Five candidates for lieutenant governor who took part in an early forum at Democratic Party of Hawaii headquarters Saturday vowed to make the job more meaningful for the people of the state.

One of the questions asked was, “If elected, how would you put your mark on the lieutenant governor’s office, which has been largely ceremonial in nature under the current administration?”

Kauai Mayor Bernard Carvalho Jr., the first candidate selected to speak, said; “I want to be the bridge. I want to be the voice. I want to be the action. I feel that we need to add value to the office of lieutenant governor. I can work with any governor, but for the lieutenant governor, this is a place of the people.”

Carvalho said he wants people to “come in and ask questions.” He added: “We need to get out. I want to do meetings from Waimanalo to Kahuku, down to Haleiwa and all over.”

State Sen. Jill Tokuda (D, Kailua-Kaneohe), one of three legislators on the Senate side running for the post along with Sen. Will Espero (D, Ewa Beach- Iroquois Point) and Sen. Josh Green (D, Naalehu-­Kailua-Kona), said the lieutenant governor’s office is “absolutely 110 percent what you make of it.”

The state’s challenges require “individuals that can take the deeper dive to bring people together to focus on the actual solutions,” Tokuda said. “The governor does not have the time to do that alone.”

She said the lieutenant governor should oversee state board and commission appointments. The state has hundreds of such bodies, including the Land Use Commission and Hawaii Community Development Authority, Tokuda noted.

“To me, the lieutenant governor should take over the board and commission process and help be a bridge between the people and learn how they can serve in these citizen-leader roles,” she said.

The forum was held by the LGBT Caucus and the Labor Caucus of the Democratic Party of Hawaii. Organizers said it was the first time the challengers participated in a candidate forum for the Aug. 11 primary election.

One at a time, candidates were given about 35 minutes to make statements and take prepared questions. There was no debate. About 40 people attended the forum.

Candidate Kim Coco Iwamoto, a former state Board of Education member, said: “The next lieutenant governor cannot sit there and just be an understudy to the governor. They are getting paid $150,000. They can do so much.”

The people who are working on the front lines of homelessness, the environment, economic justice and prison reform should be a part of the office so that, along with legislators, everyone gets on the same page, she said.

Every day, families are slipping into homelessness and “we don’t have time for a lieutenant governor to sit around waiting to be assigned a task by the governor,” Iwamoto said. “We need somebody who can take initiative to open the lieutenant governor’s office and make it the people’s office.”

Green, a physician on Hawaii island, said “it’s been sad to see the lieutenant governor hasn’t been empowered to do many things.”

“I will take ownership of homelessness, access to health care, dealing with the drug epidemic,” Green said, adding that he sees the need for change both from the perspective of a doctor and a legislator.

Homelessness is a crisis that has surged without an adequate solution, he said. “I see the impact of poverty. We must increase wages,” and if Hawaii doesn’t, it will never have affordable living for its people, Green said.

Espero said individuals have told him, ‘“We like you as a state senator, you are active, you are engaged, you speak out, and we want you to stay like that.’ My answer is, ‘Well, imagine Will Espero as the No. 2 person in the state of Hawaii.’”

Espero said he’s come up with action plans and solutions “that will get things done,” adding, “I’ve been doing it in police reform, prison reform, building an aerospace industry.”

He said he introduced a bill this year that calls for the lieutenant governor to be appointed to the Board of Education as a nonvoting member.

Espero was the only candidate to mention the possibility of using the office as a steppingstone to becoming governor.