Resilient Maui gives
Lingle a big boost

Opinions differ about her role in the
island's relatively strong economy

By Gary T. Kubota
Star-Bulletin

WAILUKU -- Maui Mayor Linda Lingle delivered her State of the County address today, touching on her administration's fiscal accomplishments as she campaigns as a Republican gubernatorial candidate in a slumping state economy.

Lingle, 44, who has served as mayor since 1991, is running with a resilient Maui economy that has a lower unemployment rate and more stable tourism figures than other neighbor islands.

While the state and the city of Honolulu have had to lay off workers, Maui County has been able to add government positions.

Lingle said the county government is in a good financial position with more cash reserves than when she entered office.

She said her accomplishments included reducing the homeowners' annual property tax rate from $4.75 to $3.50 per $1,000 of assessed valuation, building three swimming pool complexes, developing Maui Central Park, and establishing recycling centers for trash.

Her supporters have praised her for developing a partnership between county government and businesses on projects such as the Hula Bowl and the installation of playground equipment at parks.

But Ryther Barbin, chairman of the Democratic Party in Maui County, said Lingle has not been a major force behind economic growth.

"The county administration has done very little to help us, and what help we got has been from the businesses and state," Barbin said. "It's not accurate to compare Maui County to other neighbor islands and say we're growing better than them. We didn't have a hurricane like Kauai."

Barbin said Maui County has received major government funding for projects because of the influence of some powerful Democrats, including Sen. Daniel Inouye, who supported building the Air Force's super-computer in Kihei.

Dana Naone Hall, a member of Hui Alanui O Makena, said she would have preferred Lingle buying shoreline lands and beaches at North Beach and and Olowalu, rather than supporting construction projects for swimming pools.

Hall criticized Lingle's style of leadership as too confrontational. "If you criticize her, she has nothing to do with you. I think what you want in a leader is the sense they respect different points of view, even when they disagree."

Hall said Lingle has never invited her to the mayor's office to discuss how to resolve issues. Hall said the late Republican Mayor Hannibal Tavares did, and he listened to her objections about the digging of burials at Honokahua.

Lloyd Yonenaka, a Lingle spokesman, said Maui has been very fortunate and the Lingle administration hasn't compared Maui County with other counties.

Cayetano campaign staff monitors speech by rival candidate Lingle Star-Bulletin staff In political campaigns, opposition research is usually done quietly and behind the scenes. Yesterday, it was done in the open when Linda Lingle, the Republican gubernatorial candidate and Maui mayor, gave a speech at Leeward Community College. Among the 200 people who packed a campus room was Gov. Ben Cayetano's campaign spokesman, Chris Vanderpool, who tape-recorded Lingle's hourlong talk. And among the earliest arrivals was a sunglasses-wearing Cayetano loyalist who works in the state Office of Business Services who, like Vanderpool, took notes. He said he was attending on vacation time. When Vanderpool was asked if Cayetano's senior campaign adviser, Charles Toguchi, sent him to observe Lingle, he replied, "No. I just didn't want to miss it." Lingle said she was not surprised that her talk drew two operatives for the Democratic incumbent. "I expect that," she said. Four years ago, Cayetano's then-campaign public relations consultant, Scott Foster, wore dark glasses when he slipped into the campaign headquarters of GOP gubernatorial foe, former U.S. Rep. Patricia Saiki, to tape-record a Saiki news conference. Cayetano has said, "When I give a press conference, anyone can come."

Don’t cut all state workers’
salaries, Lingle advises

New state employees' health benefits and days
off could be reduced instead, she suggests

By Mike Yuen
Star-Bulletin

Republican gubernatorial candidate Linda Lingle is opposed to a Senate proposal that would impose unspecified across-the-board salary cuts on all state workers.

"I don't think under any circumstances should the state do that," Lingle, Maui's mayor, said yesterday after giving a speech at Leeward Community College. "We made agreements. We made commitments. We should live with those commitments."

But when negotiations for new contracts begin, the state must seriously consider asking its unionized work force for a reduction of benefits for new hires as a way to cope with the state's financial problems, she said.

It could mean a cut of vacation days or sick days.

"I do think they need to make that kind of change for all future employees," Lingle said. Such a move, Lingle acknowledged, would establish a two-tier system for state employees with senior workers making more than junior counterparts doing the same job but who would have been hired under new contracts.

Two-tier systems for salary and benefits are already common in the private sector,Lingle said.

A 10 percent salary cut for all state employees would save the state roughly $150 million.

Cayetano, a Democrat, has said the salary cuts that the Senate is proposing are illegal and unnecessary.

In legislative testimony, Cayetano's budget director, Earl Anzai, has applauded the intent of the Senate measure but noted that wages and benefits are matters for collective bargaining.

Lingle also said health benefits could be reduced for new employees.

A bill introduced by House Finance Chairman Calvin Say (D, Palolo) that would severly curtail health and life insurance benefits for the spouses, dependents and reciprocal beneficiaries of government workers was misguided because it would have instituted reductions "in midstream" for current state employees, Lingle said.

But such cutbacks should be directed at new hires, she said. "You should make it clear to any new hires who come in that they will be hired under a different set of circumstances," Lingle stressed.

The soaring cost of the Public Employees' Health Fund is a major concern at the state Capitol.

In fiscal 1999, which begins July 1, the fund's cost of $229.5 million is more than quadruple what it was in fiscal 1990.

Lingle also said she is opposed to the closing of the University of Hawaii's law school or medical school.

"I think this would be going backward -- decades," Lingle declared. "They're something our state worked hard to achieve."