A 10-year path to Honolulu excellence
Excerpts from Mayor Jeremy Harris' State of the City address last night at Honolulu Hale.
Almost a decade ago, I came into office determined to build a great city, to ignite a renaissance in Ho-nolulu and to chart a bold course for the 21st century.
At that time, the challenges we faced were daunting. Ten years ago we had no transportation improvements on the drawing boards. We had an obsolete and expensive manual refuse system; and our recycling efforts were minimal. We didn't have enough parks or play fields to meet the needs of our kids, and our aging infrastructure was failing. Waikiki was deteriorating — visitors weren't returning and local families just didn't feel welcome. The city had a negative bond-rating outlook, and property values were plummeting while crime rates were skyrocketing. People felt alienated from decision-making at City Hall, and we didn't even have a Web site to communicate information to them.
The reality was that our city lacked a grand plan. We needed a vision for the future, a blueprint to guide the way, to stimulate community involvement, and spark Honolulu's transformation into the great international city we knew it could be.
From those early years of taking stock and listening carefully to the people of Honolulu, our plans for the future took shape.
Model for the world
The great city we envisioned building was one that would be a model for the world. We saw a beautiful garden city with tree-lined boulevards and fountains, a city with parks and playgrounds for our children, clean streets and safe and secure neighborhoods for our families. We wanted Waikiki to be transformed into a place that we could be proud of, a place that celebrated our culture and our beautiful environment.
We envisioned a sustainable city where open space and agricultural lands were protected, and our environment and natural resources were preserved. A city where energy-efficient buildings and recycling programs flourished, and where refuse and wastewater operations protected our precious environment. We wanted to develop a city that was technologically advanced and well-managed, a city on solid financial footing that reduced the growth of government and kept taxes down.
My friends, we've come a long way in the past decade, and I'm pleased to report tonight on the State of our City.
Sustainable economy
Ten years ago, we set out to build a sustainable economy. We began by diversifying tourism and recapturing the Hawaiian sense of place in Waikiki. We revitalized Waikiki, and in doing that we sparked a billion-dollar wave of investment by the private sector, creating thousands of new jobs.
We restored Kapi'olani Park Bandstand and the War Memorial. And we dramatically improved Kuhio Beach and Kalakaua Avenue, making them pedestrian-friendly places with lush landscaping, fountains, historic lighting fixtures, and statues honoring important figures in our past. We transformed Waikiki from a rundown beach resort into a special place that captures the spirit of our proud Hawaiian heritage.
This year we'll transform Kuhio Avenue. Like Kalakaua Avenue, Kuhio will soon have flagstone-paved sidewalks, hundreds of new trees, hanging flower baskets and historic lighting. We'll make the Kuhio district a vibrant place for our visitors and for the thousands of residents who live there.
We'll make the promenade along Ala Wai Boulevard even more inviting this year, with more landscaping, benches and jogging paths.
And in partnership with the Hawai'i Tourism Authority and the Waikiki Improvement Association, we'll continue the popular Sunset and Brunch on the Beach events. These activities stimulate our local economy and bring residents and visitors together in the spirit of our island.
We saw sports tourism as another opportunity to diversify our visitor industry. So we developed the Waipi'o Soccer Complex and the baseball, softball, tennis and archery facilities at Central O'ahu Regional Park. These facilities have addressed the need for more recreational space for our families. And, they've pumped tens of millions of dollars into our economy, making Honolulu a world-class location for international sporting events.
Last year we made another major advance with the completion of the award-winning 20-court tennis complex at Central O'ahu, which has already been rated one of the top five facilities in the U.S. And to reduce our costs, we've privatized its operation.
Tonight, I'm very pleased to announce that we will begin construction next month of the new tennis clubhouse and a world-class Aquatic Center — the latest addition to our professional-quality sports facilities at Central O'ahu.
Eco-tourism
To promote eco-tourism, we developed such facilities as the award-winning Marine Education Center at Hanauma Bay. And it didn't cost one penny of city taxpayer money — it was completely paid for by visitor fees. And partnering with the Audubon Society, we've preserved Waimea Valley as a world-class nature-learning center.
Our botanical gardens can also become world-class facilities and an important part of our eco-tourism program. Therefore, this year we'll expand our eco-tourism efforts by building a stunning orchid conservatory at Foster Gardens. And at Wahiawa Botanical Gardens, thanks to our community vision group, we'll construct a new visitor center and reception area. And this year, we'll also plant thousands of additional trees and make major shoreline park improvements on both the Windward and Leeward coasts.
We've also made great advances in turning Honolulu into a center for knowledge-based industries. Our city is now recognized internationally as a leader in urban sustainability and environmental stewardship, and our Mayors' Environmental Summit program has become a model for the world. We developed the Asia-Pacific Urban Institute in Kapolei, and we've become the place that Asia is turning to for assistance in building their sustainable urban communities.
