Majority rules
Jun 14, 2006 |
Mufi Hannemann
On Tuesday, May 23, a memo–Council Communications 111–was circulated from Honolulu City Council chairman Donovan Dela Cruz to the rest of the council members. The memo effectively reorganized the council’s standing committees, assigning some new chairs and moving some members around. It was affirmed by five sets of initials–those belonging to Dela Cruz, Ann Kobayashi, Romy Cachola, Barbara Marshall and Charles Djou.
At face value, the two-page document was a list of names. But where the names appeared and what titles appeared next to them was the result of a textbook exercise in politics. The story behind this exercise shows the dynamics of politics to be as voyeuristically fascinating as the rules of policy-making are cut and dry.
The rules that apply to the city’s legislative body are straightforward: There are nine council members. Five affirmative votes are needed to pass a bill on three separate readings (with the exception of a required six votes to pass bills authorizing the issuance of general obligation bonds or to override the mayor’s veto). Majority rules.
Think of the council as a crew of paddlers with a steersman who assigns all the other seats–the committee chairs. As it now stands, Donovan Dela Cruz is the steersman, budget chair Ann Kobayashi is the stroker, Barbara Marshall calls the ‘huts’ on energy and public works, Charles Djou powers the zoning committee and Romy Cachola hammers at transportation. Affordable housing chair Todd Apo backs everyone up, while Gary Okino, Rod Tam and Nestor Garcia are more or less cheering from the shore. But what if the coach–let’s call him the mayor–thinks the club can win more races if the seats are shuffled? He lobbies for a new steersman.
Reorganization of the council is a standard procedure; in four years, it has happened four times. A leadership change is typically instigated when a majority of the council desires a shift in the balance of power–it takes five members to select a new chair. And any coup attempt, as it were, is conspicuously coordinated behind many closed doors.
‘Nobody wants to stick their neck out and say ‘I’m going to reorganize the council’ without a fair amount of certainty that they have enough support,’ explains Djou. ‘What was unusual about this re-org is that the mayor got so intimately involved. He was basically leading the charge. He met with me on at least three separate occasions and talked on the phone with me several times.’
Because the mayor and his administration must work closely with the council day in and day out, it’s natural for them to favor the set-up most conducive to getting things done. The danger, however, of an over-friendly council is that it becomes the disgraceful rubber stamp of the mayor’s will that the government’s system of checks and balances seeks to preclude.
Mayor Mufi Hannemann is intimately familiar with a mayor’s ability to orchestrate the removal of an unfavorable council chair. In 1999, through the efforts of Mayor Jeremy Harris, Hannemann was ousted from his then chairmanship of the council. The council members who supported Harris coincidentally received generous allocations for capital improvements in their districts.
Mayoral spokesperson Bill Brennan says that Hannemann did not spearhead any effort to reorganize the council. ‘Basically, I think the mayor was hearing from council members about their concerns about the leadership. It was more the council members seeking the mayor out. He’s always had an open door. Many of them contacted the mayor directly or indirectly asking for meetings,’ he says.
Asked whether the mayor has a personality conflict with Dela Cruz, Brennan says, ‘I don’t see that. The mayor can work with whoever is the council chair. That’s a situation that’s always fluid. Even in this re-org–from seven on the ‘ins’ and two on the ‘outs’ to five on the ‘ins’ and four on the ‘outs’–that’s how leadership changes. That’s the process that’s in place. They’re all big boys and big girls, and they can decide who they want to play with.
‘The mayor knows that process,’ he adds. ‘He respects that process.’
He started it
It’s unclear when the rumblings of instigating a re-org began, though it’s logical to suppose that the minority is always angling to be in the majority. Most members indicate that a disagreement on how to handle the Campbell land sale in Kahuku was the straw that broke the camel’s back.
‘What the chair does makes him look good to his community and makes the administration and the mayor look bad,’ one council member who wishes to speak anonymously expresses, explaining that by pushing a resolution urging condemnation of the land in question, Dela Cruz raised the community’s expectations, obliging the mayor to meet them.
