again, I, I'm always hesitant to say this, but
• 17:17
  we're, we're dealing with a lot of deferred maintenance right now.
• 17:20
  We're trying to make up for things that should have probably been tended to
• 17:24
  some time ago, were not deferred, if you will.
• 17:28
  And now we're dealing with that reality
• 17:30
  and we don't really have any way around it,
• 17:32
  which is why we've done what we've done and we owe it to the city.
• 17:34
  And so but, you know, subsequently, and maybe that's why people didn't
• 17:38
  want to have to deal and stuff.
• 17:40
  So look what we went through to get that sofa increase.
• 17:43
  There was a lot of pushback a lot of people don't understand.
• 17:46
  Didn't care.
• 17:47
  We're really sensitive to the cost of living issues.
• 17:49
  I say it over and over again.
• 17:51
  We're trying not to raise any fees anywhere.
• 17:53
  And if we do it and we're not increasing property taxes, but if we do raise a fee
• 17:57
  like this, it's because we absolutely, absolutely have to in order to,
• 18:03
  to keep the public safe.
• 18:05
  And that's what this is about. This is really about public safety.
• 18:07
  Even if I stop backing up, believe me.
• 18:09
  And you see that people have seen it,
• 18:12
  with sometimes when storms happen and the sewer lines back up.
• 18:15
  And I mean, quite honestly, given the state of where we are
• 18:19
  with our sewers, too, we're still very, very, very vulnerable.
• 18:23
  It's it's a precarious situation. So,
• 18:26
  it's one of these things I don't know if we're going to get totally solved
• 18:29
  while we're in office, but like the issue
• 18:32
  with the our flood mitigation program is a deep concern to me.
• 18:35
  Understanding Waikiki, where Waikiki contributes to the state's GDP,
• 18:39
  for that matter. Wahoo!
• 18:40
  But Waikiki is the epicenter for that.
• 18:43
  These are really serious matters.
• 18:44
  And, and you get into office and you start to realize the complexity
• 18:48
  and the enormity of the challenge.
• 18:50
  And so I'm very pleased.
• 18:53
  Look, we try to make this, as I said earlier, sensitive to the cost of living.
• 18:56
  But this is, you know, you use less, you pay less.
• 18:59
  We've built that in.
• 19:01
  We've got subsidy programs for those people who maybe,
• 19:04
  are not
• 19:05
  capable because we are very aware of the Alice report, 60% of our people
• 19:09
  living paycheck
• 19:10
  to paycheck understand that you have these variable costs that come in.
• 19:14
  And while they may be normal
• 19:15
  to someone else, to somebody else, it could be significant.
• 19:19
  And we're trying to maintain that as best as possible.
• 19:21
  So again, we got a good subsidy program put in there.
• 19:24
  We've got a program where
• 19:25
  if people are more mindful, as you said, you use less, you pay less.
• 19:30
  We're doing everything we can to help us navigate,
• 19:33
  into the future here with, with, which is really a critical element of
• 19:38
  of how we live and our society.
• 19:41
  Yeah, affordability is tough.
• 19:43
  And you as a mayor have like less than two months now before your budget is due.
• 19:47
  Yeah. What what's the status? What's the process?
• 19:50
  Can you give us some insight into why balancing that budget looks like for you?
• 19:53
  Right. Sure.
• 19:54
  Well, what's
• 19:55
  well what we've said all along, and I'm the first to admit we have raised
• 19:59
  the budgets each year we've been in here without raising property taxes.
• 20:03
  And we've covered our best because I've said all along,
• 20:06
  we're going to eliminate waste.
• 20:08
  We're going to reprioritize on where we do spend our money and and we're
• 20:12
  going to attack the wicked problems, and we're going to do more for the people
• 20:18
  who live here than they've had done before in the way of city services.
• 20:21
  And we have been doing that.
• 20:22
  Now we get to a point last year where between our operating
• 20:26
  and our capital was our highest budget was about $5.2 billion.
• 20:31
  That number is not going to go up this year.
• 20:33
  This will be the first year where our number is going to come down.
• 20:35
  And and I'm not exactly sure how far we can come down because,
• 20:40
  you know, you have a lot of fixed costs that are involved.
• 20:43
  Just, just in our own employees and retirement benefits and all that.
• 20:48
  So the variable spending isn't as big as it might seem
• 20:52
  when you start talking about billions of dollars.
