Council member Tulsi Gabbard was on the Big Island yesterday opening her Hilo campaign headquarters, according to West Hawaii Today.

That likely means she wasn’t at Mayor Peter Carlisle‘s State of the City speech.

I didn’t see her, but it was crowded in Mission Memorial Auditorium, so I can’t be sure. Chair Ernie Martin and members Nestor Garcia and Tom Berg were definitely there. I do know at least one member was definitely not there yesterday: Stanley Chang is on city business in Japan.

Council members’ presence at the speech isn’t required. And Gabbard’s absence wouldn’t be a rebuke to Carlisle the way it was when three conservative Supreme Court justices skipped Barack Obama‘s State of the Union last year. The last time I saw the mayor together with Gabbard, he mispronounced her last name (Ga-BARD) when he introduced her at last week’s affordable housing press conference, but she laughed it off — “How long have we been working together?”

I only bring up her travels in this space because Gabbard told me at campaign event six months ago that her run for Congress would never pull her away from official city business — Council or committee meetings.

“None. That’s the commitment,” she said Aug. 30. “I would hope that you would hold me to that.”

So far, she hasn’t missed a meeting.

Read the full West Hawaii Today story here: Gabbard opens Hilo campaign headquarters

(Photo: HOLLYN JOHNSON/Tribune-Herald)