Jeremy Harris
Encyclopedia
Jeremy Harris, born December 7, 1950 in Wilmington, Delaware
, served as Mayor of Honolulu
from 1994 to 2004. A biologist
by training, Harris started his political career as a delegate to the 1978 Hawai'i State Constitutional Convention
. As chief executive of the City & County of Honolulu, the city was named "America's Greatest City" by the official American governance journal, Governing Magazine. Harris is the founder of the China-U.S. Conference of Mayors and Business Leaders and Japan-American Conference of Mayors and Chamber of Commerce Presidents. He is married to Ramona Sachiko Akui Harris and lives in Kalihi Valley on the Island of O'ahu
.
, Harris moved to Honolulu to study at the University of Hawai‘i at Manoa
where he obtained dual undergraduate degrees in related biology fields. Upon graduation from the University of Hawai‘i, Harris went on to the University of California at Irvine
where he obtained his master's degree in population and environmental biology, specializing in urban ecosystems. He returned to Hawai‘i and settled on the island of Kaua‘i
. He was a professor at Kauai Community College
and Marine Advisor with the University of Hawai‘i Sea Grant Program.
. The convention of 1978 came to be recognized as one of the most important events in Hawai'i history as from its body of delegates, many would become future "giants of Hawai'i politics" as the media would later recall. Harris debated alongside John D. Waihee III
and Benjamin J. Cayetano, future Governors of Hawai'i
, as well as future legislative leaders Carol Fukunaga, Helene Hale
, Les Ihara, Barbara Marumoto and Joseph Souki.
In 1979, Harris was elected to the Kauai County Council where he served a single two-year term. In 1984, he joined the City & County of Honolulu as Executive Assistant to Mayor Frank F. Fasi
. He was soon promoted to Deputy Managing Director and then Managing Director. In 1994, Fasi resigned as Mayor of Honolulu and in the line of succession, Harris assumed the office.
, Filipino American
and Japanese American
communities. During his tenure as Mayor of Honolulu, residents voted to limit the mayoral term to two four-year terms and thus made Harris ineligible for re-election in 2004. Former members of the Honolulu City Council Duke Bainum
, Mufi Hannemann
and former Mayor Frank F. Fasi ran to succeed Harris, with Hannemann ultimately the victor.
Harris is recognized as having executed the first government system overhaul in Honolulu history. He reorganized all municipal departments and streamlined all services provided by the city and county. He also curtailed urban sprawl by reforming the system of land use planning to preserve open spaces and agricultural districts.
Harris' most ambitious and controversial project was 21st Century Oahu: A Shared Vision for the Future. 21st Century Oahu is a community based visioning program where neighborhoods would be given some control and CIP funding priority over their own community development, urban planning and beautification projects. Hundreds of public safety, environment, transportation, cultural and recreation construction projects were initiated and many completed as an outgrowth of Harris' 21st Century Oahu project.
, Harris bowed out of the gubernatorial race. Hawai'i Democratic leaders then backed incumbent Lieutenant Governor Mazie Hirono
for the nomination instead.
Nature Preserve, instituted the Waikiki Revitalization project that changed the look of Waikiki
's main thoroughfares, Queen's Surf Beach, Kuhio Beach, Kapiolani Park Bandstand, established torchlighting ceremonies and hula performances every night at Waikiki and started Brunch on the Beach. However, critics of Harris, including his successor Mufi Hannemann
, contend that these programs came at the expense of basic city services and infrastructure.
Harris has the distinction of being the only mayor to be elected more than once as United States Public Administrator of the Year by the American Society of Public Administration. Twice, Honolulu's The Bus was honored as America's Best Transportation System. Other foremost national societies named Honolulu first on the list of Kid Friendly Cities as well as the most digitally and technologically advanced city in the United States.
Harris made waves on the international stage as the founder of the Mayors' Asia-Pacific Environmental Summit. Delegates in 1999 that included over 400 leaders from the Asia-Pacific Rim nations voted to establish a permanent Secretariat in Honolulu in Harris' honor. Harris also established the Pacific Islands Environmental Symposium, China-U.S. Conference of Mayors and Business Leaders, Asia Pacific Urban Technology Institute and the Japan-American Conference of Mayors and Chamber of Commerce Presidents.
Wilmington, Delaware
Wilmington is the largest city in the state of Delaware, United States, and is located at the confluence of the Christina River and Brandywine Creek, near where the Christina flows into the Delaware River. It is the county seat of New Castle County and one of the major cities in the Delaware Valley...
, served as Mayor of Honolulu
Mayor of Honolulu
The Mayor of Honolulu is the chief executive officer of the City and County of Honolulu and considered the third most powerful official in the U.S. state of Hawaii, behind the Governor of Hawaii and the Lieutenant Governor of Hawaii...
from 1994 to 2004. A biologist
Biologist
A biologist is a scientist devoted to and producing results in biology through the study of life. Typically biologists study organisms and their relationship to their environment. Biologists involved in basic research attempt to discover underlying mechanisms that govern how organisms work...
by training, Harris started his political career as a delegate to the 1978 Hawai'i State Constitutional Convention
1978 Hawaii State Constitutional Convention
The 1978 Hawaii State Constitutional Convention is regarded to be the watershed political event in the modern State of Hawaii. The convention established term limits for state office holders, provided a requirement for an annual balanced budget, laid the groundwork for the return of federal land...
