HILO, Hawai'i — The front-runners emerging in the contest for Big Island mayor are a seasoned lawmaker and former mayor; a former deputy public defender who led the county's fight against methamphetamine; and a County Council member who earned his stripes as a community activist in a landmark lawsuit to block a Kona development.

Eight people are running to replace Mayor Harry Kim, but a poll published by Stephens Media last month suggests only three have significant support heading into next month's primary. Stephens publishes the two daily Big Island newspapers.

The poll found Billy Kenoi, executive assistant to Kim and a former Honolulu deputy public defender, was leading with 25 percent of the vote.

Trailing Kenoi with about 15 percent of the vote each were state Sen. Lorraine Inouye, who served as mayor from 1990 to 1992; and North Kona County Councilman Angel Pilago.

Council member Stacy Higa, who is also in the race, garnered just 2 percent of the vote, with a 40 percent chunk of the voters saying they are undecided, according to the published poll.

Kim, who under the county Charter cannot seek a third term, has not publicly endorsed any of his potential replacements.

Rick Castberg, professor of political science at the University of Hawai'i-Hilo, said he sees the race as mostly a contest between Inouye and Kenoi, the two candidates whom he thinks are most likely to emerge from the non-partisan primary.

The top two vote-getters in the primary will face a runoff election in November. Any candidate who gets more than 50 percent of the vote in the primary will be elected outright, but Castberg said he doubts that will happen in this year's crowded mayoral field.

The wobbly Big Island economy is emerging as the issue the voters want to talk about, with air passenger and cruise ship arrivals down, the construction industry sagging and sales slowing in everything from real estate to cars.

Barbara Hastings, president of the Hawai'i Island Chamber of Commerce, said chamber members want to know how the candidates plan to help the construction and tourism industries, and how they will make the economy less dependent on construction and tourism.

Chamber members are frustrated at the length of time it takes to obtain county permits and approvals, and "as they're being faced with uncertain economic times, they're seeing government as not responsive, and large," Hastings said.

YEARS OF EXPERIENCE

Inouye, who is making her third run for mayor, has been stressing her years of experience, and at the outset of the campaign she appeared to have an edge because she is familiar to Big Island voters.

She served on the Big Island County Council from 1984 to 1990, and was elected to fill out a partial term as mayor from 1990 to 1992 after Mayor Bernard Akana died in office.

However, she lost her re-election bid to former Mayor Stephen Yamashiro, and lost a second bid for mayor to Yamashiro in 1996.

Inouye, 68, was then elected to the state Senate, where she has represented the Hamakua and Hilo areas for the past decade.

When asked what Inouye would like to be remembered for after serving as mayor, she said she plans to work for better roads and transportation networks "that will carry us through the next generations to come." She said that includes a new access road for Lower Puna, and said she has been involved in that issue since 1992, when she was mayor.

"We have to understand that Puna is catching up with Kona's transportation problems," she said. "Puna has 57,000 lots that still need to be built up, and I'll tell you, they are catching up."

As a longtime flower farmer with 21 years of experience in the hotel industry, Inouye has tried to appeal to the Big Island business community, but has so far been unable to convincingly claim the mantle of the pro-business candidate in the mayoral race.

Inouye is proposing that an Economic Revitalization Task Force be called together from the public and private sectors to work to create favorable conditions for businesses and agriculture, and has pledged to streamline the county permitting process.

Still, she was unable to lock up the early support of a number of business groups, and last week the Hawai'i Island Chamber of Commerce announced that its membership voted to endorse Kenoi.

MASS-TRANSIT PLAN

Kenoi also has benefited from an array of labor endorsements, including the State of Hawai'i Organization of Police Officers, the Hawai'i Government Employees Association, United Public Workers, the ILWU and the Hawai'i Carpenters Union.

Unions such as SHOPO, the ILWU, the HGEA and major construction trade unions have backed Inouye in past elections, but defected wholesale to Kenoi this year.

Kenoi is competitive with Inouye in the area of campaign financing. State campaign spending filings show Kenoi raised more than $58,000 through June 30, or nearly as much as the $66,000 Inouye raised during the same period. Pilago raised about $11,800, while Higa raised about $37,000.

