10 WHO MADE A DIFFERENCE
CINDY ELLEN RUSSELL / CRUSSELL@STARBULLETIN.COM
Mayor Mufi Hannemann, shown in his Honolulu Hale office, lobbied legislators earlier this year to give counties the authority to levy an additional tax to fund transportation projects, including rail transit.
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Sense of mission drives Hannemann
The rail transit issue illustrates the mayor's hands-on approach to his adopted causes
MUFI HANNEMANN
MAYOR Mufi Hannemann cut short a trip to Japan this past summer to head back to Honolulu to resuscitate what at the time was a transit tax bill on life support as it faced a possible veto by Gov. Linda Lingle.
"When I feel something is good for the community, I'll work day and night ... until I get a positive result," Hannemann said.
Through the end of the year, the Star-Bulletin will recognize 10 who changed Hawaii this year. Some were controversial, others shunned the spotlight. But all made a difference. |
A tax increase is not something most politicians boast about, but Hannemann sees the tax as a means to an end: a rail transit system for Honolulu.
Without his personal intervention at both the state and city levels, most observers agree, the move to raise the general excise tax to 4.5 percent for mass transit on Oahu might have met the same fate as a similar measure in 1992.
"It may not have happened," Councilwoman Ann Kobayashi said.
Getting a rail system for Honolulu was not even on Hannemann's radar when he took the oath of office Jan. 2.
That changed when Hannemann heard Gov. Linda Lingle give her Jan. 24 State of the State speech.
"Both Mayor Hannemann and I have been supporters of mass transit on Oahu, and his election offers us an opportunity to look at that issue again," Lingle said in her speech.
He went to work at the Legislature first.
Hannemann not only testified before the committees, but also lobbied lawmakers behind the scenes to get the House and Senate to approve giving the counties -- particularly the city -- the authority to levy an additional tax to fund transportation projects, including rail transit.
After the Legislature gave the green light to the taxing authority, Hannemann next moved on two fronts: lobbying Gov. Linda Lingle to at least allow the bill to become law and helping shepherd the half-percentage-point excise tax surcharge through the City Council, where a similar measure failed in 1992 by a narrow 5-4 vote.
But both routes had their challenges.
Lingle announced that she was going to veto the taxing authority on July 8 -- a Friday -- just as Hannemann was headed to Japan with what he thought were positive indications in the bill becoming law.
After returning to Honolulu, Hannemann asked contacts in business to lobby the governor not to veto the bill. And he engaged his labor supporters to lobby the Legislature to override a veto should it come to that.
In the end, Lingle allowed the bill to become law without her signature, citing concerns about the state instead of the city collecting the tax.
Also during this time, some members of the Council were getting concerned about approving a tax without details on a transit plan.
The Council postponed for a month one of the three required votes, which gave Hannemann time to work out the kinks.
The bill passed 7-2.