Election results and a little football

Now it's Sunday and I'm again watching football and reporting on the local elections. Tampa Bay is trying to tie Chicago in the closing 24 seconds. Won't further discuss the results of the UT-FL game yesterday.

Still not sure what "NS" means. But in those contests, like the mayor's, if someone got 50% of the vote, then that would be the end of that. However, in the mayoral race, the incumbent got 49.86% of the vote, so he will be on the ballot again with the next highest vote getter in November, Ann Kobayashi. Mayor Mufi is pro-rail; Ann K is against it, so it may be a one-issue race.

Tampa Bay has tied the game!

Regular readers may recall my previous whinings regarding traffic here. It is definitely one of the major quality of life issues on the island, and a rail solution has been proposed. But it's going to be expensive ($5bn), and the opponents claim it won't be used enough to significantly decrease the vehicle traffic. The initial proposed route also doesn't include a spur to the airport or even to Waikiki. But it's hard to tell, because there doesn't seem to be a definite plan.

As someone who loves jumping on a train, I'd use the rail to get to the downtown area. I'd probably go to the big fancy mall a lot more often with rail. But by the time it's completed, we'll probably have moved on, so it really doesn't matter to us personally.

Other solutions include adding a deck to the current highway system that is just for buses and high volume vehicles. The argument is that this allows more flexibility than trains. (Not sure I get that...) Honolulu's current bus system has won awards, and at some point soon, I plan to try it to get downtown. It doesn't have any cool doubledeckers like London, though.

And then there's the type of train. Some people refer to it as "light rail." Others say, no, no, no, it's going to be steel-on-steel and that's not light rail. So the debate will continue, and both sides have had some pretty rabid commercials.

But they've got to do something. Chris and I both had meetings last week in the Waikiki area, and on Friday, it took him 90 minutes to get home. Earlier in the week, I drove down there around 11:00am, and it only took me 40. We both think the traffic here is worse than the Washington beltway.

So that's the mayor's race - two NS candidates in November. In a couple of other races, I was glad to see that other people felt the same way I did about the crackpots. But that's democracy in action, I suppose. Anyone can run, but we don't have to elect them. In the at-large schoolboard election, where there were 9 candidates in the primary, we were instructed to vote for three. The top 6 vote getters will proceed to the general election.

Two out of my three candidates were in the top 6. One of the people who had no info sheet at the official election site is in the top 6. I guess people who have been here longer know something that I don't.

Schools are another issue here in Hawaii. We have trouble recruiting people to come work here because of the poor quality of the public schools (and the generally high cost of living). I don't really know the school issues, but I believe Hawaiian schools generally score poorly on the nation-wide tests.

While I'm watching football and typing this, Chris is mowing the grass, making me feel guilty for not being more productive. We have a good amount of cloud cover this morning, making it cooler, but even on cloudy days, we still have plenty of blue sky peeking through. A day of complete cloudy gloom here is pretty rare, which is good, since we had enough of those in Yorkshire to last the rest of our lives.

As I close, Tampa Bay is driving. I don't really care who wins, the Bears or the Bucs, but it's been fun to watch a good football game. (Er, did I mention football starts here at 7:00am?) I hope that's a good omen for the rest of the day!