They may not have faced off, but Hawaii County’s likely mayoral candidates made their first appearance together in a precursor to this fall’s election at Tuesday’s Kona Town Meeting.
Mayor Billy Kenoi and County Council Chairman Dominic Yagong provided updates to 135 people on the county budget and current and planned projects. They took slightly different stances on several projects and policies, including a recent recommendation by a county consultant to truck rubbish from Hilo to the West Hawaii landfill at Puuanahulu.
“There’s absolutely no decision about trucking rubbish to Puuanahulu,” Kenoi said. “The proposals, the recommendation, the suggestion of trucking from Hilo to Puuanahulu is a suggestion made by consultant RW Beck. There is no plan by myself as mayor to truck rubbish to Puuanahulu. The Department of Environmental Management has a responsibility to take that to the communities, get feedback.”
Yagong told the crowd he opposed trucking garbage across the island.
“I will be bringing forward legislation that would forbid the county of Hawaii from transporting Hilo rubbish to West Hawaii,” Yagong said. “We don’t want any review of that (proposal). What we want is to squash it. We’ll need your help to do that.”
Yagong challenged Kenoi’s county budgets, noting comments he heard from county residents that they hadn’t noticed a significant disruption in county services during the year in which the county’s 2,000 employees took two furlough days a month.
“There’s something wrong there,” Yagong said. “I’m very concerned the way we are balancing the budget, we are heading down a slippery slope. We’ve gotta understand that we’re having difficulties supporting our labor force. Your taxes will have to be raised unless we take steps to reduce our labor force.”
The top-paid 45 county employees earn more than $3 million, collectively, Yagong said. He listed the chain of command in county departments, describing how the administration makes decisions. That needs to be streamlined, he said. Doing so will free up money to hire more people to address the $70 million backlog of repairs and maintenance to county facilities.
Kenoi, who spoke before Yagong, highlighted how much the county has cut its workforce already. His administration cut 222 positions since taking office in late 2008. He has also cut significantly the amount the county spends on consultant contracts. When he took office, he said, the county spent $16 million on consultant contracts. In the 2010-11 fiscal year, the county spent less than $4 million.
The mayor recapped several of the largest West Hawaii construction projects undertaken during his tenure. Those projects include Ane Keohokalole Highway, emergency and transitional housing projects, the West Hawaii Civic Center and the Makalei Fire Station. Several of those, including the housing projects and fire station, came in on time and under budget.
Former County Councilman Curtis Tyler, during a meeting break, disputed the mayor’s comments about the fire station. The council in 1997 approved about $1.6 million for the fire station. The project is slated to be done in August for $15 million.
Kenoi also talked about his recent trip to the Philippines, where he and other county officials toured a geothermal energy plant in Ormoc City. Hawaii Electric Light Co. has issued a request for proposals for a 50 megawatt geothermal facility expansion, Kenoi said, adding his hope is geothermal sources may be explored in West Hawaii.
One plant in Ormoc City is run by three workers, is clean and produces 220 megawatts of power, he said.
“To put that in perspective, if everybody (on Hawaii Island) gets home, 6 p.m. turns on the lights, peak power, (that requires) 180 megawatts,” Kenoi said.
Yagong said geothermal will be one of the hot issues in the upcoming mayoral campaign. He said he supports geothermal, but he is wary of comments Gov. Neil Abercrombie recently made regarding generating large amounts of geothermal power, about 1,000 megawatts, and transmitting the energy via undersea cables to other islands.
“I’m going to make sure the County of Hawaii is not going to be the guinea pig for the state of Hawaii,” Yagong said. “We need to walk carefully. We need to make sure the people of this county are involved in the process.”