Episode 9: Town Hall Lessons
In this week’s episode: Mayor Rick Blangiardi on the Honolulu Liquor Commission, the Downtown Walmart’s Closing and Town Hall Lessons
This week, Mayor Rick Blangiardi is back on the One Oahu Podcast to talk about what he has learned so far from his town hall meetings (0:45).
Mayor Blangiardi and his Cabinet have heard from the communities during meetings at ’Ewa Makai Middle School, Wai’anae District Park, and the Filipino Community Center. One of the issues that came up at the town hall meeting on March 30th at the Filipino Community Center was the construction of a race track on O’ahu.
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West Oʻahu Racetrack
“We said we’re not against it… what we’re supportive of is providing opportunities for recreation, good family recreation and, you know, the neighbor islands all have racetracks,” said Mayor Blangiardi. “I hear about that all the time. We don’t on O’ahu, we used to once upon a time. We have a lot more people here and a lot more cars. Some people were talking about the fact that one of the things that they hope to be able to achieve is to get the kids off the roads, racing each other on the roads.”
One of the first steps in the process of securing the parcel for a race track is meeting with the Navy, the current land owner of the potential site in Kalaeloa. On this episode, Mayor Blangiardi goes on to explain what he’s hoping to get out of his upcoming meetings with the Navy.
Honolulu Liquor Commission
Later, Mayor Blangiardi talks about restoring public trust in the Honolulu Liquor Commission (12:18).
“You know, I put a big premium on leadership… for me, they become an extension of our leadership team and we owe it to the community,” added Blangiardi.
Walmart and Downtown Honolulu Development
And Mayor Blangiardi reacts to Wal-Mart closing in Downtown Chinatown and what future development could look like for that area (19:00).
“I want to be on record here in this on this podcast of saying that for those people who speculated on Wal-Mart, because I saw some letters and whatever, that now suddenly Chinatown Downtown is going to turn into a slum,” said Mayor Blangiardi. “I want to say it on record. It’s going to be just the opposite. This is a chance on that whole block to do something that really you know, we use the word revitalize a lot. But that’s really quite honestly, what we’re trying to do is activate, energize, move people into Chinatown, a tremendous place to live in downtown, for that matter.”
The full episode is available now, wherever you listen to podcasts!