Members have also raised concerns over Dela Cruz’s ‘grandstanding,’ pointing specifically to the ‘ugly attack’ on newly appointed City Managing Director Wayne Hashiro at a recent council meeting. ‘You don’t shout at people and back them into a corner,’ says Rod Tam, describing the incident. ‘You try to help them, because some of them don’t have the answers.’
Dela Cruz defends his aggressive questioning. ‘There were several instances where certain directors were not responsive, and these issues dealt directly with health and safety,’ the chairman says. ‘[In one case,] a reso [resolution] called for a report in December that should have been done in 60 days, and we still haven’t received the report. It’s our job to make sure there’s accountability and transparency. My job as council chair is to support the members, support the body and keep business moving and flowing.’
However, some council members heard grumbles of dissent from outside. ‘I perceived there was a bunch of stuff going on for a couple of weeks, hearing from other people,’ says Todd Apo.
It was at the meeting in La’ie on Wednesday, May 17, that Dela Cruz sniffed trouble. A move to reorganize council was in the works, with the chair losing his post. ‘A majority of the council members made me aware of what was going on,’ he says. ‘It came as a surprise to me.’
According to the Star-Bulletin, Dela Cruz immediately circulated a resolution the following day that affirmed the existing leadership lineup–Dela Cruz as chair, Kobayashi as vice chair, Cachola as floor leader–that was initialed by the majority of council members. Though the resolution was never submitted, this litmus test revealed to the council that Dela Cruz still had the majority’s support.
That same day, however, another resolution was circulating–this one, council members say, from the mayor.
‘Those [resolutions] were floating around simultaneously,’ recalls Apo, who had earlier signed Dela Cruz’s resolution. ‘My point in signing all of these resos is I would sign just about any reso to have a discussion about the council makeup. I guess that’s different from the traditional mentality that you only sign on to the resos you support.’
Some wondered about the relationship between the mayor and Apo. Did Hannemann promise Apo a chairmanship? ‘I don’t know what sort of bargain Councilman Apo and the mayor struck, but it got the game going,’ Djou says.
Asked whether such an agreement had been reached, Apo says, ‘That was my assumption as to what we were talking about. I heard there were a few proposals roaming around about who the potential chairs would be. As I told both of them [Dela Cruz and the mayor], I am not vying for chair, but if it came down to that being the way the council would work best, that’s my jobÖThe point is that you need leadership that can keep us together. Donovan does a very good job as chair. The question that has arisen given the tenuous relationship between his office and the mayor’s office right now is, ‘Is that the best situation?”
Others agreed that perhaps the current situation wasn’t for the best. ‘The mayor approached me to say he wanted to have a better relationship with Donovan Dela Cruz,’ continues Tam, who says he feels responsible because he was the one who originally initiated Dela Cruz’s rise to chair. ‘I looked at [Dela Cruz] as calm and collected and reasonable. What happened is his personality started to change. Elections do funny things to people. People want more recognition. It became a clash of personalities between Donovan Dela Cruz and the mayor.’
Tam continues, ‘Apo gave me a resolution to reorganize he asked me to sign. Both of us had the same concern about [the chair's] management style. I signed right under Apo.
‘Actually, I think Djou set it up and waited until the end so he could play both sides. The mayor told me Djou wanted to bury the hatchet,’ he adds, saying he wants to lay everything on the table in the name of integrity. ‘But people looked at it since I signed second I was not loyalÖas opposed to Djou who waited to play the game so he could bargain for chairmanships.’
Djou is equally as direct at pointing the finger. ‘Right now if you’re on the losing end, you’re trying to shift blame, because nobody wants to leave their fingerprints on it,’ Djou says. ‘At the end of the day it was Mufi’s plan.’
Gary Okino says the mayor did not lobby him at all. ‘But he did ask, and I did willingly sign on to a resolution to reorganize the council circulated by the mayor. I did it because I believe that we need a change in leadership,’ states Okino, who was an outspoken supporter of Duke Bainum, Hannemann’s opponent in the mayoral election.
Five is a lonely number
By this time, Councilman Nestor Garcia, who was unavailable for comment, must have agreed to be the fourth supporter of the reorg (by process of elimination of those who verified they had not signed on), mobilizing the push to get the critical fifth signature. The swing voters in this case, given that Rod Tam and Todd Apo were already on board, were Ann Kobayashi and Charles Djou. Kobayashi and Tam have historically voted together, and Djou and Apo are personal friends–Djou’s wife was Apo’s campaign manager.
