Hawaii County’s two remaining mayoral candidates took potshots at each other in between setting out their own policy plans at a forum on Saturday.

The event, hosted by the Big Island Press Club at the Hilo Yacht Club, saw Mayor Mitch Roth and challenger Kimo Alameda respond to an array of questions covering subjects ranging from the Hawaii County budget to the Thirty Meter Telescope.

The questions below were posed by a panel of three, including the Hawaii Tribune- Herald’s John Burnett. Save for a “lightning round” of short, one-sentence answers, the candidates were given three minutes to answer each question.

Question: Will you commit to a similar forum with news media within nine months of taking office? What other steps will you take to improve transparency?

Answers: Roth quickly said “absolutely yes” to a future forum and added that his administration has been hiring more public information officers for different county agencies, including Civil Defense and Parks and Recreation. Meanwhile, he said the county’s websites are gradually being updated to include more pertinent information, while the county has contracts with the apps Everbridge and Kahea to improve communications with the public.

Alameda, meanwhile, specifically said he wants to make the county budget open to the public for review, saying that “there’s no hide-and-seek in government.” He said Kauai has a similar setup, and lamented that certain government expenses are left for the media to uncover, rather than being open and transparent.

This led to a prolonged back-and-forth throughout much of the forum. Roth took time during an answer to another question to respond to Alameda, saying the county’s budget is already available to the public online and remarking that it’s “kind of scary that it’s almost less than a month and a half (until the election) and you haven’t looked at the budget.”

Alameda, in turn, responded later, saying the county’s available fund balance is not visible online.

Q: The Big Island is losing residents, particularly Native Hawaiian residents. How will you take steps to reverse this trend?

A: Alameda said Hawaiians have increasingly felt unwelcome in their own home, experiencing discrimination and disparities in available services compared with residents who moved here from out of state.

“We still have a racial divide, and I believe I can bring people together, because I’ve lived on both sides,” Alameda said. “So if you want to bring Hawaiians back, you’ve got to bring them back to a place they remember — not this animosity between cultures, between districts.”

On the other hand, Roth said he believes the most important way to bring people back and keep them on the Big Island is the development of more housing. He said his administration has been hard at work developing an affordable housing development pipeline, which has more than 8,100 housing units in development.

Once again this statement led to a sniping match during future questions. Alameda later said he does not believe that 8,100 units are truly being developed, saying his family in the construction industry is only scraping by with insufficient work to sustain them.

Roth countered later by stating that those 8,100 projects do exist, with information about each one publicly available on county websites.

Q: Many Big Island small businesses have had to wait six months to a year for permits that allow them to open. What will you do to fix this?

A: “The permitting system isn’t perfect right now, I’ll be the first one to admit it,” Roth said. “But we are getting better at making sure that people can get permits.”

Roth said that some reports of the permitting system’s deficiencies have been overstated: Specifically, he said Alameda has previously claimed that there are 3,000 permit applications that haven’t even left the county’s intake process. That number, Roth said, is actually 280, and he added that the county has continued to improve its efficiency.

But Alameda said he did not believe several of Roth’s claims, explaining that he has permit applications that have been stuck for months. He said his family members in construction are unable to do their jobs because they are “held hostage” by the overbearing permit system.

Alameda proposed a provisional approval for all pending permit applications with minimal need for review, saying a simple checklist confirming basic information like the site address and tax map key should be sufficient.

“The county does not take liability for any of the permits; the architect does,” Alameda said. “So why are we slowing it up?”

Q: Do you believe in diversifying the island’s economy beyond tourism and, if so, how?

A: While Alameda said the county cannot rely on tourism alone, he acknowledged that the industry contributes about one-fifth of the island’s economy. Therefore, he said he would focus on regenerative tourism in an effort to bring in a less exploitative type of tourist.

“I think we could be the sports capital of the United States. This is where sports teams would like to come. We should be able to have the World Series here,” Alameda said. “We’re also the health capital. People should come here for health tourism. … This is the place for healing — just look outside, that’s healing right there,” he went on, pointing out the Yacht Club windows at the Honohononui Bay.

Roth agreed about the need for a different type of tourist and suggested a brand of tourism more respectful of Hawaiian culture.

“Japan has over 3 million hula dancers,” Roth said. “And those hula dancers don’t only study hula, they study Hawaiian culture, and when the Japanese tourists come here, they focus a lot on playing by the rules.”

The mayor also touted the county’s Destination Management Action Plan, which he said focuses on building tourism around the island’s communities, rather than vice versa.

Meanwhile, Roth said, the county could look to energy to wean itself off of tourism, noting the Big Island’s partnership with Namie, Japan, and Lancaster, Calif., to develop hydrogen infrastructure. He added that the county will soon issue a request for proposals from energy agencies for ways the county can generate its own energy rather than importing it.

Q: Was federal money earmarked for COVID-19 hazard pay? If so, where did it go? If not, why not? And what would Alameda have done differently?

