The troubled Cabinet nomination of the head of the state Department of Business, Economic Development and Tourism is up to acting Director Chris Sadayasu to decide whether he wants to take his confirmation vote to the full 25-member Senate.
Sadayasu used the weekend to determine how he wants to proceed after the Senate Committee on Energy, Economic Development and Tourism last week voted 4-1 against his confirmation, Gov. Josh Green told the Honolulu Star-Advertiser’s “Spotlight Hawaii” livestream program Monday.
It’s possible that Sadayasu could still win confirmation like his predecessor, former DBEDT Director Mike McCartney, who also was not recommended but ending up with the necessary votes of the full Senate, Green said.
He called the full Senate’s votes for Sadayasu “close, I don’t know for sure. … A lot of the senators and others have reached out to me to say they really like Chris and they felt terrible that the committee didn’t actually vote him forward.”
Sen. Kurt Fevella (R, Ewa Beach-Ocean Pointe-Iroquois Point) voted against Sadayasu; Green’s first nominee to lead the state Department of Hawaiian Home Lands, Ikaika Anderson; and also against Anderson’s successor, Kali Watson.
Without naming Fevella, Green said a Republican senator — there are only two — has “really been going off” on his nominees, including earlier accusing the state’s part-Hawaiian housing chief of not being sympathetic to Hawaiians.
In January, Fevella told the Hawaiian Home Lands Commission that Nani Medeiros has “nothing, or no knowledge, about our Hawaiian people. I don’t care if she says she’s Hawaiian. Just remember now, the devil also was an angel. Remember that. So just because you’re Hawaiian doesn’t mean you have the passion for the people.”
Fevella later apologized on the Senate floor for his comments.
Green on Monday called for civility at the state
Capitol.
“How we behave at the Capitol, how I behave, how the leadership and the members in the House and Senate behave should be something that all the people can reflect on in our state,” Green said. “And we want them to feel that their leaders are respectful of one another.”
Anderson withdrew his DHHL nomination following lackluster support at his confirmation hearing.
Watson was supported by a vote of 4-1 in his confirmation hearing before the Senate Hawaiian Affairs Commission and Green told “Spotlight” that he believes Watson has enough votes in the Senate to ultimately be confirmed “without too much difficulty.”
Watson previously ran DHHL and currently operates a development nonprofit organization.
Regarding a future Aloha Stadium, Green is planning to issue a request for proposal to build the first “$399.5 million” phase of 25,000 seats to be operated privately, followed by a follow-up RFP to add another 10,000 seats with the goal of building adjacent housing and an entertainment
district.
Asked about the possibility of corporate naming rights for the new stadium, even without any professional sports franchises in Hawaii, Green said that “some of the big boys are definitely interested. … I’m completely confident.”
They include Sony, Amazon, local banks, Hawaiian Airlines and Hawaii Pacific Health, Green said.
A naming rights deal could generate $1.6 million to $3 million annually, “say, over 20 years,” Green said.
Green, a medical doctor, also said that:
>> He remains committed to “overhauling” Hawaii’s health care system, including millions in upgrades to Hilo Medical Center and Kona Community Hospital, where he worked weekend emergency room shifts as lieutenant governor.
He also has proposed up to $20 million in debt forgiveness to help local social workers, nurses and doctors stay in — or return to — Hawaii, “back home near
their aging parents and grandparents.”
Erasing student loans would be cheaper than the $77 million the state spent on visiting nurses over just a three-month period during the COVID-19 phase of the delta variant, Green said.
>> Repairing the Hawai‘i Convention Center remains a priority after Green released $15 million to fix its roof.
“We have to have a convention center,” he said. “We have to have a stadium.”
>> He supports the legalization of recreational cannabis, if the Legislature sends a bill to his desk.
The majority of new users are expected to be tourists, who likely would use ride-sharing services rather than driving themselves, Green said.
“We’ll be careful,” he said.
>> He plans to ensure women’s abortion rights when he signs a bill before him on Wednesday that also protects Hawaii health care workers from outside prosecution when they perform abortions on women from out of state.
>> He hopes to see the city’s emergency HONU (Housing, Outreach and Navigation for Unsheltered Persons) homeless pop-up tent moved to downtown Honolulu to address homelessness — particularly around the Capitol, Iolani Palace and The Queen’s Medical Center — followed by a permanent downtown homeless kauhale to provide long-term housing and social service treatment.
The HONU and kauhale are aimed at “those willing to seek help,” Green said.
Others who want to continue dealing drugs will be arrested, he said.
“They’ve been causing trouble, scaring people downtown,” Green said.
>> He asked developers with housing projects that are stalled to “contact us. … We want these houses to go up quickly. … We need to get results for people. That’s what has been repeated over and over again.”
>> If all of his ideas are approved by the Legislature, there still would be a state budget surplus of $1 billion.
>> His hopes for a first dog at Washington Place kicked up to a new level with the first family fostering a “small white dog” named Momo who belongs to a cousin who is traveling.
First lady Jaime Green and their two school-age children don’t want a dog. But Green has maintained that he will walk it and rely on it as a comfort animal to help deal with the challenges of governing the state.
Momo is “loud and very lovable,” Green said. “His poops are very small. … Our family loves this little guy.”
Momo goes back to the cousin Wednesday.
