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A potential deal between state and county governments and the HGEA labor union will be “an albatross around the neck of the taxpayer,” according to Honolulu Mayor Peter Carlisle, who calls the nine extra paid vacation days workers would get a “really, really bad idea.”

Carlisle sat down with Civil Beat on Tuesday, the six-month mark since he was inaugurated, for a wide-ranging conversation about his leadership thus far and the challenges ahead.

Regarding leadership, he acknowledged that some might think he’s “an arrogant SOB,” but said he’s his own greatest critic, because he believes he can always do things better.

Regarding the challenges, he talked about dealing with the results of union negotiations that haven’t gone his way.

Hawaii Gov. Neil Abercrombie last week announced a tentative deal with the Hawaii Government Employees Association that included multiple provisions Carlisle said he does not support.

“I think in his mind, these were things that were OK,” Carlisle said. “There were some things that to my mind were clearly not OK, so I told him that. They were simple and straightforward. I said, ‘You know, you don’t have my approval for that, and I’m certainly going to not say ‘yes’ to a most favored nation clause, and I’m not going to say ‘yes’ to nine extra days off when people already have —Ìýthe list goes on and onÌý—Ìýyou’ve got 21 days of vacation, which is unusual in the private sector, almost nonexistent. No. 2, you’ve got 21 days of sick leave, also a rarity, which accumulate. You’ve also got essentially nowhere near the types of opportunities that they’re talking about whether you’ve got civil service protection or other protection.”

Throughout the bargaining process, Carlisle said he got consistent —Ìýoften daily, he said —Ìýupdates from city negotiator and Honolulu Human Resources Director Noel Ono, as well as Human Resources Deputy Director Robin Chun-Carmichael. But the mayor also knew from the start that negotiations may not go the way he’d like them to.

The governor gets the same number of votes in the negotiations process as the state’s four mayors combined. He only needs one mayor’s support to seal a deal. Abercrombie is a Democrat with a 40-year history of supporting labor interests, and two of the state’s four mayors are Democrats, making them natural allies with Abercrombie.

“Then you have to figure out where to go next, and the obvious place is the Legislature because the Legislature has to approve it,” Carlisle said. “So speaking to the legislators is something that was critically important to me. Being able to go over there, establish relationships with the people who are the money-people over there, let them know what my views are. I’ve made it abundantly clear to them if they want somebody to talk out loud and strong about why this idea —Ìýnine more paid days off for government workers — is a really, really bad idea, I told them I’d be more than willing to let anybody who wants to hear that, hear it from me.”

Carlisle has also been vocal about another “terrible idea” that arose in the state Capitol. He continues to blast state lawmakers who proposed to borrow $200 million from the city’s rail revenue.

“It’s a really bad idea,” Carlisle said. “It’s a terrible idea. And all you have to do is go and speak to (Federal Transportation Administration Administrator] Peter Rogoff and ask him what they look at, and he will tell you from their perspective what the rules and regulations are.”

Publicly, federal officials like Rogoff and U.S. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood have said they want to stay out of Hawaii’s legislative affairs. But Carlisle said that Rogoff and LaHood cautioned Abercrombie against borrowing city rail funds during their visit to Honolulu last month. Carlisle said he couldn’t remember the exact words used, but the message was clear.

“I certainly took it to mean that —Ìýand I certainly made it abundantly clear that, in my opinion —Ìýdoing that is a really, really bad idea,” Carlisle said.

An amended version of the bill passed the House Tuesday, and is headed for a conference committee. If the bill becomes law —Ìýa move that Carlisle characterizes as lawmakers “forc(ing) a loan down my throat when I don’t want it” — it could jeopardize the rail project, he said.

“I think anything that would suggest that we are doing something different with the funding that we’ve got, or the mechanisms of funding that we’re looking at, is risky business,” he said.

In the past six months, Carlisle has made advancing the rail project a priority, and he has been largely successful. Since the governor accepted the city’s Environmental Impact Statement for the project in December, Carlisle punctuated milestone after rail-project milestone with superlative praise and his signature brand of humor.

