Many candidates run ads featuring themselves.
Former media exec turned mayoral candidate, Rick Blangiardi, is running ads now in which he appears only as a talking head on a television playing in the scene.
It’s a strange, disembodied presentation of self.
It seems to be an attempt to remind people that he used to be an on-the-air personality with his brief commentaries on public issues. Hey, remember me, I’m the TV guy!
Clever, but very weird.
And while I’m talking about Rick, we just got a large postcard in the mail yesterday from Rick’s campaign.
On one side the headline reads: “My Only Agenda is You.”
It goes on: “My only agenda is you and what matters to you, your family, your neighborhood and your livelihood.”
Gimme a break.
There are nearly a million “you’s” in the city and county of Honolulu. If Rick really has no other agenda that what each of us wants, he’s in for a a rude awakening.
We’re not all on the same page. You might have noticed. That’s one thing I can guarantee you.
So which group of “you’s” is going to drive his agenda?
That brings me to the agenda. The other side of the mailer is “Rick’s Agenda for Honolulu’s Future.”
Okay. So what does he propose?
Here are a few of the bullet items.
– Help our economy recover in the aftermath of COVID-19.
– Address the continuing challenge of homelessness in Honolulu.
– Reduce inefficiencies in city governent.
Each of those is really meaningless.
What voters want to know is, just HOW is Rick going to “help our economy recover” and what “value added” will he bring to that endeavor?
Same thing for the city’s response to homelessness. Anyone who is elected will have to “address the continuing challenge.” How does Rick plan to address it? We’re left wondering.
Here’s another one I like.
– To not raise property taxes for local families.
In another place, Rick promises that he will not raise property taxes to pay for the rail.
There’s an obvious problem with this. Property taxes are the city’s primary source of income. Since it is clear that the visitor industry isn’t likely to experience a robust recovery any time in the new mayor’s term, is property taxes aren’t going to be raised, where does Rick think we’re going to find the money to continue essential services for the time being? Or to pay for rail?
This is one of those “tough decisions” Rick says he’s ready to make “when needed.”
Well, that commitment to making tough decisions, and being open and honest” about city operations, seem at odds the promise to not raise property taxes, since some tax increase appears impossible to avoid given the stark financial realities of the next few years. Property taxes for at least some local families are going to have to go up. So, Rick, why not tell us that you’re ready to make that tough decision and also be open and honest about it?
Anyway, you can always see more on the campaign’s website.
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Think campaigns are designed to “ride the rail” down the middle of the mostly uneducated voter. Candidate cant propose to stop rail, he’d piss off the “essential” construction industry. On the campaign trail, has to declare he won’t raise properly taxes, or he’ll piss off the home owner. The strategy is to get in, then let the ”essentials” who paid for your campaign steer you in their agenda direction.
Amemiya / Blangiardi same-same as on nat’l level.
Both “essential” development and military need a correction if we’re going to save this state, but voters can’t reason this dynamic.
Take a look at council Bill 71, introduced by budget chair Manahan. It strikes language regarding the $214 million in city subsidy and replaces it with just the $26 million that is budgeted for this fiscal year. If passed, that would leave a big hole in HART’s recovery plan, but it would also ease pressures on city budgets and real property taxes.
“Property taxes for at least some local families are going to have to go up.” Not necessarily. There are a lot of exemptions that cost city taxpayers millions of dollars annually. The question is whether the next mayor and council will have the political will to either reduce them or remove them.
Removing exemptions still mean property taxes go up for those that have previously qualified them. What kind of money would be gained from eliminating those exemptions? Can you dig that out of the budget? It would be useful to know.
The Real Property Assessment Division of the Department of Budget and Fiscal Services prepares a report of the cost by exemption. The most recent one posted online that I am aware of is available on page 24 of a report given to the 2019 RPT Advisory Commission. The cost (“tax benefit”) for all exemptions for last fiscal year was about $151 million. http://www4.honolulu.gov/docushare/dsweb/Get/Document-238947/D463.pdf
Note that the exemption for charitable purposes under 8-10.10 is a bit misleading. The definition of “charitable” does not state that the entity must be a 501(c)(3) organization, so this group includes organizations such as labor unions and social benefit clubs.
Another useful resource you might be interested in is the city’s list of reports, https://www.realpropertyhonolulu.com/rpa-report/. The Valuation Tools report shows how much is raised by RPT by classification. With a little bit of math, the cost per classification can be derived.
Also noteworthy are the reports of the RPT Advisory Commissions, which are available here http://www4.honolulu.gov/docushare/dsweb/View/Collection-1656. Those reports include recommendations for removal or reduction of several of the exemptions. (Disclosure: I was on two of the commissions.)
