 And welcome to Think Tech Hawaii. This show is the state of the state of Hawaii. And I'm your host, Stephanie Stoll Dalton. During the Honolulu Mayor's campaign, this show interviewed many, most of the candidates. And the primary election happened, and that gave us two finalists for the executive position in the state. I guess it's the third highest executive position, or maybe it's the second, but it's a high executive position. So the primary election gave us those people that we now can examine. Now that it's just those two, we're going to take time in this show to examine what competencies and skills the mayoral leadership role requires. And that can help us think about what's required, mandated almost by what's presented, and help decide our votes for one of these fine candidates if you haven't voted already. I think some of us have already received a ballot, but things are going on right now. So this is a good time to get a little more insight into what it takes to do these things from an expert on governing and policy that we're going to talk with today. And he is an associate. And that guest today is Dr. Colin Moore, and he is an associate professor at the UH Manila, and he directs there the public policy center. So Dr. Moore is here with us to do this discussion because he has scholarly expertise in the areas that are challenging the whole nation. And he's also looked closely at Hawaii's situation too. So we've got somebody that knows the big picture and then knows our big picture too. I was going to say little picture, but we're little in size, but our picture is big. So welcome, Professor Colin Moore. Thanks, Stephanie. Great to be here. I'm so glad that you can come and share with us from your point of view and your expertise more about what city county is facing, what we're all going through. I mean, we're all involved in this process, mostly to vote. And hopefully, everybody is in that. But even if they're not, we're all on the receiving end of who's going to be in this role. So what does it take and what are they going to do? So I assume, of course, that COVID-19 has added another layer to your study about governing public policy. But given the mayors that the mayors must cope with all current and any new challenge that arises, even one as big as COVID-19, can you say if you think or anybody thinks that the mayor's role is the most stressful governing role in the state? I mean, in other words, like more than the governor. I mean, because of the level, maybe just a little background on how they are. So being mayor of a city like Honolulu, and obviously, I've never been mayor, but I know people have worked in those offices. And the thing about being mayor is that it's a nonstop job. In other words, you really are constantly just solving problems. If not an ideological job usually, no one looks to you to make broad policy statements and certainly take ideological positions in the way they might in the US Congress or even as governor. There are potholes to be filled, and there are city services that need to be provided. And I think most mayors just think of themselves as solving this string of problems constantly. But COVID adds a new level of complexity to that. So it may not be the most stressful job. I think in a post-COVID environment, probably being the governor's the most stressful job, because ultimately you're the one who's going to be, who has to deal with the more immediate tax issues, trying to interface with the federal government and our congressional delegation and handle the state legislature. But certainly, being mayor of the biggest city would be the second most stressful job. And they're going to have to confront a number of challenges. First will be the huge drop-off in revenue. Although the city is primarily financed by property taxes, there's going to be a lot of people in businesses who aren't able to pay those property taxes. So there's going to be a big drop-off in revenue. At the same time, there's need for more city services, emergency services, and things of that nature. So it's going to be a real challenge. And then on top of all of that, of course, is the perennial issue for the mayor of the city and county, which is rail. Now, technically, the city is that rail is managed by heart, but the city is a major partner with this. And exactly what will happen to heart is going to be one of the biggest questions for whoever becomes mayor or who's elected mayor in a few weeks. I did hear that rail was the number two problem after the number one problem, which was homelessness. But evidently, most believe that the COVID-19 has superseded that. And it is now number one. The others still, I guess, stay in train. But speaking of these two people, we have in alphabetical order, we have got Amma Mia, Mr. Amma Mia, former litigator who's working now in insurance. And then we have Rick Blangiardi, who's got a lot of experience in leadership, in media, actually, right? And as a former football player and coach at the UH. So my interest in what they have in common is, of course, that they're inexperienced and they have no record. They have no political record yet, okay? They're making it now. And of course, Rick Blangiardi got ahead of Amma Mia by a chunk of votes. But the other part that they share, the other commonality they share is that they both come out of athletics. They're at different points in their careers, but there is an age difference. But who knows? They might have been doing the same thing at the same time, athletically. But anyway, I was just wondering, since that is seen to be a feature, and I think that's attractive to the state because of the interest here, especially in high school football, as well as the UH. Anyway, I think that I wanted to know if you thought that makes sense that athletics is the basis for skill sets or competencies that they're gonna need in this job. And in other words, what does it have to do with being mayor, anything? Sure, that's an interesting question. I've wondered the same thing myself. I mean, that is the one common thread that ties them together, that Rick