Candidates promote expertise

By Treena Shapiro
Advertiser Staff Writer

Stan Koki believes his experience as a legislator and businessman has prepared him to find solutions to the city's problems.

Windward residents from He'eia to Waimanalo will have to decide which of the two in the nonpartisan race will better represent the district, which includes Kailua and Kane'ohe. Of approximately 92,000 people living in the district, 48,000 are registered active voters.

The redrawn district brings together similar Windward communities and reunites Kailua, which is currently split between sitting City Council members Steve Holmes and John Henry Felix. Both Holmes and Felix are ineligible to run for re-election because of term limits.

3rd Council District BARBARA MARSHALL • Address: P.O. 1750, Kailua, HI 96734 • Occupation: Former broadcast journalist • Family: Married, one son • One big idea: "My big idea is giving government back to the people by restoring their trust in the people who represent them and by telling the truth about how things actually are." STAN KOKI • Address: 45-496 Malio Place, Kane'ohe • Occupation: Manages personal investments • Family: Married, four children, two granddaughters • One big idea: To develop use of plasma gasification/vitrification technology, which converts trash into a gas that can be used for electricity or nontoxic construction materials. "If we were able to convert our entire system to this technology, we can eliminate the need for a landfill."

Koki, 55, who served in the state Senate from 1988 to 1994 and was gubernatorial candidate Linda Lingle's running mate in 1998, has more experience in campaigning and is optimistic about his chances after receiving endorsements from two of the three other primary candidates — Don Bremner and Jeff Coelho.

Marshall said, however, that "many of the people who supported other people in the primary have voiced their support for me in the general."

After more than 20 years in broadcast journalism, Marshall, 58, said she would use her professional experience to demand answers on budget issues. "There are questions that must be asked about where our money is going, why we continue to overspend on capital projects," she said.

"People are entitled to know that's going on," she said. "I tell people the truth, whether they want to hear it or not."

Koki, who manages commercial properties here and in Seattle, believes his background in business would be an asset to the council. "The City Council is in effect helping to run a big business, setting budget priorities, working with the administration to make things more efficient."

He added, "I think when a person is trained in business, there's an instinct for finding solutions."

One solution to the city's budget shortfall would be cutting costs by combining the water and sewer departments, Koki said. "There's a lot of duplication of functions between the two."

Marshall, who wants to make the city more efficient, said the council should look at fees that can be charged to visitors as a source of revenue. "Visitors use a tremendous amount of core services and we really don't recoup a lot of that," she said.

Koki wants the city to look into "exciting and creative ways to treat sewage," such as a technique using a constructed wetland filled with plants, microbes and various kinds of aquatic life that can help clean the water enough so it can be recycled and used for irrigation.

Marshall said she is interested in taking a multi-pronged approach to the trash issue, beginning with a mandatory recycling program. She wants to look to new technology, but said for the time being the city will have to continue to use H-Power and the Waimanalo Gulch Landfill.

Koki is a proponent for plasma gasification/vitrification technology, which converts organic trash into a gas that can be used to produce electricity, while inorganic trash can be converted into solid construction materials. "There's really no waste to go into the landfill anymore," he said.

While not opposed to the plasma arc technology, Marshall said, "To my knowledge there is no (plasma arc) facility in the world that is big enough to handle the amount of trash output for this island. We can't use it exclusively for our waste disposal."

For Koki, another priority would be to forge public and private partnerships, he said. For example, the city could turn over management of the Honolulu Zoo to the Honolulu Zoological Society so that the society can make capital improvements and expand the zoo, while the city provides the staff.

He also suggests turning management of district pools to private groups, such as the YMCA or Kama'aina Kids, so the pools can remain open for longer periods.

Marshall agrees that partnerships are ideal when the city provides the seed money for a program, which the communities and private businesses can take over an nourish, but added, "Some kinds of partnerships might work, but I don't think they are the be-all and end-all."

Koki said the city needs to hire more grant writers to help bring in federal dollars. "We really need to have someone searching full-time for various specific programs. They need to follow-up and report back to the grant provider," he said.

As for problems specific to their district, Marshall said the vacation rental and bed-and-breakfast issue tops the list. The city needs to return to licensing the establishments, she said. "The reality of the Windward side is there are a lot of bed and breakfasts and vacation rentals and we need to be licensing them. It's another revenue source we're not tapping that we could, plus it's something we need to control."

Koki said crime is a growing problem in his district. "People's houses are broken into, cars are being broken into, there's drug dealing in public areas and in drug houses," he said.

"We're really going to need to focus on hiring more police officers ... make the pay package more attractive, and we're going to need to create more programs in which the community itself is more involved in spotting crime and reporting crime."

Reach Treena Shapiro at tshapiro@honoluluadvertiser.com or 525-8070.