Some other highlights from his interview:

• He agrees with City Council members who have found more fat to trim from the budget he presented.
• He said stricter enforcement of homelessness is a necessity to keep Hawaii residents from facing conditions like a third-world country.
• Being Honolulu’s mayor is “definitely harder” than being city prosecutor.
• He’s not the “dictator” some might think he is.

Complete Transcript

Civil Beat: Let’s start by talking about HGEA deal. Tell me a little bit about what the impact to the city would be.
Peter Carlisle: I can’t see how we could possibly balance our budget or get the 5 percent budget reduction that we’ve all been aiming for if we’re giving away nine more days of administrative time, which is, in effect, vacation leave that doesn’t accrue. So we’re paying for people not to work, and that is an equivalent of —Ìýfrom what I understand —Ìýabout 3.5 percent of that 5 percent that they’ve said that we’ve all built in in savings. It ends up ultimately reducing the people that we have available to work, and having people getting paid for not working.

Right, and so the way we kind of assessed that in the newsroom was it almost seems like furloughs by another name.
In terms of impact, that’s a fair way to look at it. Obviously it’s not furloughs but what it does do is it says, ‘you’ve got these people that are supposed to be working, not working, and the taxpayers are paying for it.’

In terms of the way that potential deal came about. I know how it works from a legal perspective, but who was negotiating for the city?
We have a couple of negotiators. Robin (Chun-Carmichael, deputy director of the city’s Human Resources Department) is one of them, and the other one is Noel (Ono, director of Human Resources). Those are the people who are giving me information, and they give me updates sometimes on a weekly basis and sometimes more frequently than that. When it gets down to the nuts and bolts of it, or the nitty gritty, when things are being decided, then it’s a daily basis.

I hear from them what the sticking points are, what’s being negotiated, and I’m aware of it the entire time because I have to be. Because I’m going to have to be able to say ‘yes’ or ‘no’ to a decision. And so they were telling me some of the things that were coming up. They were telling me about the 50/50, they were telling me about the most favored nation clause. They were telling me about this as well, the days off, the number of hours that were being taken off, as well as some of the issues involving the EUTF.

Those things were things that I was aware of and, as a result of that, I realized that there were problems right away.

At the same time it seemed like the governor’s announcement came as a surprise, like he maybe didn’t give you notice.
He called me up and I think in his mind these were things that were OK. There were some things that to my mind were clearly not OK, so I told him that. They were simple and straightforward. I said, you know, you don’t have my approval for that and I’m certainly going to not say ‘yes’ to a most favored nation clause, and I’m not going to say ‘yes’ to nine extra days off when people already have —Ìýthe list goes on and onÌý—Ìýyou’ve got 21 days of vacation which is unusual in the private sector, almost nonexistent. Number two, you’ve got 21 days of sick leave, also a rarity, which accumulate. You’ve also got essentially nowhere near the types of opportunities that they’re talking about whether you’ve got civil service protection or other protection.

So, I was not looking forward to any of those things being something that could now be imposed that the government workers get. To me it was like an albatross around the neck of the taxpayer.

One of the things we looked at at Civil Beat a couple of months ago —Ìýand I talked to you about this ages ago – was looking at how are these union negotiations going to go, based on the fact that the governor has a very strong history of labor support and we have two very clearly Democratic mayors, an independent mayor —Ìýyou identify as fiscally conservative —Ìýand then of course a Republican mayor. So did you kind of know because that was the make-up going in that you might not (get your way)?
You’re always aware of the fact that it just takes one mayor to turn to ultimately end up leading to ratifications of contracts with a union, or negotiations with the union that you don’t approve of. That’s something you have to be aware of. Then you have to figure out where to go next, and the obvious place is the Legislature because the Legislature has to approve it.

So speaking to the legislators is something that was critically important to me. Being able to go over there, establish relationships with the people who are the money-people over there, let them know what my views are. I’ve made it abundantly clear to them if they want somebody to talk out loud and strong about why this idea —Ìýnine more paid days off for government workers — is a really, really bad idea, I told them I’d be more than willing to let anybody who wants to hear that, hear it from me.

