News Release from Office of the Mayor, March 18, 2025
HONOLULU – Mayor Rick Blangiardi on Tuesday laid out his priorities for the next four years in the annual State of the City address, focusing on public safety, housing and homelessness as key issues and announcing a number of major initiatives that will improve the core City and County of Honolulu services that residents across the island of Oʻahu rely on.
The speech, the first of Mayor Blangiardi’s second term in office, was delivered at 6 p.m. inside the Mission Memorial Auditorium, on the Frank F. Fasi Civic Center Grounds in Honolulu.
“Expectations are high, and there are a lot of people counting on us to deliver,” said Mayor Rick Blangiardi. “Our growth as an administration has been steady and strong. We have learned and discovered much together about the many diverse needs of our City, and our people. Our collective efforts in the next four years are primed to meet those diverse needs through high achievement, driven by solid execution.”
One year after detailing the City’s plan to stand up an independent Honolulu Ocean Safety Department (HOSD) during the 2024 State of the City address, the mayor announced Tuesday that his administration was exploring a further restructuring of Oʻahu’s public safety departments to better serve the public.
To read the full transcript of the Mayor’s State of the City speech, click here.
“Reorganization made great sense for Ocean Safety, and it’s time to find out if it makes sense for Emergency Medical Services,” said Mayor Blangiardi, of the agency which operates Oʻahu’s ambulance units. “Our administration has already begun to establish a task force to determine whether the Honolulu Fire Department and Emergency Medical Services would be better off as a single, integrated department.”
Ocean Safety has thrived since being established as a stand-alone department. The City has committed to spending millions of dollars over the next four years to upgrade Ocean Safety facilities, and construction will be completed later this year on the new Windward Operations Center — the first newly-built facility specifically for Ocean Safety in their 107-year history.
Most notably, Mayor Blangiardi announced during Tuesday’s speech that the City intends to purchase a highly-coveted piece of land across the street from Shark’s Cove for the creation of a world-class first responder hub — one that will serve as a base of operations for North Shore lifeguards and would feature a brand new ambulance station, dramatically reducing emergency response times for medical calls.
During the speech, Mayor Blangiardi recognized Noland Keaulana, the Ocean Safety lifeguard who rescued Kamehameha Schools student Kahiau Kawai last year after the teen was separated from his paddling team in waters off Waikīkī and spent most of the night lost at sea. Keaulana and Kawai both attended the speech.
The mayor also paid tribute to Firefighter Jeff Fiala, who was tragically killed in the line of duty earlier this year while responding to a fire in McCully. Firefighter Fiala’s family — his parents, Mike and Kristine, his brother Andrew and Andrew’s fiancé Nicole, and Jeff’s wife Fiona — were guests of Mayor Blangiardi in the audience for the State of the City.
Mayor Blangiardi made a number of other announcements during Tuesday’s State of the City address, including:
- Passenger operations for the second segment of Skyline, the City’s rail transit system, will open on October 1, 2025. The second segment of Skyline will enable passengers to travel by rail from East Kapolei to Middle Street — including stops at Pearl Harbor and the Daniel K. Inouye International Airport.
- The City’s resolution to create the new Department of Housing and Land Management — an announcement made during last year’s State of the City — has been formally introduced to the City Council. The resolution consolidates the City’s Office of Housing and Department of Land Management (DLM) into a single entity; Kevin Auger, the current Executive Director of the Office of Housing, has been tapped to serve as director, with Cat Taschner, the current DLM director, serving as deputy director.
- The Crisis, Outreach, Response and Engagement (CORE) team’s plans to establish a second base of operations in Waipahu this year, improving their ability to service homeless individuals across West and Central Oʻahu.
- The Honolulu Emergency Services Department’s effort — in collaboration with Waiʻanae Coast Comprehensive Health Center and Kapiʻolani Community College — to create a brand new training program on the Waiʻanae Coast for residents who are interested in careers as paramedics or emergency medical technicians (EMT).
- The Department of Customer Service’s (CSD) plans to make it possible for Oʻahu residents to renew their driver’s licenses via online appointments, which will result in an even more dramatic cut to wait times for important appointments at Satellite City Hall locations across the island.
The full transcript of Mayor Blangiardi’s 2025 State of the City Address is available at www.honolulu/gov/mayor.
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