Here are excerpts from Mayor Mufi Hannemann's State of the City address yesterday:

In my first of these addresses in 2005, you'll recall I set forth the six priorities that we needed to right the course of city government: We would be honest, truthful and accountable for the public's money. We would ensure that our first-responders were staffed and equipped. We would repair our roads. We would fix our sewers and tackle our solid waste problems. We would better maintain our parks and public facilities. And we would find solutions to our transportation needs.

Our fiscal policies have earned us an upgrade in our bond rating, saving us money on the bonds we sell to finance our capital investments. We've set aside money to help us weather a rainy day.

During this time, we've managed to provide tax relief to homeowners, and cut rates for farmers to help keep our lands green, open and productive.

Expansion and improvements at our wastewater treatment plants seems to be never-ending. We have projects at Sand Island, Honouliuli, Kailua and Wahiawa.

We've raised fees to pay for this work. We've held to our pledge to use that money for sewers, and sewers only. When we count our budget proposal for fiscal year 2009, this administration will have invested more than a billion dollars in our sewers. That's more than the previous administration spent in 10. We anticipate spending as much as $1.5 billion more over six years, beginning with this one. It's pretty clear that you'll be living with sewer construction for the foreseeable future. But as I've declared many times with other need-to-have city projects, the longer we delay, the more we're going to pay.

In three short years, I believe we've made significant progress on another huge problem I inherited when I came into office: the disposal of solid waste. We've beefed up our recycling efforts and taken other big steps to divert solid waste from the landfill — not to mention toughening our oversight of the landfill.

The waste-to-energy capability recycles tons of waste material into electricity for 45,000 homes. While we await expansion of H-Power's capacity with a third boiler, we're moving on proposals to ship 100,000 tons of waste annually on an interim basis, with the capability to ship more incrementally. We're also seeking out bidders to introduce a new technology to recycle food and green waste into nutrient-rich compost.

Like our sewers, our roads went through years of neglect. Since taking office, we've appropriated $124 million for road rehabilitation, and are expecting to commit another $77 million during fiscal year 2009 to fix our roads.

Here's a report from the frontlines of the war on potholes: Patched 176,000 potholes, resurfaced 111 lane miles, laid 51,000 tons of asphalt.

We have telephone and online pothole hotlines for you to report these pukas. By month's end, we'll have activated a new pothole reporting feature, called the Pothole Patrol, on our Drive Akamai traffic Web site. It will tell you where our Pothole Patrol will be working and allow you to tell us where they can find the potholes in that location.

We've spent millions of dollars to rehabilitate many of our major thoroughfares. Rehabilitation means we do an extensive reconstruction of the roadway, rather than just applying a layer of asphalt.

Our parks should be safe for our children, our kupuna, our 'ohana, and our many visitors — but sometimes they're not. Therefore, one of our proposed initiatives this year will be the formation of a parks patrol. Officers of the Honolulu Police Department would be devoted to patrolling beach areas, beefing up security, and taking other measures to ensure laws are enforced and public places are safe for all of us.

Whenever the subject turns to beaches and parks, talk about homelessness is sure to follow. We're approaching the situation with what I believe is a balance between the need for public access and compassion. Yes, we'd like to clear our beaches of illegal campers, but if they have nowhere else to go, they'll only move on to other public places.

We took a lot of criticism when we closed Ala Moana and Ma'ili beach parks for major cleaning and repairs, then instituted night closures thereafter. However, as everyone has come to realize, while it may not have been the politically popular thing to do, it was the right thing to do. Make no doubt about it, we are going to continue to take back our parks because that's exactly what the people of O'ahu have come to expect of our departments of Parks and Recreation and Community Services, and the Honolulu Police Department.

I've said time and time again that traffic congestion is the most significant challenge to our quality of life. The federally mandated alternatives analysis process identified four possibilities for O'ahu's transportation needs. Of the four, the fixed guideway presented the most effective means of relieving traffic congestion and accommodating the anticipated growth in West and Central O'ahu.

That's why the City Council, in its judgment, voted 7-2 in favor of a fixed guideway. That's why the Legislature and governor, to their credit, supported a local funding mechanism for this project. And that's why our hard-working congressional delegation ... have made federal funding for rail one of their top priorities. The bottom line is the people of O'ahu are tired of studies and being stuck in traffic. They want action and they want it now.