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With Frank Fasi, everything is either-or. Flamboyant
and combativeBy Suzanne Tswei
Star-Bulletin"There's no gray. It's all black and white with Frank. If you are supporting him, then you are his friend. If you aren't supporting him, then you are his enemy," says D.G. "Andy" Anderson, who has been both.
In the nearly five decades that Fasi has run for office in Honolulu, plenty of voters have supported him. He won six terms as mayor, serving 22 years in all -- longer than anyone else who held that office.
"You either love Frank or you hate Frank. I still like Frank. It's just we don't speak to each other anymore," says Anderson.
Despite a close 10-year political alliance, the two have had no contact since the 1994 election when Anderson supported another candidate for governor."All of a sudden, my good relationship with him, my good relationship with his family -- I was Uncle Andy to his children -- all of that came to an end. He did mean and vindictive things when there was no reason for him to do that.
"But I still happen to think he was one of the outstanding guys around town. He was an outstanding mayor. He's one of the few politicians who actually leads. He's not afraid to lead," Anderson says.
Fasi was a populist mayor, establishing satellite city halls, People's Open Markets, arts and cultural events, free Summer Fun and other "people programs."
Fasi was particularly proud of his city beautification programs, which include the landscaped civic center grounds around City Hall.
But he may be best remembered for creating the city bus system after the drivers of the old Honolulu Rapid Transit Co. (HRT) went on strike in 1970. Fasi got a $16.4 million federal transit grant and flew to Dallas to buy used buses for Honolulu. He engineered the sale of HRT to the city by setting up a municipal corporation, which later became TheBus.
Fasi also is known for bribery allegations in 1976 associated with Kukui Plaza, a $50 million urban renewal project. An investigation by the state attorney general's office led to bribery indictments against Fasi and his former campaign treasurer, Harry C.C. Chung. Charges were dropped after the star witness refused to testify.
Despite the criminal charges, Fasi remained a popular vote-getter and went on to win the mayor's race that year.
But now the time of Frank Fasi has passed, Anderson says. Fasi, who turned 80 in August, should take his rightful place as an elder statesman, Anderson says.
Fasi has been different things to different people in his long and colorful political career. He has been called ambitious, crafty, ruthless, combative, an opportunist given to self-promotion. He also has been called a dedicated public servant, a tough and fearless fighter for "the little guy."The one thing both his friends and foes agree on is that Fasi cannot quit politics.
"This is something I know for certain: Frank Fasi will stay in politics one way or another until he is six feet under. It's in his blood," says Dan Tuttle, once a political adviser in Fasi's inner circle.
"That man can't help himself," says Bob Dye, who worked as a key aide for Fasi for 10 years at Honolulu Hale.
"I can remember one race, around 1970, when he wasn't running for anything in particular. He was already in (the mayor's) office and he promised not to run for governor.
"But he had bumper stickers printed and passed them out anyway. The bumper sticker said 'Frankly, I am for Frank.' What he was running for, it never said. That's Frank for you. Even when he wasn't running for something, he was running."
Fasi may have known his calling early. He once said, "I wanted to be a U.S. senator ever since I was a seventh-grade pupil in Henry Barnard School in Hartford."Fasi is the fourth of six children born to immigrant Sicilian parents in East Hartford, Conn. He grew up in a slum that he said made the old Kakaako look like a resort.
Fasi once described himself to a reporter as a "brash, dirty-nosed, rough and tough kid." On another occasion he told a reporter that he was a shy child with an inferiority complex.
It's difficult to learn about the young Fasi. Those who knew him are no longer around, and Fasi refused to comment about himself for this article, other than to provide a three-page biography that details his accomplishments.
Newspaper reports said his father, Carmelo, ran a small ice business in East Hartford and later Hartford. Fasi began working for his father when he was 11 and continued hauling big blocks of ice for the next decade while attending school.
