“I got to tell you, best start ever. You heard it. Best start ever.”
Straight from Mayor Kimo Alameda’s mouth, that was the overarching theme of his first State of the County Address, which he delivered Tuesday to an audience of his cabinet and prominent supporters at Nani Mau Gardens in Hilo.
While there was an old-school wired microphone at a lectern onstage, the only person using that time-tested political tool was county Managing Director Bill Brilhante, who warmed up the crowd of perhaps 200 before introducing the mayor.
Alameda bounced in over music, armed with a wired mic, and delivered an address that was more multimedia presentation than speech, with rear-projected videos, slides and visual aids for his oration, which was peppered with pidgin and poetry.
It was as much “MC Kimo” as Mayor Alameda.
“The opposition said it’s so hard for a new administration, they’re not going to get off the ground running — oh my goodness, we’ve done so much in four months, more than some administrations have done in four years,” Alameda said, and the music started again, momentarily.
“That’s one of my favorite tracks,” Alameda quipped, with the audience laughing. “But it’s, like, the little things, right? And that’s what we’ve done, the little things.”
“Like Kawamoto swimming pool. That pool was out for a year before we started,” he continued. “And it was like, ‘Hey, how come we neva like fixum?’”
According to Alameda, his Parks and Recreation maintenance guys quickly got the hot water fixed at the county pool.
“It was, like, freezin’ coming out of the shower and going to something that’s super cold. And that was, like, right off the bat.”
The mayor rattled off a list of purported accomplishments his first four months on the job, after being sworn in Dec. 2, 2024. Those include:
— Finding housing for 14 individuals at the Kuawa Street shelter and 20 at the Country Club on Banyan Drive;
— Settling the lawsuit with Earth Justice for the Kealakehe Wastewater Treatment Plant;
— Addressing hazard pay with all of the unions;
— Starting Phase 1 of the Hilo Wastewater Treatment Plant rehabilitation project with an emergency proclamation in place.
“And after four years of no lights, here comes the lights at Kamehameha Park in Kohala. And we fixed the pool,” Alameda said. “You no can play baseball in the dark. … We got the lights in Kohala, now we’ll light up Pahala — that rhymes.”
Alameda said two more items on his to-do list are to finish building the Hilo skate park and paving the Big Island’s pock-marked and pot-holed county roads.
“We’re paving roads all over the place,” he said. “We’ve done more paving in four months than has been done in a year. And we’re paving places that has really been neglected. Like, take us down to (Old Airport Park) in Kona. So Makaeo (Pavilion) hasn’t had paving in that area for years. West Hawaii is so happy now.”
Alameda mentioned Milolii, in South Kona, saying, “There have been promises made to the Hawaiians down there, and too long, those promises have been unfulfilled.”
“So, we gon’ fix their park, gon’ fix their bathrooms, gon’ give them a playground and gon’ give them a brand new pavilion because they deserve it,” he added.
Part of Tuesday’s presentation included slides showing projections for Fiscal Year 2026, which starts in July.
Total operating budget revenue projection is $937.74 million. That includes $660.3 million in taxes; $95.8 million in grants; $85.1 million fund balances; $41.6 million in charges for services; $29.1 million in licenses and permanents; $15.4 million property rent and interest, and $10.3 million in other revenues.
Budget expenditures also area projected at $937.74 million. That includes: $214 million for public safety; $96.7 million for pensions and retirement; $91.6 million general government expenditures; $83.7 million for highways and streets; $79,9 million for debt service on municipal bonds; $76.6 million for sanitation and waste removal; $75.2 million for health, education and welfare; $74.5 million for health benefits; $101.6 million in miscellaneous expenses, and $43.9 million for culture and recreation.
“Health — being healthy is the most important thing,” Alameda said. “… And everybody needs recreation. We need recreation. Kids gotta get outta the house.”
The mayor praised all of his departments but saved the most special kudos for Hawaii County Civil Defense and its administrator, Talmadge Magno, calling the county’s emergency managers “best in the nation, best in the nation.”
“Hey, it could be wind, rain, volcano, you know, tsunami, fire, we all report to the (Emergency Operations Center),” Alameda said. “Not one or two. All departments. I give a little intro, Talmadge takes the lead. And we’re working together. And to witness that is amazing.”
Noting a possible downturn in federal grants to the states and counties, Alameda said, “We’ve got to find other sources of revenue.”
“Tourism is our biggest economic driver, but we got to look elsewhere, right?” he said. “So, we got alternative energy options. OK, we can generate revenues there. Right? … We can generate revenues from (Thirty Meter Telescope), when they build on that Big Island mountain, some of that has to come back to the county. OK? Hey, Pohakuloa (Training Area), you like extend your lease? Some of that comes back to the county.
“Yeah, gotta leave some of that for the state, but we can share. We can share.”
Alameda said since tourism is still “the biggest economic driver, let’s make sure that we don’t break that bridge.”
The mayor lamented that almost anyone who gets on a plane wanting to come to the Big Island has to go through Honolulu, noting there are no direct flights from the mainland to Hilo and no more direct flights from Japan to Kona because of the need for runway repairs at Ellison Onizuka Kona International Airport at Keahole.
“They gotta fix it, please state fix it. Because that’s how it all starts,” Alameda said, with Lt. Gov. Sylvia Luke representing Gov. Josh Green, sitting at a front-row table with Honolulu Mayor Rick Blangiardi.
He added that the hotels on Hilo’s Banyan Drive are inadequate, and investments have to be made in both infrastructure and workers.
“But we know it’s hard to have a workforce because a workforce needs housing,” Alameda said. “But housing’s too expensive, so what we need then is we need construction workers. Right? Then we need to get those permits out, so we need good permitting. OK, so we need that.”
“It’s all connected … ,” he added. “It all starts here; it’s all connected. That’s why we’ve all got to work together.”
Before leaving the stage to a standing ovation over Bob Marley’s “Three Little Birds” — which starts, “Don’t worry about a thing, ’cause every little thing is gonna be all right” — Alameda closed with a quote from the late George Santayana, a Spanish-American philosopher, essayist, poet and novelist.
“The past is over for all of us. The future is promised to none of us. All we have is today, so make every single day the best you can.”
Email John Burnett at jburnett@hawaiitribune-herald.com.
