Big Island Election: Alameda Leads Roth In Mayor’s Race Upset

Early election returns showed Hilo psychologist Kimo Alameda on track to defeat Big Island Mayor Mitch Roth in a surprise upset in a contest that featured some sharp exchanges over Roth’s record and accomplishments.

The first returns released after midnight Wednesday had Alameda with 35,577 votes to 30,717 votes for Roth.

Roth, 59, was elected as mayor in 2020 after serving as the Hawaii County prosecutor for eight years.

Alameda was the former executive of aging for the Hawaii County Office of Aging before taking over as CEO of Bay Clinic Health Center. He stepped down from that job after Bay Clinic merged with West Hawaii Community Health Center in 2022.

Hawaii County voters also appear to be ousting Hawaii County Councilwoman Cindy Evans after just one term, and replacing her with James Hustace. The first election returns had Hustace with 4,191 votes, more than 52% of the vote counted, to 3,192, or nearly 40%, for Evans.

Evans served as a state representative from 2002 to 2018. She was elected to the county council in 2022 representing the council district that includes Waimea, Waikoloa and Hawi.

Both Evans and Hustace are Waimea residents. Hustace grew up in Waimea and is a certified art appraiser and president of the Waimea Community Association.

In Puna, incumbent Councilman Matt Kanealii-Kleinfelder was besting former county Director of Public Works Ikaika Rodenhurst with 3,556 votes to Rodenhurst’s 2,655, or nearly 51% to nearly 38%. That race was a rematch of 2022, when Kanealii-Kleinfelder defeated Rodenhurst in the general election by just 379 votes.

Big Island voters also appear to be approving by a wide margin a technical amendment to the Hawaii County Charter that would limit the time mayors have to appoint their department heads. Roth had opposed that idea, saying mayors should be allowed as much time as necessary to choose the best candidates.

Hard-Fought Race For Mayor

The pivotal question in the Big Island mayor’s runoff was where the supporters of a third candidate, Breeani Kobayashi, would land.

Roth and Alameda were the top vote-getters in the Aug. 10 primary election, but neither secured enough support to win outright in the primary. Kobayashi finished third, with 9,907 votes.

That sizable pool of Kobayashi voters became critically important to both Roth and Alameda in the general election, and Kobayashi endorsed Roth late in the campaign.

Despite that endorsement Alameda said he hoped to attract most of Kobayashi’s supporters, reasoning the votes for her came from people who wanted a change from the incumbent administration. The election results appear to have proved him right.

Alameda said Wednesday morning he believes he was able to defeat Roth in part because Alameda demonstrated during his two-year campaign for the top county job that he was truly committed to the race.

The race was interrupted last spring by a tragedy for the Alameda family when Kimo’s wife, Star, 55, was found unresponsive at the couple’s home and died after emergency personnel were unable to revive her. Alameda’s campaign paused for a time, but he announced on June 8 he was resuming his run for mayor.

Alameda said he believes Big Island voters responded favorably to “my ability to bring people together, because you need a team, you cannot do it by yourself. So as I began to bring people together — north, south, east, west — that in itself caused kind of a synergy if you will, to get other people to believe we’re for real, that we can beat an incumbent.”

He described Roth as a formidable opponent and a “nice guy” who assembled a good team, “but I just don’t think it worked for the Big Island.”

Roth and Alameda are both affable candidates, but they clashed during the general election campaign as Alameda claimed Roth was being untruthful about his record.

Roth contends affordable housing is key to stemming the exodus of locals from the island, and boasted in forums and campaign literature there are now 8,100 affordable housing units in the development “pipeline” on the Big Island.

He also said his administration did such an effective job of reforming the clunky county building permitting process that residential building permits are now issued in as little as 30 days.

Alameda described both of those claims as “misleading.” He denied the county development pipeline has 8,100 affordable units, citing reports from supporters and family members in the construction industry. He said insiders complain the county permitting process holds builders “hostage.”

Roth, meanwhile, said his understanding is that Bay Clinic had such serious financial difficulties when Alameda was in charge that it “would have gone under” if it had not merged with West Hawaii Community Health Center.

Alameda called that a lie, saying he was hired to shore up Bay Clinic’s finances and successfully did so before the merger.

Roth secured an array of political endorsements, including backing from the International Longshore and Warehouse Union, the United Brotherhood of Carpenters and Joiners of America and the Japanese Chamber of Commerce and Industry in Hawaii.

But Roth was snubbed by some public worker unions that are generally regarded as politically important. The State of Hawaii Organization of Police Officers, the United Public Workers and the Hawaii Government Employees Association — the largest union in the state — all backed Alameda.

Each of those unions are demanding millions of dollars in back hazard pay for work performed by thousands of their members during the pandemic. The unions have specific language in their contracts calling for hazard pay, but Hawaii County under Roth’s leadership has not agreed to the payments.

Charter Amendments

Hawaii County voters embraced two out of three of the proposed county charter amendments that were on the ballot this year.

The most significant is Proposal No. 2, which require the mayor to appoint all department heads — such as the director of Department of Public Works and the head of the Department of Parks and Recreation — within 30 days of taking office.

The proposed amendment would also require the mayor to fill department head positions within 60 days when those positions are vacated in the middle of the mayor’s term.

That charter amendment was proposed by the County Council, but Roth vetoed the measure because he said the 30- and 60-day appointment windows don’t allow enough time for statewide or national searches for the best candidates.

The council overrode Roth’s veto, putting the issue on the general election ballot for the voters to decide.

That measure was well on its way to passing by a very wide margin in early returns, with 48,750 votes in favor and just 12,551 against.

Also winning approval was Charter Proposal No. 1 , which would allow some newly elected members of the Hawaii County Council to take office immediately when there is a vacancy.

On several occasions in recent years council members ran for seats in the state Legislature and won outright in either the primary or the general election. Those council members then resigned their council seats before their council terms ended in December, leaving a council vacancy.

Meanwhile, candidates who ran to replace those outgoing council members on the council have on occasion won outright in the primary elections. However, those newly elected council members could not take office until December. That has left some council seats vacant for a time.

The proposed charter change would allow the newly elected council members in that scenario to take office to fill the council vacancy immediately after they win the election.

That proposal was also passing by a large margin, with 47,072 votes in favor and 13,407 against.

But the voters were rejecting Proposal No. 3, which was put on the ballot by the council to adjust the operations of the volunteer county Cost of Government Commission. That commission is designed to find ways to make government more efficient and effective.

The charter requires each mayor to appoint the nine commission members a year after the mayor takes office, with one member of the commission appointed from each of the nine council districts. The new commission then has 11 months to study all of county government and make recommendations.

The amendment would have changed that to give the mayor 18 months after taking office to appoint the commission. The commission would then have been given 20 months from the time it is appointed to produce its recommendations, allowing it more time to do its work.

That idea did not fare well at the polls, with 35,371 against the idea and only 24,245 in favor.