09-02-2010, 10:42 AM
It was obvious at the County Council public hearing on amendments to the Puna CDP held Monday night in Keaau that the vested interests of Hilo's old guard have defeated the very tool the Federal government gave the people of Hawaii County to seek fair treatment in planning the futures of their communities.
So this will be the precedent for all the island's other CDPs and all other districts should take note at how our county leaders will pull out all stops to keep the status quo while implying the promise of jobs and otherwise victimizing the general public with their lies.
Someone paid to have lots of T-shirts printed with the message You Passed It Then, Let's Amend It Now on the front, Vote Yes on Bill 194 on the back. They also provided written scripts for people to complete their testimony "thanking Councilwoman Emily Naeole-Beason and J Yoshimoto for their amendments." Now, lots of people testified on behalf of Emily Naeole's amendments and were clearly there to support her and the Hawaiian community. But they all finished by reading a printed statement thanking Naeole "and J Yoshimoto for their amendments."
You see, the sneaky thing is that Chairman Yoshimoto rolled all the amendments into one bill, so in order to pass the amendments that just clean up slipups in language, or the amendments with merit (such as Emily's one negating the Puna CDP's moving the Keaau and Pahoa transfer stations which was snuck into the plan at the last minute without the steering committee's approval), ALL the amendments would pass as one. And that included the amendments drawn up by the Shipman attorneys reinstating the estate's control over development in all of Puna. It just took slipping in a word or two in various Puna CDP proposals to do that!
No one I've heard has taken credit for the shirts and "talking point" scripts but former Councilman Jimmy Arakaki -- yes, the councilman who the State Supreme Court ruled had illegally gotten a 4th council term -- was seated just behind Emily Naeole's aide RJ in the Big Island Video News posting of the meeting (link: http://www.bigislandvideonews.com/2010/0...c-hearing/ ). Arakaki is generally seen by insiders as the power behind the throne of the current Hilo-dominant council and the cultivator of the Enriques-Onishi rubber stamps.
And Bill Walter is head of Shipman Estate, the missionary family who used to own the ahupua'a of Keaau, from Volcano to the Puna coast. It was the dominating influence of Shipman Estate interests in the state and county's long-range plans that prompted a successful civil suit that found the state and county in violation of Puna and Ka'u citizens' civil rights.
And those who don't think the Shipman Estate has had a major hand in the politics and control of all of East Hawaii since the mid-1800s have no real understanding of the missionary families' influence here.
(It was another "great white father's" politicking that made it so the people of Hilo and East Hawaii had to wage a 10-year battle just to get Prince Kuhio Plaza. Why? Because "Doc" Hilo and his protege, the former state Sen. Richard Henderson, and others, made sure the original County Charter limited business development to between the Wailuku and Wailoa rivers...meaning all development in Hilo should go up Kaumana, not east toward the more expansive, flatter lands along Kanoelehua Ave. and Volcano Highway!)
This is what the Feds stated in its Sept. 28, 2000 findings of the civil rights claims by the Sustainability Committee:
--That Hawaii Dept. of Transportation and Hawaii County "discriminated by failing to recognize actual land uses and populations affecting low income and Native Hawaiians in its long range transportation planning;"
--that HDOT and HI County "failed to taking into consideration economic development and multi-modal transportation needs of low income communities and specifically, those in Puna and Ka'u;"
--that "Native Hawaiians, who are low income, are not being treated fairly in Puna and Ka'u due to the discriminatory Hawaii Long Range Transportation Plan of both HDOT and Hawaii County;"
And the FHA's conclusion? Paraphrasing here, the record shows the respondents HDOT and Hawaii County are not in compliance with the requirements of Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 as outlined in procedures and requirements....
Why the emphasis on transportation in the findings? Because the civil suit was filed with the Federal Highways Administration and potentially threatened all federal transportation funding to the state and county! That's when the county came up with the countywide CDP process. The state also had statewide public hearings on its long-range plans but most people didn't pay much attention to those. It was all done to satisfy the feds about having conferred with its citizenry. BUT NOT THAT IT LISTENED TO THE CITIZENS.
They just had to gather statistics to show the feds the public had their chance to have a say. Now they can go on with business as usual. Because through their lies and the meticulous record-keeping of the Planning Dept.'s Larry Brown, the county can now show the feds that 100s of local residents have had their chance to give public input and that they supported the Shipman-influenced results.
In hearing after hearing before Hawaii County's Planning Commission and County Council, Bill Walter has complained that he was shut out of the process on the working level. And several citizens, including myself and Sarah Burgess, publicly testified that he was involved in meetings they attended and that he was treated with respect. However, the steering committee and working groups did not adopt his proposals, just like they didn't accept David Fukumoto's because both participants were seen as being more self-serving than working in the whole community's interests.
Bill Walter complained from the very beginning of the Puna CDP process because he was not nominated to the steering committee. He should have realized how his neighbor, then-Mayor Harry Kim, and Planning Director Chris Yuen really had made a smart political judgment by NOT naming him to the steering committee. That was a way of deflecting the public's attention to what the powers-that-be planned would prevail in the long run.
