Categorized | Opinions

Democracy as a team sport or is county government broken?

Has democracy and representative government devolved to a team sport in Hawaii County?  

Coach Kenoi and the County council seem to think so. When you don’t agree with the Kenoi strategy you get benched and booted from your council chairmanship. 

When the United States was first formed, representatives were elected to ride to Philadelphia or Washington to make decisions on behalf their constituents.  

Today, through the technology, elected officials can truly represent their constituents by providing information on issues and poling constituents via email. Dominic Yagong is the only council member that does this. Enriques tried to poll the silent majority. Is that even possible? 

 In the case of 2% for the Land Fund, Coach Kenoi and council members received hundreds of emails and sat through 150 testifiers who begged them NOT to stop the deposits to the land fund. This was an outcry NOT to develop Hawaii Island. They heard hours of testimony about the council reorganization, to no avail. 

Why?  

Just look at Kenoi’s Enriques, Onishi, Ikeda and Yoshimoto campaign contributions.  The contributions are mostly from developers and big business. Kudos to Council members Ford and Yagong who listened to constituents and voted consistently to retain the land fund.  

They listened to taxpayer’s suggestions on how to cut the budget, researched alternatives and found additional items to cut. Coach Kenoi and the boys benched ’em for their hard work, representing constituents and respecting that majority rules. 

A healthy democracy provides a forum whereby public servants are elected to represent their constituents, to discuss divergent ideas and reach compromise for the greater good of the population. 

There are four basic tenets of democracy: the right to fair elections, majority rules, elected officials represent their constituents and the right of free speech.

Do we have fair elections? 

Not in Hawaii County, where development interests buys seats for Council members.  How much does a council seat cost? In the case of Ka’u Council member Guy Enriques, over $89,000.  for a $47,000 per year job. 

Does majority rule? 

Not, in Hawaii County where 63 percent of voters who voted to set aside 2% of property taxes were disregarded when the County council suspended deposits to the fund for 2 years, instead of cutting over 429 funded but unfilled jobs.  

Do you realize that the $4 million deposited in the land fund each year is less than 1% of the budget?  

Council members said, “That was then, this is now” and “I have a hard time believing that people would vote for this today.”  Sounds like a rerun of the ’50s TV show “Father Knows Best.” The 2% for the Land Fund was a voter’s mandate by a large majority.  But the majority vote does NOT count! 

Do elected officials represent their constituents? 

Not in Hawaii County, where the Mayor appoints his sports or political buddies as Department Heads, not the best qualified people, and regime change can happen every 4 years. Not in Hawaii County, where the council members do not even read the proposed legislation before council meetings, let alone poll their constituents, because the decisions are made behind closed doors, in violation of the Sunshine Law.  Not in Hawaii County, where the Mayor appoints all of the people to commissions as part of political back-scratch system.  Does this represent the taxpayers who pay their salaries? 

Do we respect the right of free speech and respect voter’s opinions? 

 Not in Hawaii County, where our elected officials do not listen. They know better than their constituents, the patriarchal system is alive and well.  “That was then this is now.”  They vote as their puppet -masters and their big-ticket campaign contributors tell them.  

Ten years ago, the last time that the redistricting commission met, Hilo got 3 seats. Since most Puna folks work in Hilo, this provides a solid Hilo voting block. So far this term they have co-opted Enriques consistently to get a 5-vote majority. They bought the Puna vote for the  $900,000. Steam Vent property and a Vice -chairmanship, which sidelined Naole from having a voice on a committee. Since most of the people in Hilo are government/ union workers they must support the government.  

Get the picture of the Hilo stranglehold? 

How can we fix it?

Two very important commissions are working and are being formed.  Changes from these commissions will affect our lives for the next ten years. The Charter Commission is re-writing the charter now.  The Redistricting Commission will be formed to use the data from the 2010 census to re-organize the districts.   All of the appointments to these commissions are made by the Kenoi administration.  Each council member should be able to appoint commissioners so that the people of that district are represented properly.  

The Charter Commission can propose to replace the Mayor with a county manager who is hired by the County Council.  The Department heads would be hired as to their job expertise as employees and not just for 4 years.  This would provide consistency in the departments, avoid regime change disruption of business, enable long range planning and implementation and (hopefully) provide some vision to better serve citizens. 

