City Prosecutor Keith Kaneshiro will keep his job for another four years, defeating former city Deputy Prosecutor Kevin Takata, who challenged him for the post in Tuesday’s election.
Kaneshiro was the better-known candidate, having served as prosecutor for 10 years. Takata, a city deputy prosecutor for 23 years, was running for his first elective office.
Kaneshiro acknowledged Tuesday that name recognition and his experience helped him. He said he kept the campaign positive and focused on his accomplishments.
"They know me," he said. "The voters probably felt, why change?"
Kaneshiro said public safety didn’t suffer with the turnover of more than half the deputies since he took office, a major theme of Takata’s campaign.
The vacancies were filled with skilled and hard-working deputies, he said.
Kaneshiro, 63, won his current two-year term in 2010, replacing former city Prosecutor Peter Carlisle when he resigned to run for mayor.
Takata, 56, challenged his former boss in running a campaign whose major theme was that mismanagement by Kaneshiro led to a "mass exodus" and a turnover of more than 50 of the office’s 100 deputies since Kaneshiro took office.
TAKATA was one of 11 deputies Kaneshiro did not retain when he took office. Other deputies departed during Kaneshiro’s term.
Takata said the reason he challenged Kaneshiro is that current and former deputies who didn’t like the way the office was being run encouraged him to enter the race.
During the campaign, Takata said his record includes more than 20 homicide convictions, the most of any Hawaii prosecutor.
"I’m a prosecutor running for office," Takata said then. "He’s a politician running for office."
Takata is currently a deputy attorney general on vacation.
Kaneshiro downplayed the issue of deputies leaving office.
He said he didn’t reappoint the 11 deputies because some said they didn’t want to work for him. Others retired and left Oahu for reasons other than poor morale, Kaneshiro said.
KANESHIRO also said others left because they didn’t like the supervision he imposed after learning that some showed up late for work and left early.
Kaneshiro stressed his experience as prosecutor as well as serving as director of the state Department of Public Safety in the late 1990s.
The role of the prosecutor, he said, goes beyond running the office and includes becoming an advocate for legislation to protect public safety.
Kaneshiro was city prosecutor for two four-year terms after he defeated Charles Marsland in 1988, the only time a challenger has beaten an incumbent since the position became elective in 1980.
