Honolulu City Council member Val Okimoto has publicly accused a senior member of Mayor Rick Blangiardi’s administration of threatening to withhold funding from her district if she did not vote to approve the mayor’s choice for housing director.

During Wednesday’s monthly council meeting, Okimoto said she received a written message from a “senior administration official” after a September public hearing on Kevin Auger’s appointment to lead the new Department of Housing and Land Management. She did not disclose who sent the message.

“A written message from a senior administration official indicated that the release of my district appropriations will be contingent on the outcome of this vote,” she said at the council meeting. “These funds are not discretionary favors. They are duly appropriated resources approved by this council for the benefit and safety of our constituents. To attach political conditions to the release fundamentally undermines the integrity of this body and the public trust.”

Okimoto has tussled with another mayoral nominee in the past. In February, she postponed a vote on Emergency Services Director Jim Ireland’s reappointment after former EMS employees alleged he fostered a toxic work environment. Eventually, eight council members unanimously confirmed Ireland, with Okimoto as the sole yes with reservations. Council member Andria Tupola was absent for the vote.

On Wednesday, after giving a stirring speech that hailed the importance of checks and balances, Okimoto voted yes with reservations to confirm Auger.

“If the executive branch can threaten to withhold funds to secure a confirmation, the independence of this body is diminished,” she said less than a minute before still voting to confirm the nominee. “If we confirm a nominee under these conditions, we establish a dangerous precedent that public resources are bargaining chips.”

Afterward Okimoto declined to reveal who the senior administration official was who allegedly tried to coerce her.

“I don’t want to escalate the situation any further because it would not be productive for anyone,” she told Civil Beat.

Okimoto said she and the administration agreed to work collaboratively on housing policy going forward.

“There are lines that should not be crossed,” Okimoto wrote later in a text. “However, I feel hopeful that those lines will be respected.”

In an email, the mayor’s communications director, Scott Humber, declined to comment.

“The City will not be commenting on private communication with Councilmember Okimoto that was intended to get her attention for a discussion,” he wrote. “The Councilmember chose not to follow up.”

It’s unclear what appropriations the administration official allegedly threatened to withhold. The city budget includes money for all sorts of priorities in council members’ districts, including parks, road repairs and housing projects.

‘A Nuclear Option’

Hardball tactics like what Okimoto alleges are par for the course in politics, University of Hawaiʻi political scientist Colin Moore said Thursday.

“Threatening funds or projects for a legislator’s district if they don’t play ball is hardly an unheard of tactic,” he said. But he added it’s usually “a nuclear option” reserved for close political fights where every vote counts, and Auger’s appointment — which passed unanimously — was far from that.

Ultimately, Moore said, Okimoto publicly airing her claim but then turning conciliatory was a smart political move, calling the episode “a warning shot” toward the administration.

Common Cause Hawaiʻi director Camron Hurt, a watchdog for good governance in the state, said Okimoto’s claim and her eventual backing off was disappointing but not surprising.

Hurt said threatening to withhold public resources at the local level mimics tactics used by President Donald Trump’s administration, which withheld food stamp benefits for over 40 million Americans after Democrats and Republicans failed to agree on a resolution to avoid a federal government shutdown.

“This is the same principle,” Hurt said, “just on a localized scale.”

But Hurt said Okimoto’s public claim of wrongdoing “means nothing if she falls in line and doesn’t put forward the evidence that this type of pressure and coercion is not okay.”

“Time and time again in our state — in our city — people will say, ‘Oh, this isn’t right, but I’m going to do this because I need to work with them,'” he said.