One of the other things we’re looking at, in terms of some of the tensions between state and city government, the proposal for the state to borrow some of the rail funds, and I know that’s something that you’ve talked about as a bad idea.
It’s a really bad idea. It’s a terrible idea. And all you have to do is go and speak to Peter Rogoff and ask him what they look at, and he will tell you from their perspective what the rules and regulations are.

I understand that he cautioned the governor against proceeding with that.
I would say that that would be how I would have interpreted what he said. But then again, since I can’t remember the exact words, I certainly took it to mean that —Ìýand I certainly made it abundantly clear that, in my opinion —Ìýdoing that is a really, really bad idea.

Do you think that that message (sunk in)?
I think most of them have gotten it.

If for some reason the state —ÌýI think it would be difficult for them to borrow the money without city approval, if not impossible— Ìý
You mean force a loan down my throat when I don’t want it?

If they were able to do that, would that jeopardize the rail project?
I think anything that would suggest that we are doing something different with the funding that we’ve got, or the mechanisms of funding that we’re looking at, is risky business.

So moving a little bit into rail, I’ve been trying to track these protests, which I understand may be a natural part of any contract,Ìýespecially a lucrative one—
Yes, if the shoes were on the opposite foot, the other people would be doing exactly what these people are doing.

Right. But there have been some interesting issues raised in the protests… The design/build cost versus the operations and maintenance cost. One of the protests suggests that, through Ansaldo and over the lifetime of the project, we’ll have to end up paying $900 million more. And of course operations and maintenance is a component that wouldn’t be covered by the $1.55 billion we’re trying to get from the federal government.
Correct.

So I’m wondering, again we don’t know that the $900 million figure is accurate, but knowing that there could be a possibility of a heavier burden on taxpayers—
We’re doing everything we can to keep the operations as inexpensive as possible, as well as having a very genuine quality product. Ansaldo, particularly because of its work on the Copenhagen projectÌý— which is, from my understanding, by almost all accolades, one of the top projects on the planet Earth, and they’ve been rehired to continue to do what they’re doing, which is operating it —Ìýthat leads me to believe that there are impressive reasons to look at that as the type of thing that we’re hoping to get here.

So, getting the overall value of what you think is the best quality product—
Correct.

—Is enough to sort of ease concerns about having heavier O&M?
You don’t want to buy a Ferrari, and you don’t want to buy an . You want to get something that’s practical, works well, and saves as much money for the taxpayers without that compromising the utility and value of the product. So it’s all value-based.

OK, and then, along those lines, I understand the City Council Transportation Chair is actually going to travel to Copenhagen and check out the system. If you’ve read Civil Beat, we’ve reported about some of the tensions between the chairman and the administration— Ìý
I read Civil beat.

Very good! I’m glad. And so, I’m just wondering: I talked to (City Council Transportation Chairman Breene Harimoto) yesterday and he said he came and apologized to you for maybe at coming at some of his disagreements with the administration in anger. I wondered if you could just tell me about where you guys stand today.
Well. Both of us are 100 percent on board with rail. That’s the bottom line. He wants the rail project to go forward in the worst way, so do I. He wants to support it in every way he can. I believe that’s true for the vast majority of the people on the council. I think there are a few naysayers but I think that the people who are there have lots of reasons to understand why this has always been an important project and now is even a more important project because of the anticipated downturn and the employment situation largely due to the problems that Japan is having.

Can you tell me a little bit more about your meeting with the Transportation Committee Chairman? He said that he apologized to you and I asked him if you apologized to him and he said, ‘Well, you should ask the mayor.’
I’m not going to get into a fight between me and him. There’s no reason for it, and there’s no reason to suspect that the problems haven’t been addressed.

So things are good?
Things are just fine. As long as he’s for rail, which he is. And as long as I’m for rail, which I am, we’re going to get along splendidly.

So we wrote the stories about your six-month mark that ran yesterday—
And I read them twice.

Oh, you did? OK. Well, I’m always interested in your feedback. One of the things that I explored was this sort of new experience for you in having to deal with a legislative body.
I think that’s probably because you didn’t know my history. I spent a lot of time as prosecutor pushing legislation, changing constitutional provisions in front of the Legislature, so I’ve had the experience of going before the Legislature as a prosecutor. And we also had the experience, as you’ve seen, the prosecutor comes over here and speaks about their budget as well. So that’s something that I was used to on this side of the street.

