"I want to make it very clear to the City Council that in passing this budget, they have precluded themselves from passing Bill 35."

But council leaders say that's not so, and that the bill is urgently needed to help farmers. Many lease property from large landowners who pass higher tax costs on to them.

"I think the bottom line is that if you're against Bill 35, you're against agriculture," said council chairman Donovan Dela Cruz, who represents an area that includes much of the island's farm land, including Central O'ahu and the North Shore.

The bill has become the subject of heated debate between the top two candidates in the mayoral race. Mufi Hannemann says it is needed to replace a flawed bill that his opponent, Duke Bainum, sponsored two years ago. Bainum says his bill helped identify tax cheats as intended, and that the new bill is a blatant example of special-interest legislation.

Council budget chairwoman Ann Kobayashi said the bill will be up for a vote July 14. She said she's disappointed that critics have characterized it as a giveaway designed to benefit big landowners.

"Our goal was to preserve agriculture," she said. "We're committed to helping the farmers."

The Hawai'i Farm Bureau Federation is lobbying for the bill, which was drafted largely by a foundation financed by major landowners. The federation says part of the problem is that there are not enough farmers to work agricultural land that has been fallow since the closure of O'ahu's big sugar plantations.

But opponents, such as Councilman Gary Okino, say the real problem is that some big landowners won't agree to restrict their property for farming — and qualify for a tax break that's already allowed — because they can make far more money by developing huge housing tracts later. The bill would allow them to pay less in taxes in the meantime.

The initial version of the bill would have slashed taxes on vacant agricultural land by 95 percent for one year. A later version allows the council to grant unspecified "compromises" on agricultural taxes on a case-by-case basis for one year.

The council was set to vote June 4 — the same day the budget was approved — but postponed action until July. Kobayashi said the issue had become too politicized, but Okino said the delay was meant to legally separate the tax break from the budget.

Harris said that if the council wants to lower the tax burden for agricultural land, it should lower the tax rate for the next year rather than grant an exemption for a rate that has been set.

"They can't go back a year and change the numbers for something they have already assumed is received by the city in this budget," he said.

If the bill is passed but vetoed by Harris, a vote to overturn the veto would require support from at least six of the council's nine members. Harris has line-item vetoed portions of the $1.5 billion budget approved by the council, but some vetoes may be overturned.