Kaua'i County Parks Director Bernard Carvalho Jr. held a substantial lead in early results for Kaua'i mayor's, but the race for second place was closer.

Carvalho had 43 percent of the votes in the first results released tonight. If his lead holds, he would likely face either Councilman Mel Rapozo or Councilwoman JoAnn Yukimura in a Nov. 4 runoff.

Yukimura took about 28 percent of the early votes and Rapozo about 25 percent.

"I think it's safe to assume that Bernard is moving on to the general," Rapozo said after the first results were released. "Tonight is a race between me and JoAnn."

Rapozo said some of his supporters were disappointed his numbers weren't higher, but his spirits were good.

"There are less than 200 votes separating us this early in the night, so it's anybody's ballgame," Rapozo said.

Unless one candidate gets more than half the votes, there will be a runoff between the top two candidates.

Each of three had planned on running for mayor in 2010, when former Mayor Bryan Baptiste's second four-year term would have been up. But Baptiste's untimely June 22 death triggered a special mayor's election to fill the final two years of his term.

Some have called Carvalho the heir apparent for the mayor's job since he was being talked up by his friend Baptiste two years in advance of the expected 2010 election.

Carvalho pulled in the most campaign contributions for the July 1-Sept. 5 period, as reported on the state Campaign Finance Commission's website. Carvalho collected $132,562 and spent $85,685 during that period.

Yukimura collected $60,551 and spent $61,247 since July.

Rapozo collected $59,089 and spent $31,629 during the period.

A fourth candidate, Rolf Bieber, has run a "no-cost" campaign, paying for his own signs and even offering to donate the $107,000 mayor's salary to charity if elected. Bieber reported taking in no contributions, spending $2,271 and having a $2,271 deficit.

Carvalho Jr., 46, has emphasized that he wants to be a consensus-builder like his mentor Baptiste, who was both praised for his inclusiveness and criticized for being slow to act.

"I want to honor the mayor's projects and fulfill his legacy," said Carvalho, who was Baptiste's friend and campaign manager. "But I do have my own thoughts and ideas."

"I want to hear where people are coming from and what they are saying and then will make a decision," Carvalho said.

Carvalho, who has never held an elected office, says his 17 years of county civil service work in recreation programs, topped with the past six years in the Baptiste administration, give him the knowledge of how to get things done in Kaua'i County government.

As a department head, Carvalho has been in charge of Baptiste's affordable housing initiatives, the ongoing East Kaua'i walking and biking path, cooperative cleanups at Hanamaulu and Black Pot county beach parks, and county support for new homeless shelters.

Carvalho has been on leave from his county job as of Aug. 25 to campaign. He lists as supporters former Hawai'i Gov. George Ariyoshi and University of Hawai'i Athletic Director Jim Donovan, who played UH football alongside Carvahlo.

Yukimura's former stint as mayor (1988-1994), and 14 years on the council (in three segments, the most recent from 2002 to now) are both her blessing and curse. Supporters see her as tireless in giving back to the community. Detractors seem prone to complain that she didn't do enough after Hurrican Iniki in 1992.

Yukimura, a 58-year-old attorney, said there are persistent claims about her actions during the grueling months of Iniki recovery that are untrue.

Yukimura's campaign has focused on her accomplishments, including starting the Kaua'i Bus service and the Sunshine farmers' markets, getting the county through the Hurricane Iniki cleanup, and computerizing county accounting "from scratch."

She recently championed Council bills that give Kaua'i the state's strongest rules on building setbacks from the ocean and attempt to curb illegal vacation rentals.

"One of my gifts is vision -- being ahead and helping to create things the community needs," she says.

Her political career began with election to the Kaua'i County Council in 1976, where she often was the lone voice for controlling growth and preserving open space. Over the years more people have become concerned about those issues, even as Yukimura has moderated her formerly combative stance in a search for "win-win" outcomes.

The Sierra Club endorsed Yukimura, and she says "a lot of people have been encouraging me, expressing gladness that I'm running."

Mel Rapozo, a 44-year old former Kaua'i police sergeant and Hawai'i Air National Guard member, announced his candidacy he said there would be "no fluff" in his administration.

"It's time to have a realist in that office -- regardless of the political impact," he said.

"Community input is vital, but you cannot rely on consensus to make a decision," Rapozo said of his leadership style.

Rapozo, who has been on the Kaua'i County Council since 2002, also runs M & P Legal Support Services, a private detective agency, and says he understands the issues of small businesses.

He calls himself the underdog candidate, but says he'll work hard to come from behind. He's chairman of the County Council's public works committee and says his priorities including keeping county spending in bounds, while investing in needed infrastructure like a landfill expansion, sewer and road improvements.

High on his to-do list are getting agreements with private landowner Grove Farm for the county to improve and use cane field roads as temporary contraflow lanes to ease rush-hour traffic from Lihu'e west to Maluhia Road and north to Wailua.

Rapozo says being president of the Hawai'i State Association of Counties gives him better working relationships with other county, state and federal leaders than his opponents. Those connections could help bring in needed dollars in lean economic times, he said.

Rapozo says he'd appoint a Green Committee to reduce energy use and improve efficiency in every aspect of county government. He was endorsed by Hawai'i Firefighters Association and the United Public Workers union.

The next mayor and Council will have to: deal with the Garden Island's landfill crisis and related recycling and waste-to-energy decisions; cope with the effects of high energy costs and declining tourism revenues; and balance development with preserving its sense of place.

Though the election is non-partisan, all three front-runners identify themselves as Democrats.

The Kaua'i County Charter requires a mayoral candidate to get more than half all votes cast to be declared a winner in the primary. Since non-partisan elections were established in the charter in the 1990s, there has always been a runoff for the mayor's race.

For this year's primary 38,874 people were registered to vote on Kaua'i.