Blangiardi was a football coach at the UH years and years ago. And of course, Keith Elmameo ran the High School Athletics League. You know, partially I think their orientation to athletics and what it brings to their candidacy are two somewhat different things. I mean, Rick Blangiardi is really running on his experience as a businessman, but also his experience as someone who gets things done. And he often uses, he often talks about himself like a coach, although he doesn't coach football anymore. He coaches employees. He turns businesses around. I mean, that's sort of even the way he presents himself. He still looks like a football coach. He kind of talks like one. And I think he's trying to use that message to say, you know, I'm the guy who can give you some tough love. I can organize people and motivate them and turn things around. Keith Elmameo does not present himself so much as a coach, I think, as use his experience in athletics in Hawaii to show that he has deep connections in the community, that he can go and talk to people and find kind of mutually beneficial solutions to their problems, that he is a close listener and he is not going to tell you what to do but maybe to try to lead you along a path where everyone can get along. So they have very different approaches to leadership both tied into athletics, but for Elmameo, it's much more based in his knowledge in the community and his listening skills. And I think for Rick Blangearty, it's much more about being a coach and trying to motivate employees or maybe to some extent all the residents of the city and county. So this seems that then Rick Blangearty is doing more of a process thing, a relationship building thing, the things that you do to make these teams happen. And that's very compelling it would seem. And so I see now what you're saying is bringing that out of his athletic world into the businessman's role that he's had. And that's what he talks about it being. And so... That's absolutely right. I mean, he's really running on his experience and he has some very significant business experience. I mean, more outside of Hawaii than inside of Hawaii. Although he always says he thinks of this as his home but he's run some very, very large companies. And I think that's something voters find attractive. Well, I think that taking on Telemundo, that Spanish language station across the country, which is very important to many, many, hundreds, thousands of people. And he doesn't even speak Spanish. So that was very interesting It shows you what's important, kind of what we're getting to in the talk here is what is it down under there? I mean, on the surface it looks like it's one way but underneath it, it's more complicated. And there are other kinds of things that are in play in terms of capacity and skills. I mean, like Rick's not knowing Spanish did not inhibit in any way his being a huge success for Telemundo. So now we have Keith and he's doing his work with the, he's bringing, how do you see, can you talk about Keith a little bit and how he might be using it and his insurance as a businessman in the areas he's working in, Keith? Sure, I mean, I think that, I mean, I think, again, this is, he's never been an executive in the same way but I think he has always been someone who listens carefully, who's respectful of people and their problems. And I think that's probably been a part of his success in business and in insurance. He's also done a couple of other unique things in the campaign that differ a little bit from how Blangiardi is running it, which maybe I'll mention briefly, which is the first thing is, and this always happens in the Honolulu mayor's race. Although this is a nonpartisan race, it always becomes a little bit partisan. This is just politics. And Keith has been very quick to remind voters that he's a Democrat, that he's always been a Democrat. He's really wrapped himself in the flag of the Democratic Party, which is probably wise in good politics because there are always suspicions that Blangiardi was a Republican or more conservative. And this goes to his businessman image. And the OMEA campaign actually ran some negative ads that made this direct comparison to Rick Blangiardi and President Trump, trying to take Blangiardi, I think reputation for being kind of aggressive, kind of outspoken and turn what Blangiardi has tried to present as a strength, his coach-like leadership abilities as a possible liability by comparing him to someone like President Trump, who doesn't seem to listen to anyone and kind of take a my-way or the highway approach. I don't actually think that's been all that successful for the OMEA campaign. I can't fault them for trying. This is politics. And as an old-time politician once said, politics ain't beanbag, but it's still, I don't think it's worked. I think that people have not found this comparison compelling. What would be an example of that, that you know? An example of this comparison to Trump? Yeah, and yeah. Well, I mean, they ran an ad that made that comparison directly, basically saying that we don't need a media mogul coming into the city and county and telling people what to do. So that was an ad they ran where they've made that explicit comparison. Well, and then that, okay. So that was the Keith Omea side coming on against him like that. Right. And then, I mean, Rick went out on the limb. Rick Blangiardi kind of went out by revealing who he voted for in the presidential election. I thought that was interesting. And he's kind of pulled it back now, but do you see that as playing any role in his run-up? Potentially, potentially. I mean, he is, you know, one of the things that makes this race unique too in a different non-COVID environment, I think Omea would probably be doing better than I expect that he is. But I think that there is this desperate need in a time of crisis for someone who looks authoritative. And I think Blangiardi projects that image in a stronger fashion than Omea who has run a campaign based around, you know, empathy and showing that he understands problems. He understands the community. He's there to