One Year Later — 2011 State of the City Scorecard
Honolulu Mayor Peter Carlisle is set to give his second State of the City address .
There will be plenty of time for analysis after the remarks. We’ll post the full text of the speech when it’s available, and we’ve also invited his opponents in the 2012 election — former Gov. Ben Cayetano and former Acting Mayor Kirk Caldwell — to share their own versions of the “State of the City.”
But for now we’re taking a look back at what Carlisle said in his first such speech almost one year ago. Did he make good on his promises? How did his initiatives fare with the Honolulu City Council?
One of our key source documents is Civil Beat‘s coverage that day, which focused on the city’s financial health. Carlisle said it was “not pretty.” We also re-read the full text of his prepared remarks.
We’re not parsing every sentence that came out of the mayor’s mouth, but we thought it was important to focus on future-tense verbs and key promises. Here’s our shot at how the most important statements hold up one year later, in the order they appeared in Carlisle’s speech:
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“For the first time the financial disclosures of all city cabinet members that are required by the ethics commission will be placed online.” Score: Pass — The disclosure forms are available at
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“In anticipation of the new office of housing, the city will also be launching an informational website on homelessness. This one-stop-site will provide information on city programs, answers to frequently asked questions regarding homelessness on Oahu, and contact information for service providers and available shelters.” Score: Pass — , part of the city government’s website, includes , and
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“First and foremost, the City must sharply reduce its long-term borrowing for long-term projects. If we borrow, we have long-term debt. Long term debt payments subtract from the total dollars available to the City Council and the Mayor to keep the city running. By reducing the city’s borrowing we can bend the debt curve over time and stop it from increasing.” Score: Pass — The mayor proposed reducing capital spending from $805 million to $526 million. The budget adopted by the City Council raised capital spending to $546 million. The Fiscal Year 2012 budget reduced the amount of general borrowing by over $65 million, according to the city.
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“Second, the executive budget will propose increases to certain user fees, many of which have not been raised in over a decade or more.” Score: Pass — The City Council in June adopted a number of fee increases, including camping, sewage and golf, but not a parking fee hike.
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“To divest ourselves of functions beyond our core services, we are developing plans to offer the 12 affordable housing properties to qualified parties who would continue to operate those properties under existing terms of affordability. Doing so will enable us to retire a number of financial obligations, eliminate significant liabilities and free up resources in several departments.” Score: In Progress — Just last week, that the city released a request for proposals for the 12-property package.
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“With respect to city permitting operations, this year, the Department of Planning and Permitting will begin a digital plan review program. The project will reduce time to perform reviews of plans through automated checking of plan revisions and eliminate the need for paper copies.” Score: In Progress — Planning and Permitting Director David Tanoue said the city expects to start receiving equipment this month for what the city’s calling ProjectDox. “Training and testing to begin in March with expected public roll out in June,” Tanoue said in a written statement.
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“We will also continue to invest in and promote energy efficiency. Another infrastructure investment, the construction of the H-Power third boiler will be complete by the end of the year. This will allow us to convert an additional 300,000 tons of waste, for a total of 900,000 tons of waste annually into 461 million kilowatt hours of energy per year.” Score: Fail — The third boiler for HPOWER (an acronym for “Honolulu Program of Waste Energy Recovery”) is not yet constructed. The Department of Environmental Services said construction should be complete by summer, and the contract calls for the boiler to be fully operational by November 2012.
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“Upcoming photovoltaic and lighting projects will include Kapolei Hale, Neil Blaisdell Center parking structure, Kalihi Palama bus maintenance facility, and Pearl City bus maintenance facility.” Score: In Progress — The city says it’s installed PV on the Pearl City bus maintenance facility and is working with HECO to activate it soon. “We are continuing to retrofit the lighting fixtures to be more energy efficient in offices at Kapolei Hale. We have also retrofitted the lighting at the Neal Blaisdell parking structure and the lighting at the Kalihi-Palama bus maintenance facility.”
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“We are also about to launch an on-line process to allow a resident to apply for and receive a permit for installation of a residential electric vehicle charger as electric cars become available to the public. Thanks to a grant from the federal government through the state, we are planning to install electric vehicle charging stations in our largest parking lots to make it more convenient for our residents with electric cars.” Score: In Progress — The city that it would start accepting permits online. The mayor’s office said the city is going out to bid to install EV charging stations at various public parking lots. The bid opening is March 15.
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“Domestic violence, violence in the home, violence perpetrated on or in front of children creates a cycle of criminality that passes from generation to generation. To combat this social evil Honolulu is well on the way towards creating its own family justice center.” Score: In Progress — Prosecutor Keith Kaneshiro appointed a director for the Honolulu Family Justice Center in October 2011. The office has obtained federal funding and is looking for a site. “Hopefully, we’ll have a first-phase version of the center up and running by July,” spokesman Dave Koga wrote in an email.
Final Tally: Ten promises, four passes, one fail and five still in progress.
