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Let’s just say Honolulu officials are pleased with how APEC went.

So pleased, in fact, that Mayor Peter Carlisle‘s lone gripe about the week-long economic summit is that visiting U.S. Secret Service agents didn’t smile enough.

“I think that there is sometimes with certain parts of the federal government, a sort of a ‘let’s say no’ rather than work the problem, and I’m speaking specifically about some of the behavior of some of the members of the Secret Service,” Carlisle said Wednesday.

“I don’t think it’s a good idea to have people who are frowning all the time. I think that that ends up annoying people and being confrontational.”

Carlisle’s remarks came during a 30-minute press conference in his office where he and five members of his Cabinet ran through a post-mortem of the operational successes and monetary savings the city saw during the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation gathering, which concluded Sunday.

The comments about the Secret Service agents’ gruff demeanor came in response to a question about what, if anything, the city might have handled differently.

“I don’t think that that’s a good system,” he said. “I think the system that we have in Hawaii where we have very, very capable people who protect our governor, who protect our lieutenant governor, who do their job professionally but they’re also friendly in the process.

“I think if people have somebody who is there in a welcoming stance and posture, I think that calms things rather than aggravates things.”

Honolulu Police Department Chief Louis Kealoha said his officers were not adversarial but were instead there to help citizens and protesters get through APEC unscathed.

“A lot of people said, ‘Well, aloha is what makes it work.’ But it’s how we work that makes it aloha,” the chief said. “And I think that’s what our officers showed outside when dealing with protesters, directing traffic or even communicating to the leaders themselves.”

He defended the federal agents, saying they have a difficult job, working 12 hour shifts in a strange place, fighting off the effects of jet-lag. He said police interactions with the federal government were largely positive.

“It’s difficult to have a smile all the time. I’m sure they had a smile now and then,” Kealoha said.

Service with a smile aside, the city said everything went smoothly due to a year and a half of preparation and lots of hard work. Carlisle in particular enjoyed compliments he received from U.S. Trade Representative Ron Kirk, at one time the mayor of Dallas, Texas.

Joining Carlisle in front of the television news cameras were Kealoha; Honolulu Fire Chief Kenneth Silva; Emergency Services Director Dr. James Ireland, who had paramedic teams deployed specifically for APEC; Transportation Services Director Wayne Yoshioka, who handled bus route changes and some traffic closures; and Environmental Services Director Tim Steinberger, who said he received no complaints despite some changes to trash pickup routines in Waikiki.

All five department directors thanked Honoluluans for their patience, and thanked their colleagues for their hard work. They said they learned a lot from the experience, and that the success clearly puts Honolulu in a different class with major cities worldwide.

The officials also touted the savings the city realized. It had budgeted $43 million over a two-year cycle for APEC-related costs, and Carlisle said the savings amounted to at least $10 million. Insurance coverage was projected at $5 million but came in at $3 million, and of the city’s $8.6 million contingency fund, “it looks right now that we’re not going to have to take a penny of it.”

Carlisle said the city’s lawyers are looking into the possibility of recouping $7 million from the federal government. The week before APEC, the Honolulu City Council passed a resolution asking the Hawaii Legislature to in turn ask the federal government for $37 million to cover the costs of hosting APEC.

Carlisle said taxpayers are going to benefit from the improvements the city made to prepare for APEC, things like police officers with better training and improved media and social media communications.

“They’re getting a far more attractive city with a great more status worldwide,” Carlisle said. “It is a global economy, we are a global citizenry, we come from all parts of the world and we are engaged in our number one industry is global tourism. We have to be able to compete with everybody for the tourist dollar.”

Kealoha said there were zero arrests related to APEC, which he said was remarkable for an event this size. In fact, the arrest rate for the whole city was lower during the APEC week than the week before, he said.

The city did not use any of the less-lethal crowd-control weapons it obtained in the months leading up to the summit, he said. Civil Beat reported that HPD spent $700,000 on things like bean bag projectiles, Taser cartridges, pepper balls and long-range acoustic devices.

“The number one objective of any law enforcement agency is public safety,” he said. “What we did to prepare for the APEC summit is we went to different venues throughout the nation. And we saw the devastating damage that protesters can do, and based on what we saw, the advice we got, we did purchase these less-than-lethal weapons. But the point is we didn’t have to use them. Now it would be irresponsible for us as a police department and also the mayor not to have prepared for this.”

Kealoha said he’s still totaling the amount of savings in the police department, which had an $18 million budget for APEC.

“That’s one of the first questions you ask: Was it a success?” he said. “Was everybody safe? Yes. Did we come in under budget? Yes. Okay, cool.”