listen closely. I think that this environment favors someone, a candidate a little more like Blangiardi. And so I think whatever the people have questions about his political affiliations, that has not ended up being important as it might have been in a different political environment. Well, do you see much difference between their positions on rail? I mean, it seems like they're saying that they're gonna do the same thing. They're almost exactly the same. I mean, Blangiardi used to be far more critical of rail. He has somehow become much less critical. This may or may not have something to do with the fact that he's endorsed by the Carpenters Union. But a lot of his criticism about rail has sort of fallen off. I mean, he's moved pretty aggressively to the center in this race. And so I don't really think there's really any difference. Not that I can see in their two positions on rail. I mean, this campaign isn't really about policy. And so you can try to look at their different policy positions, but that's not what voters are thinking about. You know, they're not reading detailed policy briefs. And so they're voting based on who they trust. And that's what this campaign has been about. I mean, it's really about who these people are rather than what they're saying they're going to do. And I think partly this is because of COVID, partly because the sort of coverage we normally get for the mayor's race has just been crowded out. So it's much more about personality than policy for both candidates. And in this environment, I think that benefits Rick Blangerty who does not have as many developed policy positions as Keith Alamia. Okay, so they have put, in fact, Rick had to be pressed to get his plan up there. And it's short on, yeah, but the Keith plan, Keith Alamia's plan was also short on details, but he did have it up there, which it has a name. Yeah, well, do you agree with, given that do you agree that that Rick Blangerty is a more independent thinker? He's been praised for coming up with novel or creative approaches to issues that have the city council's been dealing with and he's shared ideas with them. And I've seen some statements that were praising his ability to do the kind of out of the box thinking about how to solve problems, is that? Potentially, I think that, I mean, I think that he also has almost no experience in government. And so that, I mean, I'm not sure there's always a full realization of what is possible and what might not be possible. And I think that if he wins this election, he's gonna have to get up to speed really quickly because you're not, because running a government agency or a city is not like running a business. And it doesn't matter how many people say that they think it should be, it just isn't. You're dealing with unions, you're dealing with a city council. If you go in there and you try to just, and you try to lead, you know, lead from the top without the sort of careful consultation that you would do normally in government, you're not gonna get very far. You know, you might be able to make a lot of noise but you're not gonna make a whole lot happen. What, in the case of then making structural changes, I know there's been some suggestions that there need to be some structural change. And of course, I'm sure there are many of them that need to be done after the COVID, but especially one that's come up is that it's only Honolulu that has like no health department and no office of health recommendation, what have you. So to make some kind of a structural change, I'm sure there are other areas where it's the same too. Does Rick Langearty's style make that a more process oriented change rather than a top down, speaking of a top down kind of thing? I mean, so how do you think they'll do under the press to make structural changes in the government? It's gonna be very, very difficult for either of them. I mean, those sort of changes in an environment of scarce resources, I mean, it would really test anyone's leadership abilities. And a part of this, I mean, what's unknown is what sort of city council they're gonna have to work with. I mean, Mayor Caldwell, who didn't until the very end of his term face COVID had a terrible relationship with the city council until very recently, I mean, they were constantly at war which meant a lot of what he wanted to do, he wasn't able to do. And so part of whether Amami or Langearty is elected, part of their success will be who else is gonna sit on this council and their relationship with them and whether it's supportive or antagonistic and that will really dictate what they're able to do. And I think a smart mayor will go in there and try to immediately work with the city council and try to allow them to take credit for some of these changes. But it's tough to lead at a time of resource scarcity because you don't have much to work with. You're probably going to have to implement pay cuts which will anger unions. In a real crisis, sometimes that can work if very, very talented leaders can make that work for them. But I think the jury's out. I think either Amami or Langearty have had some real leadership successes in their careers. So I think it's hard to tell until they're there because they've never held political office before. So like you said at the beginning of this, we don't really have any way to judge their success. And these executive positions can be unique to even, there's many cases where you have very talented legislators who have a lot of government experience, who move into an executive position and just are no good at it. They're much better at fighting the good fight in the legislature than in the executive where it's really far more important to compromise, to try to understand what various sides want. And that can be a very different skill set. Well, yeah, and in fact, for instance, they're both talking about public-private partnerships and all that sort of thing. But one of my questions is, how can they work with the state? I mean, there's a particular governor there now, but, and that's been an interesting performance of their relationship. But now