EDITORIAL
Harris must provide grit, glitz in last year as Honolulu's mayor

As his days as mayor of Honolulu wind down, Jeremy Harris is painting an idyllic picture of the city he inherited 10 years ago and has run, hands-on, ever since.

In his last State of the City speech last night, Harris indulged himself in what has to be described as a bit of bragging about the changes that have come to Honolulu under his watch.

And, well, he has a right to do some bragging. Over a decade when property tax revenues stagnated and demands for city services escalated relentlessly, Harris managed to keep the municipal government on an even keel.

His signature accomplishments were what might be called the frosting on the civic cake — beach festivals, sporting complexes, landscaping, waterfalls, parks and the like.

City greatness

These were politically popular goodies for Honolulu's citizens, but they were more than that.

Harris sincerely believes that a city is more than the sum of its roads, sewers, garbage routes and other basic services.

To be great, he believes, a city must celebrate itself. The fun stuff does matter.

And that is what he focused on last night. Indeed, when one looks back at the past 10 years, there have been some remarkable achievements.

Waikiki is a more beautiful, people-friendly place than it was a decade ago.

Our streets are shadier and greener. A massive national-class sports complex has grown out of the fields of Central O'ahu. We have made progress (although more remains to be done) toward becoming an environmentally sound, "sustainable" community where 21st- century best practices are the expectation and the norm.

Last night's speech made it clear that Harris intends to provide more of the same in his final year. More sports complexes, more parkways, more landscaping, more alternate-energy facilities and the like.

The downside

But as he heads to the exit door, Harris should also pay closer attention to the work he will leave behind for the next mayor. It is not all roses.

The city's debt burden is heavy, although its overall credit rating remains quite solid. The next mayor will not be able to borrow his or her way out of problems at the pace the city has experienced over the past 10 years.

By necessity, there will be more pay-as-you-go programs that imply either a slower pace or a higher tax burden.

Major infrastructure challenges will also await the next mayor, most notably a system of streets that are in bad shape due to deferred maintenance and a sewer system that demands massive rebuilding, even after $800 million worth of repairs.

Transportation puzzle

The public transit puzzle remains unsolved as well. This can hardly be blamed on the Harris administration, but it remains a fact that a coherent, comprehensive approach to Honolulu's transportation needs remains beyond our grasp.

A frustrated Harris concluded he would never get a full-scale rapid-transit project up and running during his time. So he shifted gears toward a more modest improvement to the existing bus system in the form of a Bus Rapid Transit system.

With his immediate political career on hold, Harris felt free to talk frankly about the need for new city revenues. So he called for a county excise tax and warned an increase in the property tax is all but inevitable.

Harris' time at City Hall has been shadowed in the later years by a lingering cloud of suspicion over campaign fund-raising practices. The final chapter of that story will almost surely be written after Harris is out of office.

Keep the energy

We have noted in the past that as the Harris administration winds down, it inevitably begins to lose some of the momentum and energy it had at the beginning of the term.

It is Harris' responsibility, as he pledged last night, to relight the fire and make the last year as productive as the first.

In the meantime, what Honolulu's citizens and taxpayers want — deserve in fact — is a final year devoted not just to the glamour projects the mayor loves so well but also to the nuts-and-bolts realities of city services that will soon become the next mayor's heavy responsibility.