Rick’s whole campaign theme is trust me and change without ever specifying what that change is. It’s the strategy that Lingle won with, and Cayetano lost the mayors race when he released a half formulated rail alternative. So both are likely advising Rick to avoid making any commitments which might piss a voter off. He already has egg in his face for saying he favors stopping rail at middle street and then reversing that post PRP endorsement.
Even if you don’t agree with Amemiya on some issues, you gotta give him points for willing to be specific and committal.
Aloha Brad,
I’m in the middle so please enlighten me on the “specifics” that Keith has spoken to. His tv ads are very similar to Rick’s. They note the general problems but leave us hanging on how they will be solved. Ian’s post could have just as easily replaced Rick for Keith. Obviously, Ian prefers his candidate so he presents the topic with rose colored glasses. Keith’s ads are heavy on the local style I’m a family guy here is my wife and kids blah blah blah………not exactly the specific heavy ads Ian is alluding to.
I agree with you about the empty campaign rhetoric from both candidates, Kawika. It was the strange Rick-in-the-TV aspect that launched me into that post.
If you visit their respective websites (T.V. ads are too short to convey many details), there is a striking difference between the specific policies offered by keith and the lack of any from Rick. Rick is a resume slash testimonials page. In every forum or interview I have watched, when Rick gets asks specific questions, he always says I don’t have access to that information so I don’t have a plan. In fact he criticized keith for having plans at one debate, said that makes keith unable to respond to changing circumstances. I guess he doesn’t know plans can be tweaked.
I can’t figure who to vote for. On one side SHOPO, Hanabusa and PRP endorse the candidate and the other side all the rest of the unions. I vote against the old boy power interests but looks like they rigged both sides.
For those happy with Caldwell’s performance vote Amemiya it will be more of a continuation of the liberal ideology that has done nothing for this city and state. Economic recovery will be the largest challenge facing this city post-covid. I vote with someone who hopefully can help us recover. I don’t trust Amemiya to do so.
This is such a weird election, made even weirder by some of the endorsements. After losing in the primary, Hanabusa — who has sometimes painted herself as a progressive “of-the-people” Democrat who supports the unions and the little guy — immediately endorsed Blangiardi, a business-minded former executive who’s viewed by many as a closet Republican and police booster and who mostly just talks vaguely about strong leadership. Meanwhile, Pine — a “former” Republican from a relatively conservative district who publicly ditched that party label a couple years ago while holding a nonpartisan City Council seat– then endorsed Amemiya, who insists on identifying himself as “the Democratic candidate” in this nonpartisan election, receives support from the party, and touts his values using progressive Democrat cliché buzzwords.
But neither Blangiardi nor Amemiya has offered much in terms of specifics, and the major differences between them seem to be the people who are supporting and seeking to influence them, such as political figures, unions, developers, contractors, and influential country club types.
What would we actually get with either one of these two as mayor? It’s pretty much impossible to know. It’s just a war between two cliques that want to control an empty tree house.
Ian, at one point, you state the following:
“In another place, Rick promises that he will not raise property taxes to pay for the rail.
There’s an obvious problem with this. Property taxes are the city’s primary source of income. Since it is clear that the visitor industry isn’t likely to experience a robust recovery any time in the new mayor’s term, is property taxes aren’t going to be raised, where does Rick think we’re going to find the money to continue essential services for the time being? Or to pay for rail?”
Your assertion that property tax raises are the only way to pay for essential services is not quite correct. For example, the Board of Water Supply collects fees for water use that supports their essential services. Fees for specific services like trash collection from single family homes is another example of possible fee structure changes that could be used
And the local share of the cost for rail system construction has been substantially paid for by increasing Honolulu’s sales taxes by an astonishingly small number of pennies on each dollar spent, which has resulted in significant amounts of tax receipts, of which around thirty percent comes from tourists rather than local residents. The problem with that of course is that when the economy crashes because the pandemic has killed the tourism business and scared away large shares of the customers for the service industry, the sales tax revenues needed to match the Federal transit funds are not there.
Voter depth, we think of others who have been following the news prior 1970 in Hawaii. We are a tiny group of “Baby Boomers” now seniors. fact filled old foggy’s already! Myself included. The majority of O’ahu Voters have little knowledge of history. They just follow the leader. They have no time in modern lifestyle to count the roses or anything else!
So Rick’s marketing is on track!
Uhhh, you do know the Blangiardi TV commercial is not from the campaign, but put out by the PRP carpenter’s union?