Every election, some candidates call for local government to be run more like a business while others say it can’t be done because government is a different animal from private business.

The argument never gets settled because few top elected officials in Hawaii have ever actually known how to run a sizable business.

Now comes Honolulu Mayor Rick Blangiardi, with decades of experience as a top television executive, making a noble effort to show that sound business practices can move the needle on our city’s intractable problems.

Last week we saw something rare: a businesslike parting of ways with Cabinet officials who simply weren’t meeting objectives.

Blangiardi accepted the resignations of Planning and Permitting Director Dean Uchida and assistant Danette Maruyama, who were unable to streamline permitting processes key to affordable housing, clean energy and climate-change mitigation.

The mayor has only two years left to keep his campaign promise to right the plodding and scandal-ridden agency, and he made a move without the usual political posturing.

“We are moving forward in a different direction to address and correct the decades-old challenges facing this department,” he said.

Straightforward separation isn’t usually how this is done; it’s either prolonged political drama as with the hiring and firing of police and schools chiefs, or foot-­dragging and paid leave as with Gov. David Ige’s fiddling on personnel problems in the state unemployment office as pandemic layoffs raged.

Blangiardi also employed a common business trick not used often enough in government to tackle the related problem of the city’s chronic job vacancies: setting a hard deadline with measurable results.

Frustrated by the 3,000 vacant positions that impede his ability to deliver promised services, and the average six months it takes to fill a job, he gave his department heads 90 days to get coordinated and cut the hiring time in half.

He told me in an email, “It is tough to say what is ‘more equal’ when discussing our priorities … homelessness, the rail, affordable housing, public safety, infrastructure, elder care for our kupuna, climate change etc. … but for the sake of the future of Honolulu, solving the antiquated hiring practices and building suitable levels of manpower to provide core city services is its own mandate.”

It’s unusual for elected officials to sacrifice their wiggle room by setting firm near-term deadlines, but Blangiardi told the Honolulu Star-Advertiser, “What we don’t want to be is an administration that makes excuses on why things can’t get done.”

The usual canard is that business practices don’t work in government because of large entrenched bureaucracies that are difficult to move.

But good companies manage to persuade unionized workforces that excellent service is as much in their interest as the employer’s.

It’s an open question whether Blangiardi will be able to pull off the changes he’s trying to make, but he deserves credit for sticking his neck out from under the usual political cover.

Any success would set a higher standard for future city administrations.

Reach David Shapiro at volcanicash@gmail.com.