‘I was told by Rod Tam or the mayor, I can’t remember, that maybe they had five, but nobody showed me a resolution. I never saw it,’ says Kobayashi. ‘I was asked whether I wanted to move over, and I said, ‘No, I’m not interested in moving over.’ I always tell people if they have five votes, I’m willing to make changes because that means the majority wants a change. Nobody asked me to sign on as number six, so that’s how I knew they didn’t have five.’
Djou says the mayor first tried to ‘feel me out to see whether I’d be willing to reorg’ at a dinner coordinated by the director of city enterprises services Sidney Quintal several months ago. Quintal explains, ‘I was trying to shuttle diplomacy. I said if I could get people together, I would love to do it. Charles Djou said, ‘I would love to meet with the mayor if you could arrange it.’ The mayor wants to be as transparent as can be. He tells us, if you gotta talk to council members, talk to them.’
It’s not surprising that other administrative officials would lobby on the mayor’s behalf. During a recent hearing, the mayor pointed out that the city charter entitles him to a personal representative, a post to which he named customer services director Jeff Coelho. Was Coelho lobbying Rod Tam when he drove him to the Koa Awards dinner in Kapolei on May 18? According to Coelho’s testimony, and to Rod Tam, they saved gas by carpooling.
If some administrative ‘liaisons’ to the City Council are sensitive to high gas prices, others, it seems, are not. On Friday, May 19, Sid Quintal literally tried to ’shuttle diplomacy’ all the way to Schofield Barracks in Wahiawa, where Charles Djou was on duty with the Army Reserves that day.
‘I know Sid, and I think he’s a great guy. I did not know Sid was going out to Schofield Barracks. It was much to my surprise,’ recalls Djou, who says Quintal waited at the gate for a number of hours. Asked about the purpose of his trip, Quintal responds, ‘What I do for the mayor is confidentialÖI’m just trying to bring people together.’
Djou also met personally with Mayor Hannemann later that afternoon. He says the mayor ‘repeatedly expressed concerns about Council Chair Dela Cruz’s leadership.’ Other council members were also present at this meeting–including Dela Cruz. ‘We were all there, so it was hard for everyone to express themselves,’ Kobayashi describes. She says the mayor talked about Kahuku and stated that other council members had some concerns, but he didn’t say exactly what. Dela Cruz believes the mayor’s concerns were based on hearsay or misperception.
According to Kobayashi, ‘The chair was aware [of the mayor's dissatisfaction], but he always hopes to work together with people. That was always the mayor’s strength, too, so they both expressed the need to work together.’
Questions remain about what happened that weekend. Who called who–and who said what? ‘I was told by some council members that the mayor had called them. He did not call me,’ says Marshall.
Meanwhile, Romy Cachola, the remaining potential fifth, was out of town until Sunday night. ‘People were calling me on the mainland,’ says Cachola, who says he spoke with members on both sides. ‘I didn’t even know that this was forthcoming.’
‘There’s only one thing I can tell you,’ he continues. ‘If there’s any change, I’ll be the sixth or the seventh vote. If they have five, I’ll join them.’
Apo claims that phone calls were made, but he essentially shied away from discussing the matter. ‘I have heard a lot of different discussions went on between a lot of different people over the weekend,’ Apo says. ‘I really didn’t have much discussion with anybody including the mayor. I had a brief discussion with [him] Monday to see if there would be enough support to make a change. At that point there weren’t enough votes.’
As for the mayor’s involvement in any discussions, his spokesperson Bill Brennan offers this: ‘If [the mayor] did call other council members, it was at the request of still other council members.’
As for the resolution purportedly being pushed by the mayor, Brennan responds, ‘I don’t know of any such resolution. I never saw any resolution.’
Does he know where it came from, then? ‘I don’t know where any of them come from,’ he says. ‘They’re printed somewhere and someone signs it first and then they try to get other co-signers. And when they reach a certain number, they either submit it or they don’t… At the end of the day, whether they reorg [reorganize] or don’t reorg, that’s who we have to work with.’