The Charter commission can re-write the section on recall, or we can do this as a petition initiative charter amendment. We can provide accountability and “encourage” elected representatives to listen to constituents.  

Recall is now practically impossible in the Hawaii County charter. To recall a council member or the mayor you need signatures from 25 percent of all the registered voters in that district or the island respectively. Signatures must be collected in 30 days from the date of receiving the petition, and to validate signatures, it is required that the registered voter include their social security number AND if you do recall that official, the council gets to appoint the new council member or the managing director takes over for the mayor. These appointments would result in a stronger majority in the council or the same regime as is in effect with a mayor.  Recall should provide accountability, but not in Hawaii County. 

Kona and Puna are suffering from explosive growth and infrastructure in arrears.   How can we get the sewer line extended along Ali’i Drive so the cesspools don’t pollute the ocean from the Outrigger to Keahou?  How can we get the sewer plant fixed that is already working to capacity?  What can we do about crowded schools in Kona?  How can we get Old Airport Park developed?  How can we get the Kealakehe Sports Center land acquired and planned?   

Ask our Hilo friends to help us out? 

Hilo has been developed for decades.  Their schools, roads, parks and infrastructure are adequate.  Hilo folks are happy, so why do the rest of us keep complaining? Mayor Kenoi said at a Kona Town Meeting, ” There’s plenty of open space in Kona.”  

Did you know that if everything is built tomorrow there could be 28,000 to 35,000 more homes in North and South Kona?  

All that “open space” will be developed to send more money to Hilo.   What Hilo folks don’t realize is that if there had been open space buffers around the streams leading to Hilo Bay AND if there had been setbacks from the ocean from the industrial areas and residential area cesspools, that maybe Hilo Bay wouldn’t be polluted.  The Hilo Burrito (6,000 tons of contaminated soil on the Bay front) and the Big Island Asphalt were both listed on the Environmental Protection Agency website. 

Did you know that there are 10 resolutions approved for stimulus projects? 

These projects are all on the Hilo side of the island and will receive the first money.   There were no shovel ready projects on the West side because Bruce McClure (Harry Kim’s appointee) did not instruct the engineers to ready these projects. The mid-level road from Henry to Hina Lani is in “hurry-up” planning to qualify.   How does that serve the people of the island? 

In times of crisis, it’s time to return to basic core values, such as representative government, grassroots democracy, clean elections and free speech. The Hilo block will not help us get the infrastructure and services that we need and deserve for 70 percent of our property taxes. 

Should we ask them to put charter amendments on the ballot in 2010, to let the people decide at the polls?  

We could ask the Council to approve charter amendments for recall, the 2% Land fund and a redistricting formula. I think we have a snowballs chance in Hilo of that happening.  Maybe it’s time to discuss forming a West Hawaii County and split the island from Kohala to Ka’u. If you can’t beat ’em, join ’em or start another game.  

If you want to stand up for an independent West Hawaii government from Ka’u to Kohala email us at westhawaiicounty@gmail.com. 

Debbie Hecht

Kailua-Kona

One Response to “Democracy as a team sport or is county government broken?”

  1. Bett Bidleman says:

    I agree with everything you say, Debbie, except for one thing–West Hawaii abandoning all the many of us in the districts outside Hilo who watch their tax dollars going into the pockets of the good old boys in Hilo and want to fight back as much as West Hawaii does. The exploitive banana republic system on these islands with their robber baron landlords (okay, mixed metaphor, but you get my point) has been going on long since before statehood, robbing everyone outside its venal clan, not just West Hawaii. These old boys steal tax dollars and put it in their friends’ and families’ pockets. They do so because too many people here have become apathetic and defeated and have forgotten how to stand up for justice. Too many people here haven’t learned yet that democracy is not a spectator sport.

    Puna now has the population to do something about this, while West Hawaii has money and lawyers. Let’s unite to call down the bad apples raping this island. The only thing greedy people understand is a threat to their pocketbooks. You have friends on this side who are as angry as you.

    On this side I keep being told, “this isn’t the way things are done.” In other words, be quiet, plantation style. Not my nature, and I don’t believe it’s yours. Please don’t desert your friends who need you as much as you need them.

    Bett Bidleman

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