. As chief executive of the City & County of Honolulu, the city was named "America's Greatest City" by the official American governance journal, Governing Magazine. Harris is the founder of the China-U.S. Conference of Mayors and Business Leaders and Japan-American Conference of Mayors and Chamber of Commerce Presidents. He is married to Ramona Sachiko Akui Harris and lives in Kalihi Valley on the Island of O'ahu
Oahu
Oahu or Oahu , known as "The Gathering Place", is the third largest of the Hawaiian Islands and most populous of the islands in the U.S. state of Hawaii. The state capital Honolulu is located on the southeast coast...
.
Early years
Born and raised in Wilmington, DelawareWilmington, Delaware
Wilmington is the largest city in the state of Delaware, United States, and is located at the confluence of the Christina River and Brandywine Creek, near where the Christina flows into the Delaware River. It is the county seat of New Castle County and one of the major cities in the Delaware Valley...
, Harris moved to Honolulu to study at the University of Hawai‘i at Manoa
University of Hawaii
The University of Hawaii System, formally the University of Hawaii and popularly known as UH, is a public, co-educational college and university system that confers associate, bachelor, master, and doctoral degrees through three university campuses, seven community college campuses, an employment...
where he obtained dual undergraduate degrees in related biology fields. Upon graduation from the University of Hawai‘i, Harris went on to the University of California at Irvine
University of California, Irvine
The University of California, Irvine , founded in 1965, is one of the ten campuses of the University of California, located in Irvine, California, USA...
where he obtained his master's degree in population and environmental biology, specializing in urban ecosystems. He returned to Hawai‘i and settled on the island of Kaua‘i
Kauai
Kauai or Kauai, known as Tauai in the ancient Kaua'i dialect, is geologically the oldest of the main Hawaiian Islands. With an area of , it is the fourth largest of the main islands in the Hawaiian archipelago, and the 21st largest island in the United States. Known also as the "Garden Isle",...
. He was a professor at Kauai Community College
Kauai Community College
Kauai Community College is a public, co-educational commuter college in Līhue, Hawaii on the island of Kauai. It is one of ten branches of the University of Hawaii system anchored by the University of Hawaii at Mānoa in Honolulu and is accredited by the Western Association of Schools and...
and Marine Advisor with the University of Hawai‘i Sea Grant Program.
Political career
Harris was elected by his fellow Kaua‘i residents to serve as their delegate to the 1978 Hawaii State Constitutional Convention1978 Hawaii State Constitutional Convention
The 1978 Hawaii State Constitutional Convention is regarded to be the watershed political event in the modern State of Hawaii. The convention established term limits for state office holders, provided a requirement for an annual balanced budget, laid the groundwork for the return of federal land...
. The convention of 1978 came to be recognized as one of the most important events in Hawai'i history as from its body of delegates, many would become future "giants of Hawai'i politics" as the media would later recall. Harris debated alongside John D. Waihee III
John D. Waihee III
John David Waihee III served as the fourth Governor of Hawaii from 1986 to 1994. He was the first American of Native Hawaiian descent to be elected to the office from any state of the United States. After his tenure in the governor's office, Waihee became a nationally prominent attorney and...
and Benjamin J. Cayetano, future Governors of Hawai'i
Governor of Hawaii
The Governor of Hawaii is the chief executive of the state of Hawaii and its various agencies and departments, as provided in the Hawaii State Constitution Article V, Sections 1 through 6. It is a directly elected position, votes being cast by popular suffrage of residents of the state...
, as well as future legislative leaders Carol Fukunaga, Helene Hale
Helene Hale
Helene Hale is a Hawaii state representative for the fourth district.Helen was born in Minneapolis, Minnesota, on March 23, 1918. From 1955 until 1963 she served on the County of Hawaii Board of Supervisors. From 1963 until 1965 she was the County's Chairman and Executive Officer .-External...
, Les Ihara, Barbara Marumoto and Joseph Souki.
In 1979, Harris was elected to the Kauai County Council where he served a single two-year term. In 1984, he joined the City & County of Honolulu as Executive Assistant to Mayor Frank F. Fasi
Frank Fasi
Frank Francis Fasi was a United States politician having the distinction as the longest serving Mayor of Honolulu in Honolulu, Hawaii. He also served as a territorial senator and member of the Honolulu City Council...
. He was soon promoted to Deputy Managing Director and then Managing Director. In 1994, Fasi resigned as Mayor of Honolulu and in the line of succession, Harris assumed the office.
Mayor of Honolulu
Harris won a special election to become the outright Mayor of Honolulu in September 1994. He was consequently re-elected in 1996 and 2000, appealing mostly to Chinese AmericanChinese American
Chinese Americans represent Americans of Chinese descent. Chinese Americans constitute one group of overseas Chinese and also a subgroup of East Asian Americans, which is further a subgroup of Asian Americans...