The matter was settled on Tuesday, May 23 with Dela Cruz’s committee reassignment memo initialed by the majority of five. While Kobayashi, Cachola, Djou and Marshall now run the more consequential committees, the dissidents were sent to ‘the proverbial doghouse,’ as one member put it. Apo lost his chairmanship of the transportation committee and Tam lost his chairmanship of the public works committee.
‘Sometimes it gets to be personal. You did this or that to me, so you suffer the consequences,’ reflects Tam, who says he told Dela Cruz that he holds no grudges. ‘I like coffee. He likes tea. We’re going to meet and talk story. The common ground is how we can serve the people of Honolulu.’
Likewise, Apo says his personal relationship with Djou doesn’t change. ‘If you start doing that, you start making decisions for the wrong reasons,’ he says.
According to Djou, the personal, when it comes to politics, does matter. ‘What frustrates me about this reorg and all reorgs is it is much more about personalities than it is about policy,’ Djou says. ‘From my perspective, it’s much ado about not that muchÖI tell my family sometimes that City Council feels just like that show Survivor, except nobody gets voted off the island and the same nine contestants keep coming back.’
Honeymoon’s over
As far as the relationship between the administration and the council is concerned, the June 7 council meeting shattered any illusions that no rift exists and no games are played.
The issue under debate concerned the state’s failure to allocate $13 million for a computer upgrade necessary for collecting the one-half percent general excise tax increase slated to begin January 2007. The city administration proposed a $5 million guarantee for the vendor in the municipal budget to ensure the tax collection could proceed.
Council members were enraged not only that the city should compensate for the state’s failing, but that the administration did not properly inform them of the measure–it was explained to five of the members the evening prior to the vote, and it was not mentioned to Marshall or Djou (who both opposed the tax increase) at all.
This provoked an explosive exchange between the two uninformed members and Corporation Counsel Donna Woo, who said the administration had planned to contact them in the morning prior to the meeting:
Marshall: I was in my office until 9 o’clock this morning. You did not come to my office. Nor did you call at any point and ask for an appointment to explain this. So let’s just put the cards on the table. I’m getting more than a little disgruntled here with this behaviorÖ
Djou: Ms. Woo, you’re making statements on behalf of the mayor…?
Woo: To the extent that I’m asking for the guarantee, yes.< \c:
>Djou: OK, Ms. Woo, and if you need to ask the managing director to rescue you, you better darn well ask him, cause I join Councilmember Marshall in being more than a little pissed at the conduct here of the administrationÖThe mayor has represented to me–on numerous various occasions–he has said to me, personally, to my face, ‘No surprises. I don’t have a problem if you disagree with me, but don’t blindside me. Don’t give me surprises.’ Does that policy only work one way?
Woo: No, I’m sure it does not.
Djou: Then how come in this case you made zero–zero–attempts–you and the managing director and the deputy managing director–made zero attempts to come and talk to myself or Councilmember Marshall.
Woo: No, and I apologize for that.
Djou: It’s because you were playing politics, right…? It’s because you believe you can play games with the Honolulu City Council that you submit a letter here just a couple hours before, give us 10 minutes notice, and hope that you can hoodwink usÖ.You guys knew about this in MarchÖIs this reasonable? Is this how you believe the administration should conduct itself?
The measure was tabled, but not before Djou presented a copy of the Honolulu Star-Bulletin, with an article reporting the very information that he and Marshall had not been told. He asked City Deputy Managing Director Trudi Saito, ‘Why was the Honolulu Star-Bulletin and Crystal Kua informed about this but not myself and Councilwoman Marshall?’ To which Saito replied, ‘We have no ideaÖ’ Following that exchange, in true political form, the argument shifted to a finger-pointing match between the mayor and the governor.
Ann Kobayashi concluded the June 7 meeting with an announcement saying that those born in the month of July, particularly on July 6, are ‘compassionate, intelligent, attractive, multi-talented’ and ‘a good leader,’ followed by a friendly jab at Dela Cruz from Djou and Apo. She was kindly referring to the day presiding chair Dela Cruz was born. Dela Cruz responded with a chuckle, ‘Thanks. And I’d like to thank at least most of you for the early birthday present two weeks ago.’