• 20:55
  But at the end of the day, I'm a firm believer we'll live within our means.
• 20:58
  We constantly look at adjusting operations of the city when we look
• 21:02
  for those opportunities where we can say, hey, we don't need to do that,
• 21:05
  or maybe we need to spend it differently, and so on and so forth.
• 21:08
  Look, the city is in really good shape financially.
• 21:11
  There are a lot of cities in America that cannot say that
• 21:14
  the fiscal stewardship of our city has never been better.
• 21:17
  We've got a bond rating of both services.
• 21:21
  Our BFS team, prior to our ever coming in for years, every year was,
• 21:25
  you know,
• 21:26
  these have these municipal government awards always wins the highest award,
• 21:30
  you know.
• 21:30
  And sometimes it drives me crazy too, because they're really tough.
• 21:34
  You know, we have tough procurement laws and different things that go on like that.
• 21:38
  They're also looking to, to work better with,
• 21:41
  but nobody's wasting anybody's money.
• 21:42
  What we're trying to do is run a world class city in the year 2026,
• 21:47
  the seventh year of the third decade of the 21st century.
• 21:50
  And there's a cost associated to that.
• 21:52
  And we realize that that's finite
• 21:54
  because we don't have this ever increasing population.
• 21:56
  And, and and we already know, since we're funded primarily through property
• 22:00
  taxes, that the tax assessments this year, a relatively flat therefore,
• 22:05
  you know, it's if that is your source of income
• 22:07
  and is remaining relatively flat, if not down, then
• 22:11
  one has to take the appropriate action, which is what we're going to do this year.
• 22:14
  I think a lot of people will be happy to hear the, mayor,
• 22:17
  you know, not top story news, but Makiki has a new dog park.
• 22:20
  Now, why is that important?
• 22:21
  Well, you know, because everybody seems to have dogs.
• 22:24
  Is Hayes. And I can list there why?
• 22:26
  You and I are both dog owners, too, you know, and I find myself late at night
• 22:30
  sometimes before I want to end the day watching some of these dog videos
• 22:33
  on YouTube and all the funny, crazy stuff that animals do and bring to our lives.
• 22:38
  But you know, this is our third dog park.
• 22:40
  I think we're about to do some really incredible things,
• 22:44
  for unleashing some of our existing parks so people can feel better about that.
• 22:48
  And I'm really encouraged with the fact that I have Department of Parks
• 22:51
  Recreation, led by Laura Thielen.
• 22:54
  Has as an understanding of sensitivity to it.
• 22:57
  So the one of Makiki was earlier the classic place, you know, bye bye.
• 23:00
  Put on Wilder right over there on city property that we on
• 23:04
  a lot of people don't understand.
• 23:06
  So some of it is property is not set up to be developed.
• 23:09
  And so when they develop the grounds surround the areas at the time.
• 23:13
  Because that's really an older, older neighborhood if you will.
• 23:17
  So ever since I can remember, those buildings have been there, I mean, I
• 23:20
  and that I'm going back to the 60s.
• 23:22
  In fact, I lived put and wilder for a short time.
• 23:25
  And sometimes I love going down there because it's like time stood still.
• 23:29
  It's, it's that's how it looked.
• 23:31
  You know, here we are all these many years later.
• 23:35
  So these developers, when they would build a surround, they would,
• 23:37
  they would then gift the city, land because it wasn't really for development.
• 23:42
  You end up with this odd kind of remnant. What do you do with it now?
• 23:44
  And they're called city parks and we're responsible for them.
• 23:47
  So if we could take that particular corner,
• 23:49
  which is really nice and right
• 23:50
  by the church and across the street from put a whole and, and,
• 23:53
  and put up that fence and cut it off knowing full well there's a lot of people
• 23:58
  who live in that area can now take the dog to a dog park.
• 24:01
  And for all the things that come up with that, I think it's just a good thing.
• 24:04
  So we have 11 dog parks now that are there, unleashed.
• 24:09
  But I think we're going to expand that capability.
• 24:11
  And I think,
• 24:13
  you know, people
• 24:13
  act responsibly and, and take care of their animals.
• 24:16
  Having a place to go for them is a really good thing.
• 24:19
  So it's again, it's a quality of, of life thing.
• 24:23
  I think, as I said that day you were there, I said, you know,
• 24:28
  if people's dogs are happy, they're happier too.