it might get really down to scratch because if we do, I mean, obviously we're not getting any money right now, but eventually the fed's gonna probably have to do something about supporting states. And so when that happens, the state's desperate, so what is it that the mayor's gonna have to do? What does it take to get that relationship in place to be able to really work some deals? Or is it possible or not possible? How do those two roles match? Well, this potentially could be a problem with electing someone with no government experience, although I'm sure Rick Langeardi would say he has experienced making deals just not in government. It'll require the mayor to have a close relationship with our congressional delegation. Governor Ege is so unpopular now that I expect that he is going to almost be cut out of a lot of this. I mean, you can only do that to a certain extent, but I would say for the mayor, the more important relationship is their relationship with the Speaker of the House, the House Finance Chair, Sylvia Luke, the Senate and the Senate Ways and Means Chair Donovan Dela Cruz, those actually will probably be more important relationships going forward because the governor has put himself in a position where he's so unpopular that he doesn't have the ability to really move public opinion. He certainly doesn't have any influence in the legislature. So I'm not sure how much, even if they did have a close relationship with the governor, I'm not sure how much of an ally he would be. I would actually at this point look to their relationship with the legislature. That's really interesting. Now, is that a decent question about the mayor and the governor as I asked it? I mean, was or was that a naive? No, no, I think normally that would be a very important relationship to have. I mean, someone who was very close to the governor, but although Kirk Caldwell is very close to Governor Ege, that wasn't always necessarily true, but it became true when they were mayor and governor had mayor Caldwell helped him a lot in his reelection campaign. I don't know how much that's really helped the mayor so far. And he has a much more contentious relationship with the leadership in the legislature. So normally that would be a key role, but governors, much like presidents, when they have terrible approval ratings as Governor Ege does, that means they lose a lot of their political power. And it means that they're just not in a good position to advocate for the things the city will need, which eventually will have to come from the legislature in terms of appropriations. And then also our congressional delegation is gonna play a big role here. And I don't know the relationship Blangiarity has. I know that Amamiya has a very close relationship with Senator Schatz. So that would be a real point in his favor. Yeah, the senior senator, yeah. Okay, that's really interesting. Well, you know, both of them are going on and on about not raising taxes, and that includes their goals for rail. They're both saying should go to Manoa, but it's only gonna probably get to wherever it's gonna get to. And for that, and maybe it's gonna be wherever it's gonna get to because they're very reluctant to raise any tax or to say that they're gonna raise any taxes that's gonna help us get that rail here into midtown. But what I wanted to ask you from your studies, what are the pressures that come in to drive politicals and people in these elected offices to do something they said they wouldn't do? I mean, George Bush did this, not gonna raise taxes. And then of course he was up against it. So with these two, it's very likely that they're gonna be up against it too in that role. So what is it that makes them go against what they said, especially in our community, which is relatively small, comparatively? Part of it's just need. I mean, part of it is that they sometimes don't even have a choice. I mean, no politician wants to raise taxes. That's rarely a popular position, especially at the city and county level. They may be in a position where they have no choice. If the city simply can't survive, it doesn't have the revenue without that. Now they'd have to do it in a very careful way. I mean, property taxes, raising property taxes is the third rail of Hawaii politics. And we have some of the lowest property tax rates in the country, although the, because property values are so high, people actually pay quite a bit in property taxes, but as a percentage it's very low. But raising that would be the last thing the mayor would wanna do. I honestly think that they really are both banking on a big bailout from the federal government for both the rail and for the city. And if that doesn't happen, I don't know what the plan will be. I think it will be, they will be in a very, very tough position. I'm honestly not sure what they will do without that. I mean, there's only so much revenue the city can raise and increasing property taxes or increasing taxes generally in an environment like this is a terrible, a fiscal decision. Well, do you see them acting differently with regard to being compassionate and more generous with cultural communities that are minority? Do you see, maybe we're getting close to time, Andy, here, but maybe if you can say anything about helping these communities that are so hit hard by COVID and without resources. No, I think they both will share tremendous compassion. They both care deeply about this community. I don't think there's really a distinction there you can draw, but I think they do have different approaches. And I think Blangiarity's approach is more kind of coach, direct leadership and Amamia really is more about close listening. Well, okay, we're at a low time here and means we'll have to wrap it up, Colin. So I'm Stephanie Stull Dalton. This is the Think Tech show of the state of Hawaii. And we've been talking with Dr. Colin Moore from UH Manoa, the director of Public Policy Center. And I'll see you again in two weeks on the next state of the state of Hawaii. So mahalo to Colin Moore and also for all of your attention in the audience. Thank you, aloha.