Puna Resilience Action Teams - Revitalize Puna

[Carey]

As a part of the Kilauea Eruption Recovery,
"County Councilmember Ashley Kierkiewicz, District 4, and County Recovery Officer Douglas Le co-hosted a community briefing via Zoom on Thursday, Aug. 12 to provide an overview of what Action Teams are and how residents can get involved."
"Residents are invited to get involved by completing the interest form found on the Recovery website by Friday, Aug. 20. An orientation for Action Team members is scheduled for September, in preparation for the quarterly community activation, Revitalize Puna, set for Tuesday, Oct. 12."
"Action Teams focus on community-driven projects that fall into one of several Resilience Capacity Areas – Social, Cultural, Economic, Natural Environment, Built Environment, and Youth. Each Resilience Capacity Area will be co-chaired by participants from the community and County who will provide Action Teams with technical assistance and guidance to help their projects succeed."
Form & info on these websites:
County Site:
https://recovery.hawaiicounty.gov/planni...tion-teams
Form:
https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQ...A/viewform
County announcement (info is in quotes above):
https://mailchi.mp/948ac897fad0/puna-cdp...kgUf-CsHp8

[leilanidude]

Without the following items being addressed, there is no real chance of any recovery.

1. Auto theft
2. Burglary
3. Squatters

All three need to be felonies, with mandatory minimum sentencing and restitution.

As to social, cultural and economic areas, without jobs there is no recovery and the above three items only get worse. In order to have better job opportunities, the first step in this area is cheaper electricity. Lots of NIMBY's and paranoid types around here, but allowing geothermal to expand and sell electricity directly to businesses for purposes of light manufacturing would be a quick start. Create a light industrial area, next to the plant and get government out of the way. If people shouldn't be building houses in Lava Zone 1, then let light industry utilize that land, instead.

[AaronM]

LDude, you hit the nails on their heads.

[ChunksterK]

While I applaud any effort to improve the community, the list of "teams" is at least twice as long as it needs to be. To me, resilience mainly implies disaster preparedness and rebuilding after the fact. I might stretch it to include economic development, something which would enable the other two factors. However, my own experience with county based "action" plans tells me that the biggest opportunities here are for endless committee meetings, bureaucratic lethargy, and for a politician to say, "Look, I did something." As a participant in the Puna Community Development Plan and an observer of its follow on "Action Committee," I can tell you that these things do little other than provide the appearance of work for the county employees that oversee them.

And Leilanidude makes some very good points.

[AaronM]

"However, my own experience with county based "action" plans tells me that the biggest opportunities here are for endless committee meetings, bureaucratic lethargy, and for a politician to say, "Look, I did something.""

Akin to our cottage industry of 'studies'.