• 24:30
  You know, they feel like the,
• 24:31
  you know, because you tell a dog, hey, let's go for a walk. Let's go.
• 24:34
  You know, they get so excited and they're going to go out and they know.
• 24:36
  And and then you get that
• 24:38
  we had some down there that they, you know playing with each other and stuff.
• 24:40
  You realize this is a cool thing to be doing.
• 24:43
  You know, for all the things we've just talked about
• 24:45
  in this podcast about the challenges, whether we're talking about soil, water
• 24:49
  or illegal fireworks or dangerous driving and things of those consequences, it's
• 24:54
  kind of nice to kind of see, okay, we're doing some other, other things.
• 24:57
  Like I said, there are little wins and big wins in this job.
• 25:01
  But little win like that, you know, is actually a big win in someone's life
• 25:05
  and how that's going to impact them and their ownership of a dog.
• 25:08
  So I think it's a cool thing.
• 25:10
  You know, we're a few
• 25:11
  weeks removed from another big win, but the performance
• 25:15
  by the University of Hawaii football team in this year's Hawaii Bowl.
• 25:18
  Yeah, I want to get your thoughts.
• 25:20
  Well, I'm very happy. And I did win my bet.
• 25:23
  And he said, that's right.
• 25:24
  He did send me a check, but I'm going to cancel the check.
• 25:27
  I'm not I'm going to tell him.
• 25:28
  I'm just going to hold on to it because of all his hubris.
• 25:30
  In fact, he went so far as to tell me this will come back to the team in a second.
• 25:35
  He called me up
• 25:36
  and said he was watching the game and it was like 21, nothing or whatever.
• 25:40
  And he said he shut it off
• 25:40
  because he had other things to do because it was Christmas Eve.
• 25:43
  He was on the mainland and feeling sorry that he, he had taken advantage of me.
• 25:48
  You know, he said so hours later
• 25:52
  when he found out what happened, it was an utter disbelief.
• 25:55
  So he went from feeling sorry for me.
• 25:57
  He took advantage of me because he's the one.
• 25:59
  The child bred to it because he's so proud of.
• 26:01
  You. Went to Cal was funny, but I thought, you know, for Timmy, those guys
• 26:05
  to actually go nine and four and have a bowl victory is one thing.
• 26:08
  But the very fact that the season ended in such a dramatic way
• 26:11
  and such a dramatic comeback and right down to the end, and then, you know, you,
• 26:15
  you know, the backup quarterback again
• 26:17
  is it was it was if we wrote the script people would go, yeah that's cool.
• 26:21
  But that's a that's a movie or something, you know.
• 26:23
  So the fact that it ended in such a cool way
• 26:26
  to add to the fact that the team is nine
• 26:28
  and four with a bowl victory and a very successful football season,
• 26:33
  just made it that much sweeter.
• 26:35
  You know, they could have won a game, you know, 30 to nothing.
• 26:38
  It'd be great.
• 26:39
  And like some of these teams you see in the college playoffs
• 26:42
  in the end or especially killed in Alabama and Oregon weren't lopsided victories.
• 26:46
  But to have such a dramatic game, and it was
• 26:49
  come from behind, and known for a while.
• 26:52
  We haven't been able to demonstrate that before.
• 26:53
  On national television, to which is the other part of it.
• 26:56
  And a lot of people watch that game.
• 26:58
  So it was good for the program, but for Hawaii.
• 27:01
  But for the kids, good for Timmy.
• 27:02
  We know we went into it.
• 27:03
  You and I say it's going to be his best season yet.
• 27:06
  We know definitely more wins and losses.
• 27:08
  And they even exceeded, you know anything that would be marginal there.
• 27:11
  This is an excellent football season. I think they learned a lot.
• 27:13
  Hopefully it's going to help them in their recruiting.
• 27:16
  Very proud of them.
• 27:17
  You know it was nice to see Chunk Fields sold out, you know
• 27:21
  and I hopefully that becomes more the norm.
• 27:23
  We should be pressing.
• 27:24
  We should be pressing as we wait for a new stadium someday.
• 27:27
  There's no reason why, week in and week out with kids on a 15,000 seat stadium.
• 27:31
  No, not enough for this team, you know.
• 27:34
  And that hasn't been happening.
