KAILUA-KONA — With less than a week to go before the primary, candidates for lieutenant governor are making their final passes across the state.
Both Gov. David Ige and his Democratic primary challenger, U.S. Rep. Colleen Hanabusa, have indicated they want an active and empowered person as their second in command. Each candidate for lieutenant governor has their own take on what that looks like.
State Sen. Josh Green, of Hawaii Island, said if elected he’d take full ownership of the homeless health care crisis in the state while tackling its opioid epidemic.
His plan includes opening several clinics where Medicaid dollars can be used more effectively in a proper medical setting to treat the homeless and drive down costs to the state. The money saved would then be used to fund affordable housing.
“This unique perspective I’ve had as an ER physician has shown me that our families need support in this area,” Green said. “We need a lieutenant governor that’s active 24/7, like I’m accustomed to being.”
Green added that his life’s work, first as a physician and then coupled with his time on the Senate, is the reason he’s more qualified for the job of lieutenant governor than his opponents.
Kim Coco Iwamoto, a former member of the Board of Education, has addressed homelessness as a top issue as well, and couples it with a focus on public education.
She’s advocated solutions to homelessness that include taking a hard line on short-term rentals and returning them to the long-term market, increasing the minimum wage to $22 an hour and increasing state and county funding for mental health and drug rehabilitation services.
To raise money for education initiatives, Iwamoto has suggested examining the state’s tax system.
“We could afford the best public education system, preschool through graduate school, if the Legislature raised the corporate tax rate and property taxes on non-resident investment properties,” Iwamoto said.
She added she’s the superior candidate for office because she’s run a campaign entirely free of corporate contributions, which she says makes her the most trustworthy choice.
Bernard Carvalho Jr., Kauai mayor, echoed concerns over homelessness and said more concentrated direction is needed at a state level to make response more uniform across counties.
He added that disaster preparedness is a paramount responsibility of the office in the wake of the Kilauea volcano eruption on Hawaii Island the flooding that ravaged Carvalho’s own island.
“We may have a hurricane coming our way … and we’re ready (on Kauai),” Carvalho said Saturday of Hurricane Hector. “We got our guys out, we know what we got to do, we deployed our people, we know what resources and what supplies we have.”
He added that his time serving as mayor through times of tumult put him ahead of his competitors in experience and qualification for the job of lieutenant governor, particularly in the capacity of disaster preparedness.
West Hawaii Today was unable to reach Oahu state Sen. Jill Tokuda and former Oahu state Sen. Will Espero for comment on this article by press time.
However, Tokuda said at a lieutenant governor forum in Hilo in June that the cost of living is pushing young, much-needed professionals like teachers out of the state in search of more affordable lives.
“We have to … run government as we all do at our kitchen table,” Tokuda said.
Espero also attended the forum and promoted a platform focused on education, promising he’d visit every public school in the state during his first two years in office. Like the other candidates, he also noted affordable housing as a prominent issue.
“I want to be the housing czar for the next administration,” Espero said. “I want to implement the bills that we have passed.”
The most recent polling numbers, now a little more than two weeks old and produced by Honolulu Civil Beat, have Green out in front of the pack with 31 percent of the vote. In second is Tokuda with 17 percent. Third is Carvalho at 13 percent, while Iwamoto is in fourth with 10 percent of the electorate. Espero is in fifth, pulling 5 percent of the vote.
Roughly 25 percent of voters remained undecided when the poll was conducted between July 19-21.