, Filipino American
Filipino American
Filipino Americans are Americans of Filipino ancestry. Filipino Americans, often shortened to "Fil-Ams", or "Pinoy",Filipinos in what is now the United States were first documented in the 16th century, with small settlements beginning in the 18th century...
and Japanese American
Japanese American
are American people of Japanese heritage. Japanese Americans have historically been among the three largest Asian American communities, but in recent decades have become the sixth largest group at roughly 1,204,205, including those of mixed-race or mixed-ethnicity...
communities. During his tenure as Mayor of Honolulu, residents voted to limit the mayoral term to two four-year terms and thus made Harris ineligible for re-election in 2004. Former members of the Honolulu City Council Duke Bainum
Duke Bainum
Mark Edmund "Duke" Bainum was an American politician and physician. Bainum served in the Hawaii State House of Representatives as a member of the Hawaii Democratic Party and was elected in a nonpartisan race to the Honolulu City Council and held various committee chairmanships during his tenure...
, Mufi Hannemann
Mufi Hannemann
Muliufi Francis "Mufi" Hannemann is an American politician. He is the former Mayor of Honolulu. Hannemann has served as a special assistant in Washington, D.C., with the Department of the Interior, where he was selected for a White House fellowship in the Reagan administration under Vice President...
and former Mayor Frank F. Fasi ran to succeed Harris, with Hannemann ultimately the victor.
Harris is recognized as having executed the first government system overhaul in Honolulu history. He reorganized all municipal departments and streamlined all services provided by the city and county. He also curtailed urban sprawl by reforming the system of land use planning to preserve open spaces and agricultural districts.
Harris' most ambitious and controversial project was 21st Century Oahu: A Shared Vision for the Future. 21st Century Oahu is a community based visioning program where neighborhoods would be given some control and CIP funding priority over their own community development, urban planning and beautification projects. Hundreds of public safety, environment, transportation, cultural and recreation construction projects were initiated and many completed as an outgrowth of Harris' 21st Century Oahu project.
Gubernatorial Campaign of 2002
Backed by senior leaders of the Hawai'i Democratic Party, Harris was considered a favorite to win the 2002 race for governor of Hawai'i. But in the spring of 2002, local news media reported allegations of campaign finance wrong-doing by some of Harris' staffers. Despite polling closely to presumptive Republican nominee Linda LingleLinda Lingle
Linda Lingle was the sixth Governor of Hawaii. Lingle holds a number of distinctions: first Republican elected governor of Hawaii since the departure of William F...
, Harris bowed out of the gubernatorial race. Hawai'i Democratic leaders then backed incumbent Lieutenant Governor Mazie Hirono
Mazie Hirono
is the U.S. Representative for , serving since 2007. She is a member of the Democratic Party.She was the second Asian immigrant elected lieutenant governor of a state of the United States. She ran against Linda Lingle for governor of Hawaii in 2002, one of the few gubernatorial races in United...
for the nomination instead.
Legacy
Much like his predecessor Mayor Frank F. Fasi, Harris leaves the City & County of Honolulu with a long-lasting legacy of his own. He built the Marine Education Center at the Hanauma BayHanauma Bay
Hanauma is a marine embayment formed within a volcanic cone and located along the southeast coast of the Island of Oahu in the Hawaiian Islands....
Nature Preserve, instituted the Waikiki Revitalization project that changed the look of Waikiki
Waikiki
Waikiki is a neighborhood of Honolulu, in the City and County of Honolulu, on the south shore of the island of Oahu, in Hawaii. Waikiki Beach is the shoreline fronting Waikīkī....
's main thoroughfares, Queen's Surf Beach, Kuhio Beach, Kapiolani Park Bandstand, established torchlighting ceremonies and hula performances every night at Waikiki and started Brunch on the Beach. However, critics of Harris, including his successor Mufi Hannemann
Mufi Hannemann
Muliufi Francis "Mufi" Hannemann is an American politician. He is the former Mayor of Honolulu. Hannemann has served as a special assistant in Washington, D.C., with the Department of the Interior, where he was selected for a White House fellowship in the Reagan administration under Vice President...
, contend that these programs came at the expense of basic city services and infrastructure.
Harris has the distinction of being the only mayor to be elected more than once as United States Public Administrator of the Year by the American Society of Public Administration. Twice, Honolulu's The Bus was honored as America's Best Transportation System. Other foremost national societies named Honolulu first on the list of Kid Friendly Cities as well as the most digitally and technologically advanced city in the United States.
Harris made waves on the international stage as the founder of the Mayors' Asia-Pacific Environmental Summit. Delegates in 1999 that included over 400 leaders from the Asia-Pacific Rim nations voted to establish a permanent Secretariat in Honolulu in Harris' honor. Harris also established the Pacific Islands Environmental Symposium, China-U.S. Conference of Mayors and Business Leaders, Asia Pacific Urban Technology Institute and the Japan-American Conference of Mayors and Chamber of Commerce Presidents.