A: Roth denied that there were any federal funds earmarked for hazard pay for county workers during the pandemic. He went on to say that county workers remained healthy throughout the pandemic — “We had nobody that died who was working at the county and got COVID on the job,” he said.

The mayor continued, saying that the county prioritized spending federal funds offering financial relief for other Big Island residents who were more severely affected by COVID-19, such as rent assistance programs and small-business grants.

Roth also took a wild potshot at Alameda, claiming that the Bay Clinic Health Center — of which Alameda was CEO at the start of the pandemic — had financial problems around 2020, which necessitated its eventual merger with the West Hawaii Community Health Center and Alameda’s departure from the executive position in 2022.

Alameda said Roth’s claim was “so far from the truth,” saying he initiated the merger and that Bay Clinic’s finances were healthier right before the merger than they had been when he began working there.

As for the hazard pay issue, Alameda said the county has a contractual agreement with the Hawaii Government Employees Association to provide hazard pay, which his administration would honor if elected.

“Mitch, you had the healthiest island because your county workers made it healthy,” Alameda said. “You made them essential, forced them to go to work; they were the ones marking the tape for 6 feet apart; they were the ones giving everybody masks; they were the ones making sure everything was sanitized. And then you come back and say, ‘You wasn’t at risk’? No way.”

Q: Does the pandemic continue to affect the island?

A: Both candidates agreed that the county continues to feel reverberations from COVID-19, both positive and negative. Alameda said keiki who spent years isolated during the pandemic are having lingering mental health effects but also that it forced people to improve their technological literacy and online connectivity.

Q: What influence does the mayor have on decisions regarding land leases for the Thirty Meter Telescope and Pohakuloa Training Area?

A: Roth said his office can advocate for certain courses of action but cannot make decisions regarding those issues. However, he said his office advocated for greater communication between TMT and the Native Hawaiian community, which has led to improved dialogue between both parties.

Regarding PTA, Roth said the county can and should ask for more than a $1 lease, but made an ominous addendum.

“We are closer to World War III right now than anytime in our past,” Roth said. “And when you talk to the military about this, their big fear is the Pacific.”

Alameda challenged Roth’s position, saying the mayor was pro-TMT in 2019 and that any improved bargaining position the county has regarding TMT or PTA is the result of pressure caused by opponents of those projects. He added that the mayor should sit on the Maunakea Stewardship and Oversight Authority himself, rather than delegating the role as is currently the case, with County Managing Director Doug Adams on the authority board.

Q: What can be done to reduce the island’s homelessness problem?

A: Alameda began by downplaying the state’s 2024 Homeless Point in Time Count, a favored statistic of Roth’s that shows a 28% decrease in homelessness from the previous year. That report, Alameda said, has a large margin of error that doesn’t reflect the reality of the situation.

Instead, he said the county should conduct outreach and pay attention to mental health issues among the homeless and almost homeless, adding that as a licensed psychologist, he is ideally suited to do so.

Roth said the county is, in fact, conducting homeless outreach, having awarded more than $10 million to various groups that are meeting with and providing treatment to homeless people. He touted recent and upcoming county homeless shelters including the overnight shelter at the Hilo Salvation Army, and added that, regardless of the usefulness of the Point in Time Count, it is “not debatable” that Hawaii County saw the state’s biggest decrease in homelessness in the past year.

Questions from the candidates

The final questions were posed from one candidate to the other. Roth asked Alameda what county spending decisions he would have made differently and how he would pay for them.

Alameda said the county could be bolder in seeking additional revenue, suggesting that short-term vacation rentals could be taxed at resort rates or that the county’s fees for rezoning applications be scaled based on the appraised value of the property in question.

Alameda asked Roth about the Hilo Wastewater Treatment Plant, challenging him about when the aging facility will be rehabilitated and whether there is a plan for if the plant fails before it is fixed.

Roth affirmed that county Civil Defense and the Department of Environmental Management have plans for if the treatment plant should fail.

He went on to say that the county has restructured its plan to refurbish the facility and has received three bid proposals in the past month — the lowest of those was about $337 million.

The mayor added the county is about to apply for a bond to help pay for the project, and touted the county’s high bond rating.

Lightning round

Midway through the forum was a “lightning round,” where candidates were given simpler questions to answer in just a few words. The most significant of those questions were as follows, with answers paraphrased for readability.

Q: What potential natural disaster worries you the most?

Roth: Now that Mauna Loa has already erupted, tsunami.

Alameda: Fire, because we’re not prepared for one.

Q: Do you believe there is corruption in the county government?

Roth: Not at the top, no.

Alameda: Yes (Alameda referred to an incident where a county housing official embezzled millions from the county, likely a reference to Alan Scott Rudo, who took nearly $2 million in bribes and kickbacks in a housing credit scheme that fraudulently awarded more than $10 million in housing credits between 2014 and 2021; Roth quipped that this did not happen under his administration).

Q: Should Hawaii County be split into two counties?

Roth: No.

Alameda: Maybe, if we can’t guarantee equitable treatment for all parts of the county.