Rick Castberg, a political science professor at the University of Hawai'i-Hilo, said there are indeed voters who are unhappy with Kim's property tax increases in 2002, or with the daily traffic jams in Kona.

But Castberg said he doesn't detect the kind of widespread, seething public outrage that would prompt Big Island voters to dump Kim.

"The question is, why toss out the incumbent with a pretty good track record and put in somebody else?" Castberg said. "I don't think there's really much to complain about in (Kim's) performance. I think he's done everything that needed to be done."

Also in the mayor's race are Kelly Greenwell, a Kailua nursery owner and landscape contractor; Roger Christie, a Hilo resident and longtime advocate for decriminalization of marijuana; and Joseph Fernandez, a school bus driver from Mountain View in Puna.

Kim once again is running a modest campaign staffed mainly by his family and will not accept donations of more than $10. He is well-known for his casual, homey style — his uniform is blue jeans and aloha shirts — and for his 24 years as head of the Big Island Civil Defense agency.

"I've always felt that if a person is an incumbent, you have almost four years of work behind you, and I do count on people judging me by work done," Kim said. "If I have to spend a lot of money and resources convincing people I did a good job, I guess I didn't do a good job."

If he wins a second term, Kim said, he expects much of his time will be consumed by land-use issues at a time of rapidly rising real estate prices and increased development pressure.

"You get the sense that people are really getting some anxiety over the tremendous growth here and the loss of a lifestyle," he said.

Kim recently vetoed a major hotel, apartment and retail project at 'O'oma, saying it would worsen traffic on Queen Ka'ahumanu Highway. Kim said the veto was an important statement of his administration's policy on projects that may overburden infrastructure.

Council members are considering overriding the veto.

Yagong criticized Kim's handling of the issue. He said he would have vetoed the 'O'oma project, too, but that Kim should have set out the administration's policy sooner to let developers know where it stands.

The veto late in the rezoning process sent a negative message to others who might be considering investing here, Yagong said.

While characterizing Kim as a likable, honorable person, Yagong said the mayor lacks leadership. He faults his opponent for raising property tax rates and the minimum property tax in 2002, the first tax increases on the Big Island in more than 30 years.

"The bottom line is, the county government and county budget have grown tremendously since Harry Kim was elected mayor," Yagong said. "The bottom line is, when your government budget grows at the rate that it has grown, the only way that you can pay for that growth is through taxation, and the people are asking themselves, what have we gotten in return?"

Kim said the tax increases were unpleasant but necessary to pay for essential county services.

Yagong said another key issue is affordable housing. He said he intends to seek out developers as a way to put new housing on state and county land.

The former councilman also wants to phase out the fees developers are allowed to pay in lieu of building affordable homes. "The in-lieu fees do not build housing, and when a developer comes in, we need to focus on building affordable homes," he said.

Yagong said he wants to change a law that allows developers to designate 90 percent of their units market-priced and 10 percent affordable. "Back in the 1970s it was 60-40, and I think we need to go back there, because right now I believe we're truly in a crisis situation with regards to housing," he said.

Greenwell said he's running for mayor to generate discussion of issues that need attention but are too controversial for mainstream politicians to take on, such as whether drug use should be decriminalized and treated as a medical problem.

He said he is not actively campaigning and agrees with the direction the current mayor has chosen for the county.

Greenwell also wants Hawai'i to chart a course to energy and food self-sufficiency. He proposes extensive use of agriculturally-based fuels such as biomass, and wants more focus on burning trash and geothermal power to generate energy.

Christie said poverty and hard drug use are the community's biggest woes, and both could be "easily remedied" by decriminalizing marijuana. He said high poverty levels on the Big Island are caused by law enforcement's campaign to wipe out the major cash crop of marijuana.

The anti-marijuana campaign created a vacuum that was filled by far more harmful drugs, including crack cocaine and crystal methamphetamine, he said.

Christie said he favors rewriting the county building code to allow low-income people to build simple, safe structures that would not meet the current code.

Fernandez could not be reached for an interview, but submitted a statement that said he is running to "search and recover our government, take control of matters, prioritize and delegate so we can work for the people and island of Hawai'i."

In the nonpartisan mayor's race, if a candidate receives more than half of the votes cast in the primary, that candidate wins the office outright. Otherwise, the top two vote-getters will face each other in a runoff.