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Thin margin lands Apo
in Council seat
He avoids a runoff in the general election
by winning a majority with 47 votes
to spare
Todd Apo says he is proof that every vote counts.
The Ko Olina Resort executive took the District I City Council seat outright in Saturday's primary election, garnering only 47 more votes than the "50 percent plus one vote" threshold required to win.
"Every vote counts. Every little thing we did made that difference," Apo said yesterday at an afternoon news conference at Honolulu Hale.
"We dreamed about it. But with five people running, we knew it would be extremely tough, if not impossible. ... I'm just so happy to be victorious in the primary."
Apo, a Ko Olina Community Association vice president, got 6,761 votes to win the seat, which covers Ewa to the Waianae Coast. His closest competitor was former City Council adviser Patty Teruya, with 3,075 votes.
He also beat out opponents Shane Peters, Cynthia Rezentes and James Manaku.
Apo was in front with the earliest results, showing a 10-point lead over Teruya after 44 percent of the votes were tallied.
By 10:55 p.m., Apo had an outright win by four votes. That margin grew after a fourth printout -- released just after 1 p.m. yesterday -- included tallies of late absentee ballots and electronic machine votes.
At about 8 p.m. Saturday night, Teruya was still holding out hope that she would push the race into a runoff against Apo in the general election. Yesterday she said she looked forward to running again for "this seat or whatever comes up" in the future.
"It was a good race," Teruya said. "I'm very positive about this and knew Todd would do good. He won a good race."
Apo said yesterday he is looking forward to working on his City Council agenda.
He said he will focus on easing traffic in West Oahu and making his district a place to "live, work and have fun."
He said he backs light rail. He has also proposed extending Kapolei Parkway to Ford Island with an existing bridge and then connecting the bridge to Kamehameha and Nimitz highways.
"We look forward to solving the problems for West Oahu," he said. "Hopefully, we bring some new hope."
Apo's outright win ends this year's City Council elections. The only other City Council members who ran in the primary also won their seats outright.
District III City Councilwoman Barbara Marshall, who represents Kailua, Kaneohe and Waimanalo, took a wide lead for her seat, garnering 19,938 votes, or 83 percent of the votes casts for the three candidates in the race. Her closest opponent was retired retail manager Merrily "Leigh" Prentiss, who got 2,045 votes, or 8.6 percent.
City Councilman Romy Cachola -- incumbent for District VII, Kalihi to Halawa -- also secured his position with a large margin, beating out Salt Lake resident and pilot Rocky Ricarte by 5,645 votes.
Council members Ann Kobayashi (Kapahulu to Kakaako) and Nestor Garcia (Kunia to Mililani Town) had no challengers in the race and needed only one vote in the primary to win a four-year term.
