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U.S. Rep. Colleen Hana­busa sharpened her criticisms of Gov. David Ige in their latest televised debate Monday evening, alleging that Ige has a habit of taking credit for others’ accomplishments and has failed to show proper leadership during emergencies such as the Jan. 13 ballistic missile false alert. Read more

U.S. Rep. Colleen Hana­busa sharpened her criticisms of Gov. David Ige in their latest televised debate Monday evening, alleging that Ige has a habit of taking credit for others’ accomplishments and has failed to show proper leadership during emergencies such as the Jan. 13 ballistic missile false alert.

Ige countered by telling the audience that “this election really is about the future of Hawaii, and let’s be very clear: Criticizing isn’t leadership.”

Those kinds of exchanges over Ige’s leadership abilities have become familiar themes in the campaign, but Hanabusa took a more aggressive approach Monday in what now appears to be a close Democratic primary contest.

A Honolulu Star-Advertiser Hawaii Poll done July 6-11 shows the Democratic primary has tightened dramatically as the Aug. 11 election approaches.

The Hawaii poll found Hanabusa held a huge 20-percentage-point lead in mid-March, but the poll this month found her lead has disappeared, and Ige now has a slight advantage.

If the election were held today, 44 percent of likely Democratic voters said they would chose Ige, while 40 percent said they would vote for Hanabusa. Another 16 percent were undecided, according to the poll.

Hanabusa on Monday challenged Ige on a comment he made during another forum where Ige said he supports continuing the city’s unfinished 20-mile rail line to the University of Hawaii.

When asked about financing that rail extension, Ige had said extending the half-percent excise tax on Oahu indefinitely is “one of the options” for doing that. The surcharge is scheduled to end in 2030 and is the primary source of funding for the $9 billion rail project.

Hanabusa, who served as chairwoman of the Honolulu Authority for Rapid Transportation in 2014 and 2015, told Ige that extending the surcharge “is not right.”

“I have been very clear on this, that I do not support an extension, and the reason why is because as a former chair of HART, I do understand how the construction costs have gone out of hand, and they have not done a good job,” she said. “You cannot expect the people of the City and County of Honolulu and the rest of the state to pay for this burden.”

Ige did not elaborate on his rail position Monday other than to say that “we need to keep the county accountable and the HART people accountable to the costs.”

“I would like to note that Colleen left her position as chairman of the board of HART exactly when the project costs exploded, and really did not take any action to contain the cost of the project while she was serving on the HART board,” Ige said.

In what was probably the most heated exchange of the evening, Hanabusa told Ige that the Jan. 13 false missile alert that caused many people to panic was “a systemic failure of leadership by your administration. You had no plan to begin with, and you didn’t know when something went wrong. Will you finally take personal responsibility for the missile fiasco?”

“Certainly,” Ige replied. He described how he called the Hawaii Emergency Management Agency, learned that the alert was a false alarm and then “directed staff to inform the public. Radio stations were contacted immediately, followed by the television stations. Within 15 minutes all of media was fully aware that it was a false missile alert.”

Ige acknowledged it took 38 minutes for HI-EMA to officially declare that the alert was a false alarm because there was no automated system for issuing a text message to that effect.

“The focus is that we have made the changes to assure that this will never happen again. We have new leadership at HI-EMA who has transformed the organization in a way that assures the health and safety of the public,” he said.

Hanabusa responded, “David, you failed in a singular test of leadership, and this is all we need to know. In a time of crisis, when it really mattered, David Ige blinked and had no clue.”

Ige countered that leadership is about finding solutions and implementing them “in the best interests of the public. It’s about forgetting self-interest and special interests. It really is about moving our community forward and getting those projects done that make the most sense.”

The forum was sponsored by AARP Hawaii and broadcast live on KHON2. The debate also can be viewed on the KHON website.