What's your memory of Frank Fasi?

If you've lived in Honolulu for any number of years, you probably have a story about Fasi, the always colorful, outspoken mayor. Many are personal remembrances.

Here's mine.

I was a student at the University of Hawaii, working at the student radio station at the time Fasi was first elected mayor. On our first broadcast with a new transmitter, we invited Fasi, never expecting he would show up.

But he did, in a tuxedo with his wife, Joyce, looking stunning in a gown, on their way to their inaugural ball. It was my first interview with a real politician. Fasi thanked KTUH for being an alternative voice to the state's two daily newspapers, which he constantly described as “;an illegal monopoly.”;

Later, the Star-Bulletin hired me, and eventually I was covering City Hall and the always flamboyant Fasi. After a series of stories about Fasi's fundraising practices, Fasi refused to let me attend his news conferences.

  Frank Fasi Leaves Legacy

 

One of his former cabinet members called Fasi a man of a thousand ideas and lots of those ideas became reality.

[ Watch ]

 

In 1974 the Star-Bulletin and I went to federal court and sued, saying you could not ban a reporter from a news conference.

Judge Sam King agreed. Borreca v. Fasi is case law that says officials can criticize reporters, but they cannot intimidate or discipline reporters or pick and choose who will cover them at a news conference.

“;A free press is not necessarily an angelic press,”; King wrote.

Later Fasi would say, “;I forgive you,”; and I would say I thought he was always a great mayor and that was that.

Covering Frank Fasi was never easy.

Some years he would go months without talking to the press. Other times, he was the most adroit manipulator of public opinion the city had ever witnessed.

After more than 30 years, however, you can see beyond the daily sharp elbows of press coverage and judge a public figure for what lasting good he or she has done.

So earlier this week I wrote a column about how Hawaii so needs a populist leader, someone to care for the “;little guy”; with the sentiment that marked Fasi's legacy.

His son David said they read the column to their father Wednesday night, and Fasi smiled.