Amy: How does the city feel about the state's decision to allow furlough days for teachers?

Charles Djou: No one wants to furlough teachers or any government workers. The reality, however, is the recession has caused a severe downturn in our government revenues. Faced with a choice between laying off teachers, cutting schools or furloughs — furloughs negotiated by the state and HSTA is the best option of a bad set of choices.

JD: I live on the West Side and voted for rail. It will create local jobs in the recession and help traffic. Why should I vote for you for Congress when you refuse to get 100 percent behind the rail project?

Charles Djou: If we had an unlimited supply of money, we should of course do rail. The reality is that city taxpayers do not have an unlimited supply of money and the proposed Honolulu rail system, per capita, will be by far the most expensive rail system ever built in American history. Nevertheless, I respect the vote last November and believe we must work to make sure the rail system is done right. That includes carefully monitoring the cost and exploring all options, including placing a portion of the rail system at-grade.

I am proud of my record of working cooperatively and point to my leadership in including the airport on the rail route as a good example of how I would work on this project in Congress.

Gary: I saw in a recent Advertiser article that the "no sleeping" ban also includes "no sitting" on sidewalks. Will you be instructing HPD to enforce this during parades by ticketing all of the children and grandparents who sit on the sidewalk?

Shirley: Do you really think a total ban on homeless people sleeping on the sidewalk everywhere on O'ahu has any chance of holding up in court?

Charles Djou: Because these questions deal with the same topic, I will answer them together.

No one has a right to take over a public sidewalk or park and treat it as their own private property.

Earlier this year the city passed an ordinance banning sleeping in city parks. Many vagrants, however, have found a loophole in the law by merely sleeping on the sidewalk and then immediately returning to take over "their" portion of the parks at daybreak. This is unfair.

Most homeless suffer from mental illness or drug abuse and my preference is that all those who need help get help offered by taxpayers. Unfortunately, too many individuals refuse government assistance. The parks department is simply ill equipped to deal with homeless issues. If we do nothing and accept that sleeping is an acceptable use of city sidewalks, the taxpayers will need to redesign all of our sidewalks to accommodate sleeping to avoid liability. This is nonsensical.

There is no one perfect solution to fixing homelessness, but recognizing that city sidewalks were never designed for sleeping, and encouraging those who need help to avail themselves to help is part of the solution.

It is important to understand that the penalty in my proposed bill is a warning. Only if an individual refused to comply with a warning, only then would a citation be issued. Second, the bill clearly contains an exemption for viewing parades. Finally, I plan to amend my measure in committee to remove the provision regarding "sitting."

Haunani Kealoha: You have said that you support the will of the people and the pro-rail vote. Yet you continually criticize the rail project and throw up roadblocks, even as it gets close to groundbreaking. Why?

Charles Djou: I have always consistently stated that while I did not support rail, I do respect the vote last year. Respecting the vote, however, does not mean writing the administration a blank check and completely abdicating my responsibilities as a fiscal watchdog. I will always fight to make sure taxpayer money isn't wasted and advocate for improving the system. I think the city administration gets frustrated whenever the public asks questions on how they are spending the people's money, but that is part of my responsibility as a council member.

Bongo: Councilman, since you have voted against every city budget during your eight years on the council, could it be fairly said that you have done nothing for your district, since no funding equals no improvements in the district? What's your contribution?

Charles Djou: I have always stood on principle. When I first ran for the City Council I promised my constituents that I would not vote for a budget that increased government spending by more than inflation plus population growth.

While I can understand that there may be times when the government may need to temporarily increase spending by double inflation for one year, what the current administration has done is simply reckless. The city budget has exploded from $1.5 billion in fiscal year 2005 to a whopping $3.5 billion for this current fiscal year. This is too much and a large part of the reason we have such a big fiscal mess.

I am happy to stand as a consistent advocate for responsible fiscal spending. Spending taxpayer money isn't the only way to serve the public, and my record of successfully passing lower spending, recycling, alternative energy and ethics reform clearly bears this out.

Joe: Why support an at grade system? You may save money initially, but what about easing traffic and the additional hazardous it will cause? An at-grade system will cause more traffic on surface roads and significantly more at intersections. At-grade systems have significantly more train/pedestrian accidents than elevated systems. Saving money now and paying for it with lives is not a trade-off I would like to make.

Charles Djou: I think an at-grade might make sense for a portion of the rail system, but we should have a public hearing to air the potential cost savings and the points you raise. It is disappointing that the administration is so hostile to publicly discussing an at-grade rail system. If an all elevated system makes so much sense there is no reason to oppose a public hearing.

Jeff: The mayor recently revised the lighting plan on Lunalilo Home Road. He said that the remaining lights will not be changed on the other streets. Can you clarify if the intent is to not do anything at all and leave it as is or will the existing lights be changed and kept at the 300 foot distance between each?

Charles Djou: As I understand current plans, the administration plans to do nothing with replacing any street lights in Hawai'i Kai beyond those that have already been replaced and leave this issue to the next mayor.

Bob W.: What do you say are your top three accomplishments as an eight-year city councilman?

Charles Djou: Just to name a few things I'm proud to have accomplished:

1. Cleaning up the corruption at the Honolulu Liquor Commission; 2. Pushing the Hannemann administration to enact a comprehensive curbside recycling program; 3. Enacting civil fines for violations of the ethics code; 4. Consistently opposing all tax increases; 5. Advocating for restraining public spending; 6. Enacting alternative-energy tax exemption; 7. Establishing reporting requirements on city energy usage; 8. Clarifying park camping rules; 9. Improving military relations with the city and enacting a tax holiday for deployed soldiers; 10. Always being open and accessible to my constituents.