CITY COUNCIL
Okino recaptures seat against rivals
With half the precincts reported, Tam has enough to win outright
City Councilman Rod Tam appeared headed to victory in a tough race against first-time candidate Michael Wilcox for the 6th Council District seat.
To win the race outright in the primary election for a Council seat, a candidate needs 50 percent of votes cast plus one to prevent the contest from going to the general election.
At last count, Tam passed the mark with more than half the precincts in.
Meanwhile, Councilman Gary Okino, who was handily ahead of the 50-percent-plus-one-vote mark, was outdistancing his two opponents for his 8th Council District seat with half of the precincts reported.
Okino was leading physician Inam Rahman and truck driver Kenneth Harmeyer.
City Council Chairman Donovan Dela Cruz and Councilman Charles Djou had no opponents and only needed one vote to be automatically re-elected.
Wilcox, a Republican, had assistance from Hawaii Republican Party and Djou in trying to unseat Tam in the nonpartisan race.
Djou signed a letter that the Republican Party helped prepare and send to district GOP members asking for both votes and donations for Wilcox, a recording engineer and a car-racing enthusiast who got into politics as part of a group trying to keep a race track on Oahu.
Both Djou and Tam exchanged heated words after Djou's letter came out. Djou called Tam, a former state legislator, an embarrassment to government, while Tam said that Djou's motive for assisting Wilcox was out of revenge for Tam criticizing Djou for playing both sides in the most recent Council reorganization.