Happily, when you’re the prosecutor coming over here, you’re treated with golden gloves because nobody wants to give a hard time to a law enforcement officer. So, as a result, I would say you’re right, my relationship with the council is now dramatically different as the mayor than it was as the prosecutor. There’s certainly a lot more to it, and I spend a lot more time speaking to them individually than I did when I was the prosecutor. As the prosecutor, you just come over and say, ‘Hey, I’m from law enforcement, crime’s going down. We need to keep the same amount of money that we’ve been making to keep crime going down.’

And that sounds good to people.
And that sounds good, and everybody says —Ìýparticularly if you’re a prosecutor who’s perceived as being popular —Ìýthen nobody wants to mess with you. As a mayor, you can never be completely popular because on any given day you’ll offend one half of the people, and on the next day you’ll offend the other half of the people.

And there’s sort of this buck-stops-here mentality, where any problem anyone has with any facet of the city becomes the mayor’s problem.
And actually that’s true, right? I mean I think I said it on (PBS) Island Insights but we are in fact an office of information and complaint, with complaint underlined. And that’s really what we’re supposed to be. If people have problems with potholes, if they have problems with roads, if they have problems with parks, if they have problems with the budget, if they have problems with rail, we get all of that, and rightly so.

It is a place where there really is a genuine interaction between the people who are getting the services and the people who are supposed to be delivering them. I think here in Hawaii, I think it’s a little different than on the mainland. In New York City, you’re going to be going to the mayor for what’s wrong, and you’re not going to be hiking up to Albany for someone who is distant, faraway and doesn’t seem to be directly connected with you.

Here, because we’re all so close together, you can be connected almost as quickly to the governor as you can to the mayor but frankly there you’re talking about a different level of policy and not really the nuts and bolts, many times, of what needs to be done in your day-to-day life of going from Point A to Point B, receiving sewer fees, sewer services and all the rest that city government does.

I want to go back in a moment to looking over the six months, but I just want to make sure: I have to ask you about the budget. The City Council Budget chairman has said that he didn’t think your spending plan was truly lean, which was sort of a surprising criticism because one of your campaign themes was getting “the financial house in order.”
Well you want to be able to be as lean as possible without compromising the services that people expect and deserve. So, some ideas about cutting off entire departments. In my mind, that would be short-sighted in a number of ways. There isn’t a single department here that doesn’t bring some value to the city. Now it may not be something that’s a monetary value but a city has to have culture and arts, as well, for it to be a genuine city, in my opinion. Sometimes those things don’t generate money and sometimes they cost money but they’re clearly something that’s worth having.

I think a great example of that is the Royal Hawaiian Band. It’s been around for 175 years. I think it’s 175 this year. It survived the Great Depression, it survived world wars, it survived everything.

Annexation.
Annexation, you name it, that’s the best point of all. And it will continue to be around, I hope, 175 years after I’m dead and gone. And it should be. This is a genuine tie to the magnificent history of the state of Hawaii, and brings value when people get the opportunity to see them and hear them. As a result, you could have people who are saying, ‘Well, why do you have the Royal Hawaiian Band?’

I think people thought, when I came over here as a prosecutor —Ìýand somebody who wasn’t notoriously art- or culture-oriented because you don’t have to be in that jobÌý— that this would go down the byway, and it certainly hasn’t.

The other thing you want to make absolutely certain of is, we’re now in a global economy, and we now look to other nations to support our tourist base. We want people to come here not only to enjoy themselves but to do business here. That’s going to require a lot of looking out to other locations, and continuing vibrant relationships that we already have with sister cities, and developing more. We don’t have a sister city with Australia. We don’t have a sister city with Canada. That just makes no sense to me.

I know that’s something the City Council has prioritized.
That’s something that I think you realize that that’s not something that isn’t going to cost money to maintain, but there are benefits to it. You cannot sit here and put a wall around you when in fact you want everybody to breach that wall and come here and make this not only the heart of the Pacific but, you know, the hub of the Pacific as well.

