Honolulu Mayor Rick Blangiardi wants to lock the Mayor's Office of Culture and the Arts (MOCA) permanently into the city charter, but his own City Council isn't taking the proposal at face value. After a pointed September 24 committee hearing over potential costs and timing, councilmembers rewrote the measure to designate MOCA as an office rather than a full executive department — a change meant to head off salary increases and duplicate bureaucracy.
A Charter Push Rooted in Executive Authority
Blangiardi submitted the proposal, known as draft resolution MM-110(26), on August 26, under Section 4-202 of the city charter, which lets mayoral reorganization measures take effect automatically after 60 days unless two-thirds of the nine-member council votes to reject them, according to the Honolulu Star-Advertiser. Council Chair Tommy Waters formally introduced the measure as Resolution 26-201 on September 1, per Honolulu City Council records. The mechanism has precedent: Mayor Kirk Caldwell used the same charter authority in October 2020 to formalize the Office of Economic Revitalization under Resolution 20-204, according to the City and County of Honolulu Office of Climate Change, Sustainability and Resiliency.
In his written submission, Blangiardi said the administration is “strongly committed to expanding Honolulu's diverse cultural landscape,” according to the Star-Advertiser's report. The charter proposal is meant to support local artists, honor Native Hawaiian traditions, and uplift diverse communities while giving the office more visibility, organizational stability, and continuity across future mayoral administrations, per the same account.
Mayor's Team Says It's Just Formalizing What Already Exists
Mayoral spokesperson Scott Humber told the council the proposal would not automatically give MOCA a larger budget or additional staffing — funding and staffing would continue to flow through the city's normal budget and administrative processes, the Star-Advertiser reported. Humber framed the measure as recognition of MOCA's existing work and a way to provide greater continuity, not the creation of another city department or an expansion of government, he said, adding that the amendment would simply formally establish an existing office and define its role in the charter.
MOCA Executive Director Jennifer Santos told the committee the proposal would establish MOCA as a distinct department within the Office of the Mayor, administratively managed through the managing director's office, while stressing it would not change the agency's mission, programs, scope of work, or services. Santos, who took over the role in July 2025 after Kaʻili Trask OʻConnell's departure that April, according to the City and County of Honolulu, said the mayor's office had worked on the request for about a year and that the timing relative to other ballot measures was coincidental.
Council Presses on Salary and Overlap With Ballot Measure
Chair Waters pushed on the financial implications, noting that city department heads earn about $211,000 annually compared with Santos's current roughly $150,000 salary, and he directly asked whether her pay would rise to match a department-head title. Santos replied that salary discussions had not occurred. Waters said the potential cost increase deserved the council's scrutiny, and he also questioned why the proposal bypassed the dedicated Honolulu Charter Commission process entirely, telling the committee that MOCA has been working just fine and that the change seemed out of the blue.
Councilmember Andria Tupola raised a separate concern: how the mayor's proposal differs from Charter Question No. 3, the measure already headed to Oʻahu voters on the November 3 ballot asking whether to establish an Office of ʻŌiwi Resources and Cultural Stewardship within the Mayor's Office. That proposed office would oversee Native Hawaiian cultural resources and develop related programs along with a cultural advisory council made up of kūpuna, cultural practitioners, and community representatives, according to Ballotpedia. Santos said MOCA was not looking to expand into the ʻŌiwi Resources team's responsibilities.
Committee Compromises, Advances Amended Measure
Facing the cost and overlap questions, Councilmember Scott Nishimoto introduced Committee Draft 1 during the September 24 International and Legal Affairs Committee meeting, amending the resolution to designate MOCA as an office rather than a standalone executive department. Nishimoto noted the committee had to act that day, since inaction would have let the reorganization take effect automatically under the charter's 60-day rule. The committee ultimately voted 7-0 to advance the amended resolution, with Radiant Cordero, Esther Kiaʻāina, Augie Tulba, Tupola, and Waters voting with reservations; members Tyler Dos Santos-Tam and Val Okimoto were absent from the vote.
Community members weighed in before the vote. Poet Brandy McDougall supported MOCA's expansion, saying the agency's backing was transformative for her poetry, its development, and its public visibility. Emma Broderick, representing the Native Hawaiian nonprofit Puʻuhonua Society, said MOCA creates space for ʻike Hawaiʻi, supports local artists and cultural practitioners, fosters civic engagement, and reflects community histories and values. Written testimony supporting charter recognition for MOCA was also submitted by the Puʻuhonua Society and the Hawaiian immersion school Ke Kula Kaiapuni ʻO Ānuenue.
A 55-Year-Old Agency With a Defined Mission
MOCA traces its roots to 1971, established after Hawaiʻi's 1967 Percent for Art law mandated that 1% of total construction costs for municipal public buildings be set aside for public art, according to the City and County of Honolulu budget documents. The agency currently runs as a program within the Office of the Mayor, administratively situated under the city's managing director, with an operating budget of more than $1.107 million funding seven full-time positions for the fiscal year that began July 1, 2026, the Star-Advertiser reported.
Under the proposal, MOCA would gain an executive for culture and the arts appointed and removable by the mayor, who would coordinate city programs involving culture and the arts, promote cultural and artistic activities across Honolulu, and manage the sister city program and international cultural exchanges. MOCA would also continue working with the Commission on Culture and the Arts on the Art in City Buildings program, inspecting, inventorying, and maintaining the city's public art collection. The agency's recent momentum includes its July selection as one of eight winning U.S. city agencies in the Bloomberg Philanthropies Public Art Challenge, which chose Honolulu from among 154 competing cities across 40 states for its multi-year “Wahi Pana: Storied Places” initiative, according to Wahi Pana.
The broader context looms large: the Honolulu Charter Commission, which convenes once per decade, reviewed more than 250 public proposals and placed 20 separate charter amendment questions on the November 3 ballot, a process some councilmembers felt the mayor's MOCA measure should have joined rather than bypassed. For now, the amended resolution heads toward a full council vote, with supporters framing it as a modest but lasting recognition of an agency that has quietly shaped Honolulu's cultural life for more than five decades.
