HILO — It’s beginning to look a lot like an election year. ADVERTISING HILO — It’s beginning to look a lot like an election year. With just two weeks to go before the filing period closes, 10 candidates have filed
HILO — It’s beginning to look a lot like an election year.
With just two weeks to go before the filing period closes, 10 candidates have filed and another seven pulled nomination papers in a crowded mayoral race.
Dozens more have pulled papers and many have filed for seats in the state Legislature, and a crowd is also looking at County Council seats closer to home. In fact, candidate filings so far in the nine council races indicate there may, for the first time, be a female majority on the County Council.
County Council and mayoral races are nonpartisan. If no candidate gets more than 50 percent of the votes cast in the primary election, the top two vote-getters move on to the general election.
The filing deadline is 4:30 p.m. June 7.
The first union endorsement of Hawaii County’s campaign season went late last week to former mayor and 2016 mayoral candidate Harry Kim. Hawaii Government Employees Association — the state’s largest public employee union with 42,000 members statewide — made Kim its first local candidate endorsement.
“Harry Kim is a pragmatic leader who believes in and cares for Hawaii’s working people,” HGEA Executive Director Randy Perreira said in a statement. “He understands how decisions he makes as mayor will impact public employees and the community. Harry embodies middle class values, and he recognizes the rights of workers to organize while balancing the needs of all who call the Big Island home.”
Kim said Monday he was pleased to get the union endorsement, which he said came after a painstaking vetting.
“They had a very thorough review by the board,” Kim said. “I was happy with it. It showed me this was more than just a cursory thing.”
Kim had pulled papers and filed on the last day of qualifying in 2012 when he challenged incumbent Mayor Billy Kenoi, and he missed out on union endorsements.
Kim, 76, was mayor from 2000 to 2008, and worked in county Civil Defense for 24 years before that. He lost to Kenoi in 2012 by a 1,438-vote margin – earning 49 percent of the vote compared to Kenoi’s 51 percent.
Other candidates who have filed to run for mayor are Alvin Akina, Paul Bryant, Pete Hoffmann, Wendell Kaehuaea, Wally Lau, Helel Olena Luta, Shannon McCandless, Timothy Waugh and Eric Drake Weinert.
The council’s four-member female minority could change to a five- or six-member majority, if the current incumbents keep their seats. Two seats currently held by Hilo Councilman Dennis “Fresh” Onishi and Puna Councilman Greggor Ilagan are being sought primarily by women. In fact, three women are the only candidates who have filed so far for Onishi’s District 3 seat and two women are the only candidates who have filed for Ilagan’s District 4 seat.
As usual, Democrats vastly outnumber other parties in the partisan House and Senate races. There’s a sprinkling of Libertarians and one Green Party candidate completing the mix so far.
Many of the incumbent state lawmakers have not yet filed, although most have said they intend to. The lawmakers just finished their annual 60-day legislative session in Honolulu earlier this month, and are now returning to their home island to hold community updates, collect the necessary signatures and file for reelection.
One of those who haven’t filed is Rep. Clift Tsuji, a Hilo Democrat. He’s gathered the 15 signatures he needs of registered voters within his district and he’s pulled his nomination papers, he said.
“I don’t think it’s unusual,’ Tsuji said of the tendency of he and many of his fellows to wait almost to the last minute. “We’re not rushing.”