Eliminating an entire department — especially something like the Royal Hawaiian Band —Ìýsounds, to me, really extreme. But what about some of the council’s potentially less extreme (proposals), and you can tell me if some of these are reasonable, like reducing departments’ budgets overall by 1.5 percent?
That’s not at all unreasonable. And that may not be reasonable enough.

So then, why did you give the council room to make those kinds of potentially reasonable cuts in the first place? Why not cut it yourself in the beginning?
Oh, because everybody’s going to look at the equation in the beginning and figure out what they think should be cut versus what you think should be cut. Within the first two weeks that I was here, people were instructed that they were to look toward efficiencies, look toward methods of cutting fat. Those directions were given to every department head. They’ve done, to a large extent, a very very good job at it. That included institutions that are as important as the Royal Hawaiian Band. They get it. They do get it.

Now, recently, because of the increasing oil prices, we’ve now given everyone directions saying ‘Hey, what can we do now to ultimately make sure that we’re saving money in terms of the price of energy?’ Because obviously the price of energy is going to be another huge problem. We think we’ve factored that in already and if that keeps going in the same direction, it’s going to cost us millions of more dollars to keep the buildings open, the lights on and the computers working. There are ways you can make that less expensive.

Are there things, aside from the Royal Hawaiian Band example, that you’ve heard from some of the proposed amendments that —Ìýalready —Ìýyou can say, ‘That’s not gonna work’ or ‘They’re crazy on that one.’
I mean I’m sure if you gave me a list I could go down and tell you.

Like one example I could guess you might disagree with would be Council member Chang, with the capital budget, wanting to reinstate $32 million for roads. I know you prioritized really cutting that capital cost.
Correct. I think that there’s a lot of —Ìýpeople need to talk about what their district needs. I have to look at what’s in the interest of the whole. Certainly, since I travel down Kalanianaole Highway on a daily basis, it could use a lot of work. But the question really is, what is the right priority?

Do we want to actually take operating funds for putting together higher cost for roads. It’s easy to say but in the long run, you can’t keep running to daddy’s credit card. You can’t keep on adding debt to debt to debt. I’m extremely reluctant to do anything that’s going to add to the debt and deplete reserves.

One of the things that any sensible person that has a home, who has kids to educate, knows that they have to have a reserve or rainy-day fund, or just a reserve in case something catastrophic happens like an injury or the loss of a job.

So if you’re not doing those things, if you’re continuing to borrow money and borrow money, you’re digging a hole that’s been dug for us before, and not thinking —Ìýin my mind —Ìýprogressively toward the future that we’ll have now the types of reserves that we need, the types of reserves that will sustain us in difficult times and will in and of themselves generate funds.

So tell me a little about why (you opted to) add taxes. One of the things you talked about in your campaign was not burdening taxpayers, so I know some people’s reaction to your budget was, “OK, cut definitely, but why increase taxes?”
Well if you take a look at the tax issue, the tax issue has to do with residential versus nonresidential. Some people think their taxes are going up. In fact, what happened was something that the council had put together expired, and so then it basically fell back to where it was before. That was a council decision. Do I agree with it falling back to the middle where it belonged? Yes. Is it in fact that we are now getting, generating, more taxes from real property than we have in the past? The answer is no. We’re actually getting less.

So if you look at the numbers, the idea that we’ve done something catastrophic for the tax burden, it’s simply something returning to where it was a year before there was this provision that was put in by the city council.

And, frankly, I’m one of the people who’s additionally burdened and I understand that. I think Doug (Chin) is somebody who is not burdened. That just happens to be where you are, and what the base level was and what the assessments of your property are, which has always been true. We are not raising any more taxes through real property now than we did last year. In fact, it’s somewhat less, as I recall.

But it’s still an increase.
Well, it’s returning to what existed before. So the people, yeah, but you get an increase every year. You get a bad review, i.e., a favorable review in terms of the value of your house from an assessor. I mean, so, it’s not like your real property tax is static. It’s always going up and down depending on valuations.

So then what about things like fees for services?
Fees for services, those are something that you can control. If you don’t want to park there, you don’t have to park there. If you don’t want the fee for, if you don’t want to —Ìýwhat are some of the other ones?

