How does she really feel?: After knocking off the sitting speaker of the House in the last election, Rep. Kim Coco Iwamoto wasn’t done taking aim at House leadership as she talked to The Blog recently about her first session in the Legislature.

From party caucuses to committee hearings to the conference committee period at session’s end, “Everything is done to keep the body (rank-and-file legislators) uninformed of what’s really going on,” Iwamoto said. “They don’t want you to read the bills. They don’t want you to have an opinion. They want you to defer to the chairs. They want you to defer to leadership at every juncture.”

“The more you have representatives participating, the more leadership might feel like they’re losing control of what they wanted.”

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It’s conventional wisdom everywhere that rookie legislators are expected to keep their heads down and put in their time in hopes of someday gaining some influence and maybe even becoming leaders themselves.

But in the Hawaiʻi House of Representatives, Iwamoto said the control exerted by leadership is so extreme that the various alliances within the chamber are “not factions, they’re prison gangs.”

“They’re prison gangs because of this feeling that you’re going to get shanked in the yard unless you have protectors, right?”

Going forward, Iwamoto said she takes heart from two factors. One is that leadership already considers her a problem child so “I don’t need to worry because I know the cards are stacked against me.” Therefore, “I feel like it’s okay for me to continue speaking truth to the situation.”

Secondly, she points to the possibility of change because of the relative youth movement in the 51-member House, which will begin next session with the majority of the representatives having served for three years or less.

“The oldtimers, they’re like, no, you keep your nose down for 10 years — or 20 years in the case of Kyle Yamashita — and when you bide your time long enough, then you can bust a move. Well, a lot of the people coming in today are not willing to wait that long in sub-servitude.”

The Blog steps back here to note that not every new lawmaker is pushing for legislative reform. Conversely, not every experienced legislator is in love with the status quo.

Before voters go back to the polls, there will likely be a special session later this year to deal with federal budget cuts and a full session early next year. Both will provide opportunities for citizens to gauge the effectiveness of their current legislators and measure it against the potential for change that challengers might offer at the next election.

May the force be with you: So Honolulu Police Chief Joe Logan is on his way out thanks to a not-so-subtle nudge from Mayor Rick Blangiardi. The mayor has become increasingly outspoken about his belief that Logan was doing a pretty terrible job as chief, particularly as violent crime has increased and Logan has not been able to make much of a dent in the growing number of vacancies on the police force — now more than 450 out of about 2,000 sworn officer positions.

One of the first things that raised Blangiardi’s eyebrows happened this past August. The Honolulu Police Commission gave Logan an excellent performance review just a couple of days before the police department released an employee survey that revealed a deep discontent within the force. Hundreds of officers and other staff who participated in the anonymous survey raised concerns ranging from poor communication on the part of higher-ups to outdated equipment to requiring officers to buy their own uniforms.

Blangiardi called that great evaluation vs. concerning survey “a disconnect.”

So this is the part in the story where The Blog would link to the survey so readers could look at it for themselves. But we can’t because the police department recently pulled the survey off its website.

Someone over there at HPD thinks the survey has become problematic, given a search for a new chief is about to begin. And they don’t want a new chief knowing about it.

“We removed the current commander surveys in preparation for the upcoming leadership change,” HPD spokeswoman Alina Lee tells The Blog in an email. “This decision was made to allow the new incoming chief and their administration the opportunity to implement their own vision, priorities, and evaluation processes for the department.”

Yikes. That, of course, makes absolutely no sense if you think about it for, say, a minute.

The Blog would think the employee survey is exactly the kind of thing a new chief should know about. Not only would they have something to talk to employees about during an interview for the job but you’d think they might have some ideas on how to fix things.

Obviously, HPD has a copy of the survey (Alina Lee helpfully attached one to her response) and any savvy chief candidate will know to ask to see it.

So why pull it down? The Blog thinks this may be more about the public, the union and activist groups being prevented from easily accessing the survey and using it to help guide the debate around who should be the new chief. Not to mention it also gives the mayor and his allies fodder for the same reason.

Meanwhile, we’ll post it even if the police department won’t. It is a public record, after all. So here it is, all 111 pages.

The silly season is already upon us: It’s that time again. Yep, time to start planning your run for office in 2026 and that means dialing for dollars. The Hawaiʻi Campaign Spending Commission website has a running list of scheduled fundraisers.

The latest to schedule a campaign fundraiser is Gary Cordery, who is running for governor. Again.

Cordery finished third in the 2022 Republican primary for governor, behind Duke Aiona (a former lieutenant governor) and BJ Penn (a former professional fighter) but ahead of Heidi Tsuneyoshi (a former member of the Honolulu City Council).

But The Blog is pretty sure Aiona won’t run again after several failed attempts, and we figure BJ is preoccupied with other things these days. Guess that makes Cordery, who became a public figure locally during the pandemic by speaking out against all the government-imposed Covid restrictions, the GOP frontrunner. For now.

Maui confidential: Anthony Pignataro, the longtime editor of now defunct MauiTime now living in Southern California, has just penned “In Remembering Lahaina: What I Learned about Tourism, the ‘Āina, and Myself During Twelve Years on Maui.”

The book, according to a press release, reflects on “the political, environmental, and personal forces that shaped his time living and reporting on West Maui.”

Here’s a tease: “From going undercover at a land developer’s meeting in Olowalu to watching resorts control access to coastal lands in Kā‘anapali, the author documents how Maui’s physical and political landscape evolved in ways that left many residents behind.”

Topics include redevelopment of the Pioneer Mill plantation, the West Maui sewage treatment plant case that reached the U.S. Supreme Court, and “the relentless push by multinational tourism firms to market paradise.”

“Remembering Lahaina” is the latest installment
of a book series on West Maui history, culture and social change edited by Maui attorney and fellow Valley Isle rabble-rouser Lance Collins.