Hey, they're getting the old band back together!

First Duke Bainum came storming back from exile. Now Steve Holmes and John Henry Felix have reappeared.

All we need is Rene Mansho and Andy Mirikitani to show up, and we'll have the good bad old days of the Honolulu City Council 10 years ago, back to sing their greatest hits. And you know they had more jive going on than N' Sync and the Spice Girls combined. Ooh, the late '90s/early 2000s were funnnnnky.

Steve Holmes and his inflated resume that he still won't just fess up about.

John Henry Felix and his long disregard for the law, operating his commercial wedding business in his 'Aina Haina home despite zoning fines from the city of $100 a day for years. He eventually agreed to pay $49,500 in fines, reduced from $98,800 which he owed.

The list of indiscretions from that era goes on, but only those two miscreants are running for the City Council again. How short do they think people's memories are?

During his last term on the council, Holmes got caught fudging his resume. He had claimed he got degrees in botany and geology from the University of Iowa. In some versions, he took classes at UH-Hilo and transferred the credits to Iowa to get a master's in botany and geology. The University of Iowa said there was no record of him earning degrees, a point which he still calls a "disagreement" that would cost him too much money in legal fees to straighten out. Goosing a resume isn't criminal, but pretending you're something you're not is a character issue.

Got so bad back in that day that Bainum, pretty much the only one on the council not being investigated for something, called the council "ethically challenged."

Holmes served 12 years on the City Council before a law about term limits finally came into effect and he had to find something else to do (which was an almost immediate appointment into then-Mayor Jeremy Harris' Cabinet). Felix served 14 years on the council before term limits came into effect and ended his reign.

Maybe the concept of term limits needs to be refined. Term limits should be cumulative, not two terms, rest, two more terms, rest again, leave town, then come back for a couple more. Certainly for some politicians, two terms in a specific office should be max for life. We thought we had finally gotten free of these ethically challenged career politicians, but they keep popping up for another whack like Glenn Close shooting out of the bathtub in "Fatal Attraction."

And the worst of it is that the late Barbara Marshall, of all people, wouldn't stand for this kind of foolishness.

Lee Cataluna's column runs Tuesdays, Fridays and Sundays. Reach her at 535-8172 or lcataluna@honoluluadvertiser.com.