Like camping.
Camping! Camping. You don’t have to go camping.

Driver’s license is a tricky one.
Driver’s license, that is a little different but in theory you could live without. There are people who don’t have driver’s licenses. They have Hawaii state ID. Those are things where, if you take a look at those, you do have control over them. You don’t have to go and get the best parking spot at Ala Moana Beach Park and stay there for 10, 12 hours.

Then you take a look at disparities that we have on the city side, I mean, the amounts that we pay for our parking stalls are nothing like what they have to pay in the private sector. If we have it so you actually have an incentive, which we do right now, you get a bargain by parking rather than using TheBus, that’s a mistake. We have to rethink that.

We have to remember what the costs are of free parking, or heavily subsidized parking by the taxpayer. I think if you look what a person makes in city government that’s comparable to what a bank teller makes, and you find out that that bank teller has to pay $200 so they can get to work on time or off, using their car, and they’ve made a choice that that’s something they need to do —Ìýto take care of the kids, to get back, to have more time with the family or whatever it is — then you realize that that’s a real heavy subsidy. That person who’s a bank teller is paying for the person who makes the same amount of money in the city.

One of the issues that seems sort of insurmountable but you’ve pledged to try to tackle homelessness.
I think the key to the whole thing is figuring out who wants to be homeless and who doesn’t want to be homeless. I was reading something today that nobody wants to be homeless. Nothing could be further from the truth.

There are people who choose this as a lifestyle and want to be able to be homeless, don’t like rules and regulations. The people that I’m the most concerned about — along with the children, obviously, who are living in these conditions —Ìýare the people who want to get back to work.

Those people, I think, if you take those and you triage them from the people who are not in those categoriesÌý— the ones who are predators, the ones who are mentally ill or permanent drug abusers and alcohol abusers —Ìýif you take those people and you try and get them the opportunity to be retooled, retrained, give them temporary housing, get their kids in a position where they’ve got some sort of daycare, so that they can go back and start working for a living, that’s where you’re going to see your greatest advantage. If you can do that then you’re in a lot better shape than we’re in right now.

So do you feel like the city has made strides (on homelessness) since you were elected?
Well you recall that it used to be that the city was saying this isn’t our problem, it’s the state’s problem, OK? I think that it’s a good thing that Gov. Abercrombie got Mark Alexander involved…

But there isn’t any doubt in my mind that we cannot have Hawaii being turned into a third-world country because of the number of people who are out there who are sickly, lying on the road, lice-infested, who defecate all over the place, who urinate wherever they want to. If you take a look at all of that wonderful stuff —Ìýlet me take back that word —Ìýall of that unfortunate behavior, what you really need to be able to do is to sit there and say we can’t tolerate this.

And the reason that we do tolerate it is —ÌýI can’t imagine how much money is poured into the homeless problem right now. With their legal advocates, with their social service workers, with the people who feed them and do whatever they can for them. I mean, if you take a look at all of those things and particularly the fact that they’ve got a legal framework that’s unworkable anymore, is a real problem.

What legal framework?
I think once they killed the vagrancy laws, which was done at the Supreme Court level, the opportunity to intervene was taken away. When you intervene it’s just like turnstile jumpers. When you intervene, you find out who the person is, what their problems are and can they be addresses or is it something that needs to have some more serious intervention such as police intervention?

So for APEC, which I know you’ve said you don’t want the homelessness that we have here to be showcasedÌý—Ìýobviously, ideally, we would solve the problem by APEC.
Not likely.

I said ideally!
You do know that nobody’s solved the homeless problem.

So how do we sort of show the best side of Honolulu?
Enforcement.

So you think we’ll see more enforcement, stricter enforcement, closer to APEC?
I think you’re going to see the same level of enforcement that you’ve always had but obviously if you want to have people who are not unpredictable when you’ve got a whole bunch of very significant foreign dignitaries here, and their families, you make sure that you control them.

There’s going to be a much larger police presence and security presence in Waikiki already. So, will that be followed by the police department? Yes. Will that give them more boots on the ground to deal with the people who are unpredictable and risky? Sure.