Kenoi, 39, may be best known for his high-profile role in Kim's so-called "War on Ice," or methamphetamine on the Big Island, which resulted in more than $9 million in federal funds being pumped into the Big Island to supplement state and county funding.

The effort more than doubled the size of the police vice division, established new treatment programs around the island, and launched youth activity programs.

While the Big Island ice problem has not disappeared, a number of observers say the situation has improved.

The centerpiece of Kenoi's campaign is creating a comprehensive bus mass-transit system, which Kenoi says can be done for $25 million.

If he fails to create such a system after he is elected, Kenoi said he will not run for re-election.

"We have 174,000 people. You know our kids in Puna, they get bused home at 3 p.m. to rural subdivisions with no gym, parks or pools. We need to keep them engaged in positive activities, but what is the key? Transportation," he said.

The project will touch adults as well because most of the island's resort development is in South Kohala, and workers commute long distances to fill the jobs there, he said.

"By creating a mass-transit system, we allow them to take a hard-earned dollar in a tight economy, put it back into their pocket, (put) it back into their families and back into the local economy," he said.

Kenoi has said he will look for savings in the county budget to finance his proposed mass-transit system, but will not rule out raising the county gas tax or vehicle weight tax to finance the mass-transit effort if necessary. Inouye, Pilago and Higa all reject the idea of raising gas or other taxes.

One wild card that could affect the Kenoi campaign is a coordinated, anonymous effort online and via U.S. mail this summer to generate news coverage about Kenoi's part in an incident in a Hilo bar on April 9, 2004.

In that incident, a woman in the bar alleged Kenoi threw a barstool that struck her, and the woman's husband said Kenoi head-butted him.

Kenoi denies throwing the stool, saying he accidentally bumped a barstool that apparently bumped the woman. The woman's husband then confronted Kenoi, and Kenoi said his head did bump the head of the woman's husband as the man yelled at him.

Kenoi has called the effort to publicize the incident "a smear," and said he did nothing wrong.

COMMUNITY ACTIVIST

Pilago, who has represented North Kona for two terms on the council, is a longtime community activist known for his role in the fight against a coastal development at Kohanaiki that led to the 1995 Public Access Shoreline Hawai'i, or PASH court decision. That decision affirmed Native Hawaiian gathering and cultural rights on private property.

He is a decorated Vietnam veteran, and worked as an employment counselor for the state Department of Labor & Industrial Relations for 18 years.

"I'm free from special interests," Pilago told the audience at a recent forum. "I do not collect money from developers. I am free from the Good Old Boy network, and that's what you need — clean and open government."

Pilago, 63, has campaigned on the Big Island's emerging community development plans, and announced to a recent forum that "I would be honored to be remembered as the mayor who implemented and enforced the community development plans for the whole island and created unity amongst all of us."

Community plans are being developed for different areas of the island and are at different stages of drafting, but the Hawai'i Island Chamber of Commerce has already expressed alarm at some features of the Puna Community Development Plan.

Among other things, the Puna plan calls for higher conveyance and state capital gains taxes on rapid resales of Puna property; urges that biological and historical surveys be required before the state grants a shoreline certification for coastal construction projects; and proposes the county reduce potential development densities through "selective rezoning."

Pilago has called the community development plans "a covenant between the people and the government."

FRIENDLIER GOVERNMENT

Higa, 45, is emphasizing his ability to make government more customer-friendly.

"It comes down to attitude, and that's my strength. Because I'm a can-do, problem-solving kind of a guy, I will go out there and identify the problems and then come up with creative solutions to get it done," he said.

Higa, who is serving his second term on the County Council, said he would like to be remembered as the mayor who "saved the county a lot of money," guiding the county through bad economic times and making government as efficient and user-friendly as possible.

More importantly, Higa said, he wants to work with the private sector and volunteers to upgrade county recreational facilities.

Also running for mayor are Joseph Barrozo, Sam Masilamoney, Jasper Moore and Randy Riley.