IF you go around telling everybody that the sky is going to fall if you don't get your way, and then you lose ...well, then you have to act like the sky has fallen.'' Sky’s not falling,
Harris saysThat's what Mayor Jeremy Harris had to say Thursday about how neighbor island mayors, notably governor wanna-be Linda Lingle, are ''overreacting'' to the court decision against privatizing a Big Island landfill.
Harris says the City and County of Honolulu has been privatizing government functions for the last 20 years -- the city landfill for example -- but he doesn't expect fallout from the Big Island case to undo any of that.
Why not? ''We consulted the unions when we negotiated the city's contracts with private companies,'' he said. Labor isn't going to sue over deals they already OKed.
Makes sense. You can't have a trial without a plaintiff and Harris says he doesn't expect legal challenges to city contracts with private companies. So, for him, the Big Island decision stops right there. Unlike the governor, he sees no urgent need for legislative action. He intends to continue to privatize when it's appropriate. However, just because it's private doesn't mean it's always cheaper, he says.
Politicians don't always get to pick the issues. This one crawled out of a landfill to become the early focus of a gubernatorial race with Lingle on the right, Harris on the left and Ben Cayetano trying to hold the middle.