Who’s running your campaign. I know it seems a little early to talk about it.
Cha Thompson.

And you’re still having a fundraiser this month, right?
Yes. I don’t think I’m allowed to talk about campaign things in a government office. That’s a no-no.

Oh. I apologize for asking.
We can walk outside and talk about it for three or four minutes.

I will take you up on that at some point. In the meantime, looking back at the past six months, if you would share your reaction.
Well, it’s had a bunch of really impressive highlights. I mean, I think the weathering of the tsunami crisis was something that was happily a very useful exercise and a bunch of prayers were clearly answered by everybody who saw what was going on in Japan. I think that this recent effort to help our friends in Japan has been staggeringly wonderful, and that was done basically by the private sector in about 1,000 great ways.

I’m very very pleased with the smoothness of the transition from the other administration to this administration. And while I would have preferred to have seen me arrive at this desk a lot sooner than I did, I was very very happy to have the city –Ìýfor all intents and purposes —Ìýcontinue running flawlessly.

In stark contrast, there has been at least one other area or one other organization that came in and started lopping off heads, and it wasn’t going to really recover. Now there are people who have moved on. In my opinion there are people who have taken those positions who are fulfilling those positions more successfully in a lot of different ways. So I would say that’s a very important thing.

And, two, I think people get the idea that this is not a political office. And I think people get the idea that I’m not looking for another office. I think those are helpful things, and I think in the long term that’s going to make the transition that we need. By and large the most significant accomplishment, if there have been any significant accomplishments, is getting the capital improvement budget under control. That’s a huge difference, and it will pay dividends… Anybody who hasn’t figured out that we can’t keep living under this debt service just doesn’t really understand finances very well in my opinion.

Looking ahead to the next six months, what’s something that you learned along the way that you might apply going forward?
You spend a lot of time talking with people, and you spend a lot of time listening. What I would say is I will continue that. There are times when you have to be very firm with people. I think that’s not something I’m shy about doing, and I’ll continue to do that.

I think what I would say is, going forward, to understand that when you’ve got a problem, how you have to politically behave to ultimately end up getting around it, or through it, or roll over it.

I think that those are lessons that can be learned that can continue to be of assistance in the future.

Is this job easier or harder than prosecutor?
Definitely harder.

It seems like it would be.
It has to be because —Ìýnow, let me put it this way: If you’re in trial, and focused on that trial and that alone, then that’s about as hard a job as you can get. It has this awful part of it where you have to wait for the verdict, which is the worst part of anybody’s existence, as a prosecutor, waiting for the decision. The same is true for this, the worst part is waiting to see if you’re elected or not. That’s awful.

But it’s simply the volume and the variety of the issues. I mean, they’re tremendously different and more varied and sometimes more complex than what you’re accustomed to over at the prosecutor’s office after you’ve been there for 14 years. Now, if I stay here for years and years more, it will be a lot more routine for me than it is right now at the beginning of the term.

If you had the opportunity to clear up a misconception or perception about you, what’s something you want people to know about you that you don’t read or you don’t hear.
You know, I think there’s this tremendous thought that I’m entirely self-possessed and a —Ìýwhat is it? — an arrogant SOB. To those people I would say, from my view of the world, I am probably my greatest critic. While I come across with sort of an entertaining and sometimes grim appearance, I judge myself by higher standards than I judge other people because I know that I can do things better. I know that I can be different, and being different would be helpful.

So if anybody gets the impression that I’m some sort of dictator, I don’t really look at myself that way. So maybe I’m wrong but I tend to think that when I look at how I’ve done things, I always try and figure out, ‘Is there really a better way of doing it?’ And I am more than willing to listen to other people’s advice, and change what I am doing. It’s not me issuing edicts and orders all the time. I don’t think that that’s very valuable.

How do you think you’re doing as a mayor, if you had to assess yourself?
That’s not for me to judge. That’s for the voters to judge and for other people to say. To some extent, that’s going to depend on what your view of being the mayor is.

From my view of it, I’m content with what I’m doing. If you’re somebody on the outside and you think, ‘This is what a mayor should be,’ and you judge me by that standard, I can’t tell you what your opinion is going to be. It could be good or it could be very bad.