Building a reputation as a center for technical expertise is part of our broad strategy for economic diversification and job creation in the years ahead. We want our kids to be able to aspire to more than menial jobs. We want to provide them with the opportunity to become scientists, architects and engineers.
So, this year we'll expand our outreach to Asian cities. In four weeks, at the request of the United Nations, I'll travel to Hong Kong to address an assembly of Asian leaders on Honolulu's advances in sustainability. Our economic future must be exporting knowledge and technology, not just importing tourists.
Our goal to diversify and expand our economic base has sparked our revitalization of downtown Honolulu and Chinatown. We've been preserving and revitalizing our historic areas to rekindle their commercial vibrancy.
Over the years, we've made Chinatown an attractive place to live with the development of more than 1,000 residential units. We've improved public areas with historic sidewalks and lighting, and transformed 'A'ala Park into an inviting place for children and families to play. And we've just added new parkland to the dense downtown area by building an underground parking facility and covering it with the beautiful new Smith-Beretania Park.
Transportation
The quality of our roads is a concern to all of us. The city has budgeted and spent more money over the past decade on road improvements and resurfacing than at any time in our history. But after the devastating storms over the New Year, more needs to be done. And it will be done. This year we'll again be asking the City Council for $40 million to further repair our roads. I urge them to support this vital appropriation.
In addition to resurfacing roads, this year we'll also build the first phase of the new Kapolei Parkway, and we'll construct the Wai'anae Emergency Access Road. Thanks to our Vision Team, we'll make major improvements to King Street through Kalihi. And in partnership with the state, we'll help beautify Nimitz Highway through down-town.
In recent years, we've expanded and improved our award-winning bus system, increasing the number of routes by more than 25 percent and adding over 500 new bus shelters. We've made our buses handicapped-accessible, modified them to carry bicycles, and employed state-of-the-art GPS satellite technology to better manage and track our fleet. Community circulators now serve the residents of O'ahu's outlying areas, and our new CityExpress! and CountryExpress! have slashed travel times between our homes, schools and places of business.
This island has been locked in a hopeless cycle of study, analysis and indecision on transit for the last 35 years. I'm proud to say tonight that we are ready to move forward in the next few weeks with the construction of the first phase of the Bus Rapid Transit system from Iwilei/downtown to Waikiki. This system won't solve all of our transportation problems, but it'll make our existing bus system better, more efficient, more convenient and more environmentally friendly.
Ultimately though, ladies and gentlemen, Honolulu must build fixed rail. But the city can't build it unless the state grants us taxing authority so we can pay for it. I realize the Legislature has repeatedly said that it will not pass such a measure. Nevertheless, at its next meeting, I'll recommend to the governor's task force that the state authorize the city to levy an excise tax to enable us to immediately build a high-capacity light rail or monorail system without time-consuming and costly federal involvement.
Energy efficiency
To make our island truly sustainable, we need to reduce the demand for fossil fuels for both transportation and electrical energy. Tonight, I'm pleased to announce our city's progress in energy conservation in three important areas.
First, we're shifting away from an outdated reliance on large power plants to a new approach where our buildings produce their own electricity. Right here at City Hall, the city has built a co-generation power plant that is slashing our grid electrical demand by more than 70 percent. And, this year, we will build a co-generation facility at the Kailua Wastewater Treatment Plant that will make it more energy self-sufficient.
Second, we're increasing energy efficiency across the board. The city has adopted a model energy code that will save our community over $300 million in reduced energy costs in the years ahead. We've replaced our traffic signal lights with light-emitting diodes, saving more than $250,000 a year on our electric bill. And this year we're also proceeding with a lighting retrofit at 14 city facilities as part of our pledge to cut energy demand. And I'm pleased to announce tonight that we have helped create a partnership between the Board of Water Supply and HECO to cut energy and water usage islandwide.
Shifting from fossil fuels to renewable energy is the third important component of our energy policy. In recent years, we've mounted an aggressive campaign to convert city vehicles to run on nonpolluting bio-diesel fuel. Today, more than 1,000 city vehicles are powered by used french-fry oil.
This year we'll take another significant step in reducing our dependence on fossil fuels with the introduction of 10 new hybrid-electric buses. Our goal is a state-of-the-art transit system that will one day run entirely on renewable energy.
The city this year is also setting up a pilot program to install custom streetlights powered completely with miniature wind turbines and photovoltaic panels. This will allow us to tap the renewable power of the sun and wind. And we'll expand the capacity of our refuse-derived fuel power plant at H-Power to produce an additional 8 million watts of electricity each day from our garbage.
