Mayor Michael Victorino’s steady stream of taxpayer-funded news releases hit a new low Friday. In an announcement heralding the $90 million dollars in federal funding for the re-location of Honoapiilani Highway, the mayor proudly announced, “If the County of Maui had to pay this bill, it would cost $57,000 for each man, woman and child who lives here.”
Wow, what a great deal! The mayor saved all of us from a horrendous expense (even though credit goes mainly to Sen. Brian Schatz and the governor for pushing the project through).
In July 2021, the U.S. census put Maui County’s population at 164,221. It’s an equation so simple that even I could do it: $90 million divided by 164,221 people = $548 per person. Using Victorino’s $57,000 per person math, we have only 1,578 residents in the entire county. Someday that may be the population of Maui County, if we don’t stop the exodus of residents who can’t afford to live here anymore, but we’re not there yet.
It was a ridiculous error from a man who has the job of overseeing a $1 billion-plus county operation. Although Victorino’s gaff drew comments on the County’s social media website, his statement stands uncorrected at present. County Public Information Officer Brian Perry didn’t answer an email requesting clarification. As long as we’re crunching numbers here, Maui taxpayers pay Perry $85,032 annually, according to Honolulu Civil Beat’s Public Salary Database, to provide the public with accurate, county-relevant information.
News or Electioneering?
This latest release tipped me over the top in terms of how much Victorino has used taxpayer-funded news releases to keep his name highly visible during a super competitive re-election campaign that may well cost him his job.
The seven other mayoral candidates (Cullan Bell, Richard Bissen, Kim Brown, Alana Kay, Kelly King, Jonah Lion and Mike Molina) struggle to get their names in the news at all, and they send out announcements paid for by their own campaigns.
Usually, county news involves mundane matters like water usage, trash pickup, traffic accidents and weather events. In the last few months, however, we have seen a flurry of other county-issued announcements about the following events: Mayor Michael Victorino attends the reopening of a South Maui skate park (take that, South Maui rep Kelly King); Victorino attends a blessing for a North Shore greenway (take that, Paia rep Mike Molina), Victorino at a blessing for an electric charging station, and another one headlining his attendance at a blessing for a new DMV office. All of these events could have been noted without his name attached.
Mayor Victorino attended the national Climate Mayors Leadership Forum as a featured speaker, which was news of a different sort. To talk about what? His county council-defying opposition to settling a case about the coral-destroying, polluting West Maui injection wells that went all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court, where his side lost?
Mayor Victorino “applauds” newly installed Supreme Court judge Ketanji Brown Jackson, though he issued no release on the overturning of Roe v. Wade.
Then there was the expensive, glossy County of Maui Budget Update color brochure sent to every county household a few weeks back. Victorino appeared in 10 of the 13 brochure pictures. The County Council, which did much of the work on the budget, was featured in none of them. Well, except for Councilmember and Budget Committee Chair Keani Rawlins-Fernandez, who appeared in one snapshot handing the budget to–you guessed it–Victorino.
And, while he should have been checking the mayor’s math, last week county spokesman Brian Perry bugged media people to attend a purely photo op event: the recent announcement of the two people Victorino nominated for the newly created Maui Department of Agriculture, an enterprise Victorino hotly contested. Although the director must first be confirmed by the County Council, Victorino’s announcement had all the makings of an instant coronation—which is highly unusual for this process.
No campaign violation, lousy optics
Other candidates have grumbled about the mayor’s use of county resources to get his name out there during this re-election campaign, but it probably doesn’t rise to the level of violating the state’s campaign spending laws.
But I do think that $57,000 bogus number that Victorino used in his Honoapiilani Highway release may have been lurking in his subconscious. That $57,000 (or $56,655 to be exact), is actually the amount of money Victorino was reported to have raised by the Hawaii Campaign Spending Commission in the early months of this year (the next reporting deadline is later this month). Compared to opponent Richard Bissen’s $179,000, it’s a pittance. Plus, Councilmember Kelly King managed to raise nearly that amount—some $44,260, according to her campaign—in just the first 13 days after she filed to run for mayor in early June. With funding not at an optimum level, a guy has to get his publicity somewhere, right?
If Michael Victorino wants to be seen as a responsible, fair, and re-electable politician, he needs to spend his own campaign funds for this nonsense and fight for media space like everyone else.
And he needs to brush up on his math.
On the one hand, an incumbent using the powers of their office in support of their political prospects is a bit of a “dog bites man” sort of story, but in my experience the touting of accomplishments by an elected official should have connection to the duties of the office. Securing federal funds and saluting Justice Ketanji Brown clearly don’t qualify. It’s on par with taking credit for the sun rising in the eastern Pacific each morning.
We seem to be in an era when politicians are acting increasingly shameless about the dichotomies between what they say and believe, what they promise and do, how they moralize and how they behave. “Who you gonna believe, me or your lying eyes?” used to be a punchline, now pols use it like a get-out-of-jail card. I blame the fat man in Florida who used to be on Twitter for putting the idea in the heads of the less-psychotic, but I digress.
Assessing Mayor Victorino’s term in office by whether we are better off now compared to when he took office, I believe most people would say we are not. For instance:
Upcountry and West Maui are under severe water restrictions early into summer.
Housing affordability for residents has worsened in the extreme.
South Maui stormwater flooding has degraded our beaches and near shore waters.
Residents are leaving the Maui in greater numbers because they can’t afford to live and raise a family here.
The number of tourists on island has surpassed even pre-Covid numbers.
Axis deer numbers have not been reduced, posing what the Governor has labeled an emergency.
I could go on.
While these critical things are obviously not wholly within a mayor’s control, the absence of a sense of urgency and sound, transparent plans to address them is a significant contributing cause to the degradation of our multi-island county and our way of life.
Who can say we are headed in the right direction under this mayor?
57,000 is probably the amout that every Maui resident has to pay because Victorino raised the county budget by an INSANE AMOUNT…!!!
I’m not gonna do the math though…😐
Solid reporting. Well done, Ms. Rybak.