Mayor Kenoi wants off on a technicality

[james weatherford]

"Billy ...came from essentially nowhere in a 3 way race" --
One of those three was Stacy Higa, who crashed and burned because of his sexual harassment of a Council Aide.

[Chunkster]

I always wondered why Kim was so cool to Kenoi's first run for mayor when Kenoi was a top aide and presumably a protege'. The Levin angle makes sense. Having had personal conversations with both Kim and Kenoi and a working interaction with Kenoi over the past 14 years, I can't say I care for either of them. My totally subjective opinion is that there is a thuggish element to Kenoi's character lurking just beneath the surface and Kim isn't anywhere near as sharp as he used to be. When I had to choose between the two four years ago, I went with Kim.

[HiloPuna]

James Weatherford

You could as well point out Lorraine's stumbling, bumbling, emptyheaded displays at campaign events....the field was weak but Billy shined by far the brightest.

I will state, no surprise to most of you, that history will likely be a kinder judge than this record of the day (HTH/WHT). Look at the front page of that paper today, the Kapiolani project, in that construction time period, doesn't happen without a hands on Mayor who leads with a chainsaw.
Every leader has their strengths and weaknesses, Dante, Lorraine, Steve, Harry, and now BIlly. All can be praised and criticized. If you were around, reflect back on those periods in our islands history and describe a more dynamic tenure with the kind of major accomplishments that Billy can take the credit for.

If you can't wrap your mind around that then go read "The Prince". It may help.

[Punatic007]

HiloPuna, despite the fact that you write eloquently and romantically, I don't think you are winning anyone over on this issue. It wasn't just pCard abuse, amongst personal material extravagances he also partied at Hostess bars at the expense of the tax payers in the name of official business. That is way way too much of an insult to the women of the Big Island. Continue defending Kenoi if you must.....

[leilanidude]

A surfboard and an expensive bicycle, are not purchases that should have ever been made with a government card, let alone not paid back until later caught in the act. He tried to be a thief, but got caught. Just because he later paid things back does not disqualify him from being a thief. Remember, a certain union paid some of those amounts back for him. I hope he listed that as income to the IRS.

[HereOnThePrimalEdge]

If you can't wrap your mind around that then go read "The Prince". It may help.

And just to avoid any confusion when you're at the library to check it out, HiloPuna is suggesting "The Prince" by Niccolo Machiavelli. Not "The Little Prince" by Antoine de Saint-Exupery.

[Chunkster]

Yes, I would agree that Kenoi aspired to be Machiavellian. Problem for him was that he wasn't smart enough to pull it off successfully.

[HiloPuna]

leilanidude (and perhaps others, Punatic007, etc)

Given your certainty that the Mayor was "...a thief..." I'll ask only that you provide some factual basis for your opinion. Prove to me that your opinion is based on your knowledge that these purchases, the surfboard and the bike, were NOT reimbursed within the $22k prior to the newspaper article.
If you can establish that they were paid back in the secondary reimbursement, the $9k, prove that they were outside of the parameters established for his use of the P-card as explained in the above linked article. If you can't do either of those then perhaps you could wait for the legal fog to clear on this matter.

Chunkster,

I don't agree, at all, regarding Billy's capacities to gain and exercise power, which is the point of Machiavelli's treatise. He became the Mayor, he promoted and gained his Executive interests in terms of the Budget, and he accomplished some (not all) of his goal to develop better public facilities with our tax base. His administration took full advantage of the historically low interest rates to refinance the inherited debt, then combining it with new debt to finance considerable public infrastructure, and maintain the inherited ratio of debt service to total budget. Mission accomplished !

However over time Machiavelli's willingness to discuss the need to sometimes act in self-interest has become the context by which most people understand his thesis (common definition; cunning, scheming, and unscrupulous, especially in politics or in advancing one's career). The most common generalization is that there is some core evil to practicing Machiavellian principles. It's not a mandate, it's an understanding that the author promoted that, at times, "The Prince" must act in self-interest in order to maintain their position of power, thereby being able to practice power in the future and to complete the purpose of having gained their position in the first place. Machiavellianism is at it's core pragmatic and that Good and Evil are secondary to public welfare.

It's a bit complex, I'm sure the Punaweb moral relativists are no doubt better equipped to grasp the nuance, while the absolutists (True Believers, obtuse shouters, the querulous ) are no doubt cringing at the implications. Anyway, I'll now apologize if I've digressed too much from the point of this poorly titled thread....airportparking, no presidential references at all (though they are explicitly allowed, read his strictures more carefully)

[leilanidude]

These were not accidental purchases that were immediately reimbursed with a proper expense report accounting!

HiloPuna - please explain how the surfboard and bike were in any fashion, legit purchases? How much time elapsed between some of these purchases and their reimbursement? Were some reimbursements not done more than a year from the initial charge date? How do you justify that?

[randomq]

If the surfboard were bought as a prize for a county or non-religious charity event. If the bike was bought for the mayor to ride publicly to promote green transportation. If the hostess bar trips were used to conduct team building or negotiations. We have no idea if any of that is true, but apparently *some* people on punaweb know with certainty. The rest of us must be the moral relativists.