• 27:35
  Has happened now on a couple of occasions needs to become that become
• 27:38
  the norm as we get ready to play an even bigger venue someday.
• 27:41
  Yeah.
• 27:42
  I need to call you the next time in Vegas for my blind Jerry sports book.
• 27:46
  Mayor, do you have any New Year's resolutions?
• 27:48
  Are you are you guy.
• 27:51
  You know, not not really.
• 27:52
  I, I'm at that stage of like, you know, 20, 26.
• 27:56
  This is the year I turned 80.
• 28:00
  This year I turned 80.
• 28:01
  You know, you do have different internal conversations about that.
• 28:05
  Okay. So,
• 28:07
  my resolution is to, I think, you know, from the standpoint
• 28:10
  of the responsibility of this job is, is to really,
• 28:15
  take care of myself, take care of my health, work harder, work better.
• 28:19
  I think in my second term, I've raised the bar for myself
• 28:21
  to our own expectations.
• 28:22
  You know, took us a little while to figure out what was going on.
• 28:25
  And, like, don't get me wrong, I realize is a podcast, and so it'll be on video.
• 28:29
  But my learning curve in this job is still straight up.
• 28:33
  It's it's I learn, I swear off multiple things a day.
• 28:37
  It's not like you learn something new every day.
• 28:39
  It's just great. Incredible.
• 28:41
  But we're surrounded by a lot of good people,
• 28:43
  which is what I talked about before.
• 28:44
  You do not do this job alone.
• 28:46
  So I think, you know, the resolve is, is to,
• 28:51
  yet make this even yet again, a better year and continue to do that.
• 28:54
  And so it's time to leave.
• 28:55
  And so, we got a lot of metrics that we look at.
• 28:58
  We're not deceiving ourselves. We're realists about that.
• 29:00
  We're looking at what's the progress.
• 29:02
  Is that better than. And I just want to keep that up.
• 29:05
  I'm having a lot of fun with this job.
• 29:06
  I'm, it's very meaningful for me to have this
• 29:10
  responsibility, understand that what the role of being mayor.
• 29:14
  That not that I had that much in the way of unilateral power.
• 29:19
  This is a some of these mayors on the mainland
• 29:21
  talking like they're the you know, they've been anointed.
• 29:24
  They're there are limitations on what one can do in this role.
• 29:28
  But there's also a lot of ones that you can help influence and make happen.
• 29:32
  And I'm, I think I'm really in touch with that.
• 29:34
  And that's getting that done
• 29:35
  through other people cooperation, if you will, with city council
• 29:38
  cooperation, certainly with Governor Green and the state legislature
• 29:41
  being a collaborator.
• 29:42
  I've always been that way. Anyway.
• 29:44
  But, you know, being willing to take on difficult situations
• 29:48
  and with the attitude that, hey, we can make something
• 29:51
  good happen here, we can solve this, we could do that.
• 29:54
  I love that. It's just this.
• 29:56
  I'm having a good time.
• 29:58
  Well, mayor, this is the one.
• 29:59
  Oh, podcast. So for one final thought.
• 30:02
  Well, it's said that the way we started,
• 30:03
  even though the first two weeks have gone by very fast.
• 30:05
  Happy New Year to everybody.
• 30:06
  I'm expecting an amazing 2026.
• 30:08
  You know, the world is challenging right now.
• 30:10
  We're watching and hearing things that,
• 30:12
  you know, most of us never thought would happen.
• 30:14
  We, the globe seems to be in in flux, if you will, as well as our own country.
• 30:19
  There's a different narrative coming out of Washington.
• 30:21
  There's different things going on.
• 30:22
  I'm not I'm not naive to any of that.
• 30:24
  I'm very aware of that. But hey, we're here in Hawaii.
• 30:27
  A place is very, very special for those of us, all of us who live here
• 30:30
  recognize that, and let's let's,
• 30:34
  let's make the most of it.
• 30:35
  I can promise you, we're going to do everything we can.
• 30:38
  Going back to what we talked about many times today,
• 30:41
  to try to improve the quality of our people's lives.
• 30:43
  So I said, God bless everybody.
• 30:45
  Amazing. 26. Let's go for it. Mayor.
• 30:47
  Thank you.
• 30:49
  And if you have any questions for the mayor, you can send them in
• 30:51
  by emailing me at new.higa@honolulu.gov.
• 30:55
  Mahalo for listening. And until next time, Aloha.