Eileen Anderson

Prominent members of Anderson's administration included Bob Awana as administrative director and chief of staff, later chief of staff to Linda Lingle, the first Hawaii Republican governor after forty years of Democrat dominance in the state.[5] Awana helped run Anderson's failed re-election campaign against Fasi. Anderson appointed Andy Chang as managing director of Honolulu.[6] Chang would continue to serve the city and county in various capacities after Anderson's departure from office.

Anderson's vow of fiscal responsibility was maintained in her cancellation of the Honolulu Area Rail Rapid Transit project, which was planned in the 1970s and close to construction approval. Popularly known as HART, the project in its original form would have built a heavy rail system with twenty-three miles of track featuring twenty-one stations from Pearl City in central Oahu to Hawaii Kai in East Oahu.[7]

In addition to millions to be invested by the city and county, millions of dollars in grants earmarked for HART were returned by Anderson.[7] She declined US$5.75 million from the Federal government of the United States saying, "Why spend five million dollars on a system that won't be built?[7][8]"

Achieving national attention, Anderson defended her position by arguing the long-term costs to taxpayers for such an expensive project, especially after U.S. President Ronald Reagan announced elimination of Federal public transit funding in the country and the ongoing need for more funding for Interstate H-3 construction. She rather argued in favor of smaller, incremental improvements to the bus system.[9]

With growing development leading to increased traffic congestion on Oahu, the city and county continued to make public transit a focus of public debate during Anderson and Fasi's tenures. On October 6, 1981, Anderson announced she hoped to study the San Diego Trolley, a system funded with gas taxes.[9]

Both Anderson and Fasi continued to modernize TheBus but a rail system was never approved. It wasn't until the 2000s that Honolulu agreed to a similar, more expensive project under the leadership of the mayor, Mufi Hannemann.

Anderson once again stood for election as mayor and was defeated by Fasi, who had switched his political affiliation from Democrat to Republican, so as to avoid being knocked out of the Democratic primary by Anderson.[10] Anderson subsequently sought a political comeback by seeking the nomination of her party for lieutenant governor in 1986. Anderson lost the primary election to state senator Ben Cayetano, who later served alongside Hawaii Governor John Waihee before becoming governor himself.

In 1983, KSSK-FM reformatted its morning programming pairing Michael W. Perry and Larry Price, who became two of the most popular personalities and one of the most popular radio news programs in Hawaii. Anderson was a regular listener and, a sign of Perry and Price's growing influence, was the first major person to call the show during the broadcast, in effect signaling how relevant they were to local culture and politics.[11]

Anderson called the radio hosts, angry about their comments over a political issue. The Honolulu Star-Bulletin published the account on August 27, 1998:

It was a woman who said she was Mayor Eileen Anderson and she had to call immediately because she was so mad and she still had toothpaste in her mouth," Perry said. "I said, 'Oh baloney, you're not the mayor,' and hung up on her." A few minutes later, Anderson called back, sans toothpaste. "Wow, you really are the mayor," Price remembered saying. "And you're listening to us! Hey Michael, the mayor listens to our show. Do you believe that![11]

Since Anderson's initial call, every Mayor of Honolulu and Governor of Hawaii has appeared on the morning Perry and Price program via telephone to comment or discuss various cultural and political issues and current events.