Lingle’s BOE
favorites fade
Only two candidates
who want multiple boards
will vie Nov. 2
Gov. Linda Lingle's effort to stack the school board with people who favor breaking Hawaii's statewide system into local boards largely fizzled in the primary, with just two candidates on the governor's slate advancing to the general election.
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"They want us to focus on the duty at hand, which is improving education within the single state school district."
Seven seats on the 13-member board are up for grabs on Nov. 2. Saturday's primary election whittled the number of candidates to two per seat. Name recognition played a big part in the races, with incumbents faring well, along with candidates who had previous electoral experience.
Although board elections are nonpartisan, Lingle had endorsed a five-candidate slate, known as CARE, committed to creating multiple school boards. Republican legislative candidates included the CARE brochure in literature they distributed door to door across the state, but few voters apparently took heed.
Brian Woolford, coordinator of the CARE group, could not be reached for comment yesterday. However, on Sunday, Lingle discounted the BOE losses, saying the GOP is putting most of its efforts into winning control of the state House.
Darwin Ching, a member of the slate, finished sixth in the race for three Oahu at-large seats and must come from behind to win.
"A lot of people voted based on name recognition," said Ching. "What they need to do now is hear the issues and then make a choice. I think it's going to be an uphill battle to get the message out."
The other member of the slate to go on to the general election, Shad Kane of Kapolei, has yet to be tested at the polls.
A neighborhood board member and retired police officer, Kane is challenging board Chairman Breene Harimoto, who was first elected two years ago to the Leeward Oahu seat. Both candidates automatically advanced to the general election without appearing on the primary ballot because there were no other candidates in the race.
"I feel really good because I know that I've got grass-roots support," Kane said yesterday as he was heading out to hold signs in the afternoon heat. "I belong to a number of different cultural organizations, so I'll be networking within these groups."
Harimoto was on Kauai yesterday for a community forum. He said he has been too busy with board duties and his "real job" with the city to campaign yet, but will get started soon.
"We're advocating responsible change," said Harimoto, who has the backing of the Hawaii State Teachers Association. "I'm hoping my performance as chair will help to carry me through."
Candidates for the statewide board must have widespread appeal to have a chance. Each Oahu seat is voted on islandwide, while the votes of all neighbor islanders are pooled to determine who wins seats on Kauai and the Big Island.
Geography poses a big hurdle for first-time candidates like Maggie Cox, who retired as a principal in December and is running against Mitsugi Nakashima, a school board member from 1988 to 2000, for the Kauai seat. Cox credits the support of the HSTA and other unions with helping her pull ahead of Nakashima, 30 percent to 24 percent. But 40 percent of neighbor island voters left that race blank.
"If they don't know who any of the people are, instead of guessing, they'll just leave it blank," said Cox. "I know we have to go for all these blank votes. We're out sign waving, but that's really hard to do on the (other) neighbor islands."
Lots of votes are still up for grabs in other elections, too. In the Oahu at-large race, the top six candidates attracted less than 50 percent of the vote altogether, in an 18-way race. They must now try to capture other candidates' votes and emerge in the top three to win a seat in November.
Cec Heftel, who led the balloting in that race with close to 15 percent of the vote, said he would continue to run television commercials. His supporters have been holding signs, but because he is recovering from a hip injury, he does not know when he will be able join them.
Toguchi, with 10.4 percent of the vote, and former legislator Lei Ahu Isa, with 9 percent, are also working to hold onto their positions in the final balloting. Toguchi said he could not afford to air TV commercials, but Ahu Isa aired a spot in the primary, with help from her students. She teaches marketing at Kapiolani Community College and management at Hawaii Pacific University, and said her students from both classes had created a commercial for her and want to make another.
"I let them do it for credit," she said. "I pay for the air time."
Robert Midkiff, president of the Atherton Family Foundation, relied on an e-mail and word-of-mouth campaign in the primary and wound up in fourth place. He was traveling on the mainland and could not be reached for comment. But Toguchi described him as a possible dark horse.
"Bob could really pull ahead if he did some advertising," Toguchi said. "He's what community service is all about. I think a lot of people are going to go for that."
Denise Matsumoto, a 16-year board veteran, garnered the highest percentage of votes of any school board race in the primary with nearly 43 percent of the ballots cast. She will face former board member Keith Sakata for the Honolulu district seat.
"We can see the improvements in the test scores that just came out," Matsumoto said. "I think people are recognizing that we are working really hard."
On the Big Island, another longtime board member, Herbert Watanabe, also did well, pulling in 39 percent of the vote, compared with nearly 13 percent for his closest competitor, Nadia Davies-Quintana.
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