State House of Representatives District 28

(Kaka’ako- Downtown)

Overall: Karl Rhoads

Republican Primary: Collin Wong

Wong, Rhoads

Bev Harbin means well. She’s a pleasant lady to talk with. She’s funny, warm and self-effacing, and she is certainly not part of the machine. She’s her own gal. But her foray into politics has been a disaster. We don’t need to go into this again.

So who else is there in this race? There’s Republican candidate Colin Wong, a fresh-faced IT consultant who returned to the Islands after a stint on the East Coast; he also had a job with the Lingle administration. Wong believes that Hawai’i needs to get tough on crime–not an unusual stance for a candidate in this particular race to take; after all, this is Chinatown. (Harbin herself is fighting to get prostitution-free zones expanded to cover all of Chinatown.)

Harbin’s two Democratic opponents in the race, Carlton Middleton and Karl Rhoads, are both members of their downtown neighborhood boards. However, Rhoads, an attorney, was originally one of the top nominees from which Gov. Linda Lingle had to choose from when she appointed Harbin to fill Ken Hiraki’s abandoned seat.

With six sessions working as a legislative aid to state Rep. Marilyn Lee, three years as a legislative assistant to U.S. Rep. Eliot Engel of New York and two years as a legislative aide to U.S. Rep. Louise M. Slaughter, also of the Empire State, Rhoads has more experience working with lawmakers than his opponents.

When it comes to the issues, Rhoads wants to discontinue the shipping of state prisoners to the mainland so that they can be closer to their families here in the Islands, and he feels that residents need to overcome a not-in-my-backyard mentality when it comes to the construction of new prisons. He believes that closed military bases could be used. As for transportation issues, Rhoads believes that we need a ’system that includes interconnected highway, rail, ferry and bus components.’

All in all, Rhoads appears to have a cool head and an analytical mind. Perhaps a little too much for some folks.

State House of Representatives District 30

Overall: Bill Woods

Republican Primary: No one

Woods

>Seven candidates are vying for Dennis Arakaki’s soon-to-be-vacated seat at the State Capitol. In some ways John Mizuno has a leg up on his competitors because of his years working in the office of Rep. Arakaki, first as a clerk and now as a legislative aide and office manager, and his experience in the legal field. (He has a Ph.D. in law, and has worked as an administrative law judge and a judicial law clerk.)

But leave it to us to decide that just isn’t good enough. Sometimes you just want a fresh face, and the transfer of power from a representative to his legislative aide has an air of machine-sanctioned nepotism. Which is why two other Democratic candidates caught our attention–gay rights activist Bill Woods and state Democratic Party Central Committee member Charmaine Crockett.

Although Crockett has an enthusiastic zeal to help her fellow man that is much needed at the State Capitol–and she also has a good head on her shoulders–she’s just getting started in this game. Her better years are ahead of her.

Which brings us back to Woods. Aside from being one of the leading advocates for same-sex marriage in the nation, Woods has also been very active in neighborhood boards, first in Nu’uanu and now in Kalihi. He believes that ‘affordable housing should be at the forefront of public policy making’ and that we should provide tax incentives to those developing ‘worker-affordable housing’ and ‘disincentives for all involved in developments other than affordable housing.’

He also says that ‘tourism funding by the tourism industry is woefully inadequate.’

When it comes to the state’s criminal population, Woods states that ‘alternatives to incarceration such as drug and counseling programs need to be increased,’ but maintains that more inmates need to housed in in-state facilities so that they can be closer to families. Such moves, Woods says, will lower recidivism rates.