An unsuccessful candidate for Honolulu’s 4th District seat on the City Council has thrown her support behind former legislator Tommy Waters, who will challenge incumbent Trevor Ozawa in November’s General Election. The district stretches from Hawaii Kai all the way around Diamond Head to Ala Moana Beach Park.

Natalie Iwasa, a community activist and former Hawaii Kai Neighborhood Board chair, notified her supporters of her endorsement in an email blast last week and asked them to follow her lead in supporting Waters.

After careful consideration, I have decided to support Tommy Waters in the race for Honolulu City Council District 4. Based on my interactions with him, I think he will be more responsive and willing to discuss issues and in general will be better for the district.

I met with him twice in the last two weeks and have spoken with him several times since. We discussed examples of how he worked with residents in Waimanalo and Lanikai to get projects implemented that were priorities of residents in those communities.

He expressed a desire to learn more and understand the concerns I and others have about rail and specifically requested that, if elected, I work with him on questions that should be asked regarding important issues facing our community.

Iwasa earned the nickname “Bike Mom” more than a decade ago for her advocacy of policies to make Honolulu more pedestrian and bicycle friendly. And Iwasa, a CPA, has more recently been known for her monitoring of the City Council and other city agencies, which she shares with her community through email, occasional blog posts, and a Facebook page (Natalie Iwasa, Community Advocate).

That experience appears to inform her strong opinions about this council race and the operations of the city overall, which she is not shy about sharing.

“I think it’s also important for you to understand why I do not support Trevor Ozawa,” Iwasa wrote to her supporters. She has slowly been spelling out her reasons for opposing Ozawa’s reelection on her “community advocate” Facebook page.

For example, she described Councilmember Ozawa’s statement to the Hawaii Kai Neighborhood Board at its March 2015 meeting that he had made proposed cuts to the budget of Honolulu’s rail project.

“Afterward I went back to check the public record,” Iwasa wrote, with links to an amendment to the rail budget offered by Ozawa. “There were no proposed cuts.”

Similarly, Iwasa points to another council meeting during which Ozawa misrepresented community opinion about a bill regarding residential real property tax exemptions.

During the 10/21/15 council budget committee meeting, Councilmember Ozawa testified that every neighborhood board (NB) in his district supported Bill 66 (2015). According to minutes of the 7 NBs in district 4, not one of them had a discussion about Bill 66.

Whether Iwasa’s supporters can give Tommy Waters a winning margin in November is an open question.

This year’s primary election demonstrated the benefits of incumbency. Ozawa, who was first elected in 2014, led the four-person field with 11,708 votes, or 40.4%, significantly head of Waters, who drew 9,071 votes or 31.3%.

That was a much stronger primary performance for Ozawa, who ran second in the 2014 primary vote but prevailed in the General Election head-to-head runoff against Waters.

Meanwhile, Iwasa received 3,917 votes (13.5%) in this year’s primary, which was down from the 6,937 she won in the 2014 primary, where she also finished in third place behind Waters and Ozawa.