Email: "Mayor Tavares condemns radio comments"
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The Maui News - Mayor Charmaine Tavares last week condemned comments made by former Mayor Alan Arakawa that suggested it would be easy to “shoot the mayor” in the county parking lot. On his radio program on Thursday, July 15, Arakawa had criticized costly renovations that he judged made the Mayor’s Office less accessible to the public. He said that citing security concerns to justify the expensive project did not make any sense, because the mayor and other county officials were vulnerable every day when they left the building in an unsecured parking garage. Mayor Tavares said it was inappropriate for Arakawa to describe how a public official could be harmed, and said he should apologize. In a statement released last week, Arakawa said that his point “admittedly could have been articulated better,” but he said it was made in the context of a larger discussion about what he saw as a wasteful and unnecessary project. During the hour-long radio program, a caller asked Arakawa if the Tavares administration was using homeland security concerns “as an excuse” for the renovations of the Mayor’s Office.

Arakawa responded that his administration was also subject to homeland security requirements, “and we didn’t do that.” “It’s ludicrous,” he said. “Because if somebody wanted to shoot the mayor, when you get out of the county building, you go to your car, the parking lot’s wide open.”

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