Mayor picks
staff chief for
No. 2 slot

Benjamin Lee, nominated
for managing director, has been
handling the daily duties
of city operations

By Gordon Y.K. Pang
Star-Bulletin

Mayor Jeremy Harris is keeping it in his close family of advisers by nominating Chief of Staff Benjamin Lee to be managing director.

Lee's nomination as second in command, announced this morning, is expected to meet questions by the City Council at its Aug. 5 meeting in Kapolei.

Lee, 53, would take the position vacated by Bob Fishman, who resigned in June to become vice president for customer services for Hawaiian Airlines.

The San Francisco native was named the "top finalist" among seven recommended to Harris by a blue-ribbon panel headed by Peter Char, a key campaign strategist for the mayor.

More than 50 candidates applied for the $95,000-a-year job. Among them were former Council Chairman Arnold Morgado, Finance Director Roy Amemiya and Corporation Counsel David Arakawa.

Lee has been handling the day-to-day duties of city operations, the chief job of managing director, since Fishman's resignation.

An architect by trade, he was Harris' deputy managing director from 1994 to 1996 before becoming chief of staff.

Often found battling with Council members, Lee is considered among his closest confidants.

Council Chairman Mufi Hannemann described Lee as one of the "troika" of Harris lieutenants allowed to make decisions without consulting the mayor. The other two were Fishman and Budget Director Malcolm Tom.

Most recently, Councilwoman Donna Mercado Kim accused Lee of pushing for elaborate design schemes on architects of an elderly housing project in Kaneohe, resulting in high bids and ultimately a change in design. Lee denied exerting such influence.

Both Harris and Lee have said that the two think alike and hit it off right away when they both joined former Mayor Frank Fasi's administration in the mid-1980s.

"Ben Lee shares my vision for Honolulu and has the leadership qualities needed to help me move this great city forward," Harris said in a prepared release. "Ben has the talent and resources needed to lead our city team through an historic reorganization of city departments and personnel."

Under the Fasi administration, Lee was director of the then-Department of Planning from 1990 to 1992. He had been deputy director the four previous years.

Before that, the San Francisco native was project manager/architect for M&E Pacific of Honolulu.