"I started off with 25-pound blocks. It was fun for a while. I carried ice until I finished two years in college," Fasi said in an account of his youth during the Great Depression."Like so many children of immigrants, if you are an achiever, you become an overachiever," says Paul Devens, a Honolulu lawyer who was a Fasi Cabinet member.
"It was quite something for some kid from an immigrant family to finish high school. It was really quite an achievement to go to college, and usually it was through sports scholarships. Fasi did it on an academic scholarship. That tells you what kind of man he is," Devens says.
Fasi knew his ticket out of the slum was academic achievement. He graduated seventh in his high school class of 476 and earned a degree in history at Trinity College in Hartford. "Education was the key to everything I have accomplished," he said once.
Upon graduation, Fasi tried to join the U.S. Marine Corps but was rejected because he was colorblind. He tried again and convinced a childhood buddy to take the eye exam for him. Fasi became a Marine, came to the Pacific and was stationed briefly on Kauai.
After he was discharged as a first lieutenant in Boston in 1946, Fasi planned to enroll in Yale Law School, but the lure of a tropical climate brought him back to Hawaii. He became a wealthy man with a salvage business, Frank Fasi Supply Co., before entering politics."The history of Hawaii would have been different if Fasi hadn't cheated to get in the Marines. I ended up with the best boss I ever had. Honolulu ended up with perhaps the best mayor it has ever had. Fasi is undoubtedly the most important figure in the modern political history of Hawaii," Dye says.
As mayor, Fasi was a flamboyant, creative, confident, demanding but supportive boss, Dye says.
"If you knew what you were doing, he stayed out of the way and let you do it. There were some definite goals that we worked toward. There was a sense of direction, a sense of accomplishment.
"You felt you really made a contribution to the community, and he nurtured that kind of feeling. But he was tough on his people, too. He'd ream people for their nincompoop-ism," Dye says.
Jim Loomis, another key aide at city hall, says Fasi was a charismatic leader who had a keen eye for choosing the right people for his administration.
"He managed to surround himself with people who liked him and supported him. Especially in the early days, he managed to attract some very talented people with all their loyalty to the chief, Fasi, as the the common denominator," Loomis says.Despite a tough exterior that he cultivates intentionally, Fasi is a caring husband and father, and has a big heart for the disadvantaged, Loomis says.
"He has a very generous, very soft side to him that he doesn't want out there. He's gone out of his way to help people, but he did it very quietly. He wouldn't talk about it," Loomis says.
Others saw Fasi differently.
Tuttle, who served as Fasi's political adviser and was witness at his second wedding, thought Fasi was quick to claim other peoples' ideas for his own and "threw all his friends aside" after they had served their usefulness.
"He liked to order people around. That's what he was good at. Don't get me wrong, I still like Frank Fasi to this day, but he was the kind of guy who wanted people to do as he said," Tuttle says.
Donald Clegg, a Fasi Cabinet member, thought Fasi was motivated only by what was good for himself. Loyalty was a one-way street, in Fasi's favor only, Clegg says.
"He fired me once for nothing more than he wanted to bring in someone who he thought could help him win the governor's race," Clegg says.
Fasi could be charming, but his confrontational style left him with perhaps no close friends in his old age, Anderson says.
Fasi's closest allies remain his family, particular the family from his second marriage, observers say, and in turn his family is devoted to him.
Fasi was married to Florence Ohama of Kauai, whom he met when he first came to the islands. The couple have five children and divorced after 10 1/2 years.
Since 1958, Fasi has been married to the former Joyce Kono, who is 16 years his junior. They met when she was a University of Hawaii student and a runner-up in the Cherry Blossom pageant. They have six children.
"Joyce is really the best thing that's happened to him," Dye says. "She supports him in everything he does. She is genuinely a nice person, always sweet, always had a kind word for everybody. And she's pretty, and she always looks good sitting on a podium."
Profile
Frank Fasi
Born Aug. 27, 1920, in East Hartford, Conn.
EDUCATION
MILITARY SERVICE
PROFESSIONAL
POLITICAL