One of the city's most exciting energy initiatives this year is the establishment of a hydrogen power park at Kapolei. The power park will feature a hydrogen generator and an array of photovoltaic panels that will provide electricity and air-conditioning for Kapolei Hale. It will have an electric vehicle-charging station and a hydrogen fueling station for vehicles powered by fuel cells. This partnership with HECO, the state Energy Office, the Hawai'i Natural Energy Institute and the U.S. Department of Energy will make us a world leader in hydrogen technology.
Wastewater
Upgrading our basic infrastructure to protect our environment has been a top priority over the past 10 years.
Wastewater has been the single largest item in our capital budget. Over the last decade, we have spent or encumbered nearly $800 million on improvements to our sewage collection and treatment systems.
And to reduce sewage spills, we've been inspecting and cleaning between 500 and 600 miles of sewer pipe each year, twice the amount required by law.
I'm pleased to announce that by the end of this year, we will have a state-of-the-art ultraviolet disinfection system at the Sand Island Waste Water Treatment Plant complete and operational.
We've developed our Honouliuli water reclamation facility that can treat and recycle more than 12 million gallons of wastewater each day. That's water that can be used for agricultural and industrial purposes without straining our freshwater supplies. And soon, we'll be recycling sewage sludge into marketable agricultural products instead of dumping at the landfill.
Recycling
Over the past 10 years, the city has greatly increased the recycling of its refuse. Of the 1.4 million tons of solid waste disposed of every year on the island, about 35 percent is now being recycled. Yard waste is turned into commercial soil supplements, glass containers find new life as subsurface material for roads, and millions of pounds of steel and aluminum are prepared for reuse. Our city is an aggressive proponent of recycling, but we can and must do more.
The last several months we've been carrying out a very successful curbside-recycling pilot project in Mililani. It's time to expand this effort. Therefore, this year we will implement an islandwide curbside recycling program for every community on the island. We simply must reduce the flow of solid waste to the landfill.
As a leader in the field of urban sustainability, the city is committed to ending the practice of using our valleys as dumping grounds. We'll always need a limited-use landfill in the event of plant failure, strike or natural disaster, but within the next five years, we must commit ourselves to ending the need for daily landfill operations. I urge the council to quickly adopt one of the sites that meets our technical and environmental criteria.
Right now, when our H-Power boilers go down for regular maintenance, or the volume of waste exceeds the plant's current capacity, we have no choice but to divert waste to the landfill. This year the city will begin the development of a third boiler at H-Power so that it can remain in continual operation and end this wasteful practice.
Flat city budget
All of the improvements to our quality of life that I've discussed tonight have been made despite the fact that it's been the most fiscally austere period in our city's history. In the last 10 years, the city budget has been virtually flat — barely keeping up with inflation — with the only real increases attributable to fixed costs that are beyond the city's control — such as mandatory state health fund increases. This stands in sharp contrast to previous decades where Honolulu's budget typically increased nearly 150 percent every 10 years.
Our record of fiscal management during the past decade is exceptional. We've consolidated operations, improved services and increased efficiency with new technologies. We reduced the city workforce by more than 8.5 percent, even though we greatly expanded the number of police officers and firefighters in our public safety departments. Unlike most cities, our AA credit rating has been upgraded, and we now have one of the strongest bond ratings of any city in the United States.
We've made all these improvements and yet, we're still running the city today with $5.5 million less in real property tax revenues than we took in 10 years ago. Had everyone's property taxes been frozen at the level they were in 1994, the city would now have a cash surplus of $354 million. Instead, we provided taxpayers with $354 million in tax relief. We did that to help people get through the recession.
Strong recovery
Now our economy is in a strong recovery, it's obvious that we can no longer continue to run the city with less tax revenue than we had 10 years ago. This year, I'll strive again to keep any tax rate increase to a minimum, if one is required, but no taxpayer should expect to pay less in taxes in 2005 than they paid in 1994. I will, however, be asking the council to repeal Bill 10, the agriculture property tax bill — it is simply putting too much tax burden on our farmers, and it needs to be re-thought.
And of course, I will once again submit a balanced budget to the council by March 2 of this year.
I stand before you tonight, confident that we've kept our sacred covenant with the next generation. We've laid a solid foundation for this city in the 21st century — a foundation grounded in a healthy environment, a revitalized economy, and a commitment to sound and sustainable practices.
For the last 20 years, I've poured my heart and soul into this city. I'm proud of Honolulu, proud of its people, and proud of our city team that has overcome every imaginable obstacle to achieve what I've talked about tonight, and much, much more.
I have 1,000 more dreams to make this city great, enough to fill two lifetimes, and I have 337 days left to bring to fruition those that I can. I pledge to you tonight that I will make every one of those days count. This city deserves every last hour of our devotion.