The Puna CDP process was not perfect but that wasn't because those citizens taking part in it weren't doing their best to represent everyone's interests. I challenge anyone to show me one place in the Puna CDP and say it benefits a specific interest beyond the native population and native environment. It was a long and tedious process and beyond a few core of dedicated citizens, we couldn't get people to turn out and give their input. Many scoffed at the naivete of participants. They said they'd responded so many times to similar planning efforts in the past and been completely ignored. So they refused to come to the meetings.
From the first meetings in 2006, it became quickly apparent that the fix was in. The Planning Department gave participants extremely short, tight deadlines for working group proposals, the meat of the CDPs. They also gave the groups conflicting instructions and stonewalled requests for input from public officials and public records. As for the language adopted in new zoning proposals, all such guidance was provided by the County-picked consultant whose expertise cost 100s of thousands of county dollars!
Well, as a result of the 8/30 public hearing, the county undoubtedly has its statistics to satisfy the feds. It is my understanding that that's all the state and county powers had to do, prove they had conferred and gotten input from various demographic strands before adopting their plans. And I think by fooling the Hawaiian and local community about who truly had their interests at heart-- in the quest for better jobs and education and social services and protection for the environment of Puna -- they can claim they actually followed the input of the people of Puna.
The missionary and the plantation eras, two archaic systems from post-contact historical Hawaii, live on. How sad! Our young people and our elders as well as our hard-working families deserve more than political games used to gut the true planning and community input of the CDPs. Using the uneducated, the unsophisticated members of our community to serve vested interests and circumvent justice is demagoguery.
Beware, those who are involved in community planning in other districts. What was done to Puna can be done to you! Malama pono.
So this will be the precedent for all the island's other CDPs and all other districts should take note at how our county leaders will pull out all stops to keep the status quo while implying the promise of jobs and otherwise victimizing the general public with their lies.
Someone paid to have lots of T-shirts printed with the message You Passed It Then, Let's Amend It Now on the front, Vote Yes on Bill 194 on the back. They also provided written scripts for people to complete their testimony "thanking Councilwoman Emily Naeole-Beason and J Yoshimoto for their amendments." Now, lots of people testified on behalf of Emily Naeole's amendments and were clearly there to support her and the Hawaiian community. But they all finished by reading a printed statement thanking Naeole "and J Yoshimoto for their amendments."
You see, the sneaky thing is that Chairman Yoshimoto rolled all the amendments into one bill, so in order to pass the amendments that just clean up slipups in language, or the amendments with merit (such as Emily's one negating the Puna CDP's moving the Keaau and Pahoa transfer stations which was snuck into the plan at the last minute without the steering committee's approval), ALL the amendments would pass as one. And that included the amendments drawn up by the Shipman attorneys reinstating the estate's control over development in all of Puna. It just took slipping in a word or two in various Puna CDP proposals to do that!
No one I've heard has taken credit for the shirts and "talking point" scripts but former Councilman Jimmy Arakaki -- yes, the councilman who the State Supreme Court ruled had illegally gotten a 4th council term -- was seated just behind Emily Naeole's aide RJ in the Big Island Video News posting of the meeting (link: http://www.bigislandvideonews.com/2010/0...c-hearing/ ). Arakaki is generally seen by insiders as the power behind the throne of the current Hilo-dominant council and the cultivator of the Enriques-Onishi rubber stamps.
And Bill Walter is head of Shipman Estate, the missionary family who used to own the ahupua'a of Keaau, from Volcano to the Puna coast. It was the dominating influence of Shipman Estate interests in the state and county's long-range plans that prompted a successful civil suit that found the state and county in violation of Puna and Ka'u citizens' civil rights.
And those who don't think the Shipman Estate has had a major hand in the politics and control of all of East Hawaii since the mid-1800s have no real understanding of the missionary families' influence here.
(It was another "great white father's" politicking that made it so the people of Hilo and East Hawaii had to wage a 10-year battle just to get Prince Kuhio Plaza. Why? Because "Doc" Hilo and his protege, the former state Sen. Richard Henderson, and others, made sure the original County Charter limited business development to between the Wailuku and Wailoa rivers...meaning all development in Hilo should go up Kaumana, not east toward the more expansive, flatter lands along Kanoelehua Ave. and Volcano Highway!)
This is what the Feds stated in its Sept. 28, 2000 findings of the civil rights claims by the Sustainability Committee:
--That Hawaii Dept. of Transportation and Hawaii County "discriminated by failing to recognize actual land uses and populations affecting low income and Native Hawaiians in its long range transportation planning;"
--that HDOT and HI County "failed to taking into consideration economic development and multi-modal transportation needs of low income communities and specifically, those in Puna and Ka'u;"
--that "Native Hawaiians, who are low income, are not being treated fairly in Puna and Ka'u due to the discriminatory Hawaii Long Range Transportation Plan of both HDOT and Hawaii County;"
And the FHA's conclusion? Paraphrasing here, the record shows the respondents HDOT and Hawaii County are not in compliance with the requirements of Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 as outlined in procedures and requirements....
Why the emphasis on transportation in the findings? Because the civil suit was filed with the Federal Highways Administration and potentially threatened all federal transportation funding to the state and county! That's when the county came up with the countywide CDP process. The state also had statewide public hearings on its long-range plans but most people didn't pay much attention to those. It was all done to satisfy the feds about having conferred with its citizenry. BUT NOT THAT IT LISTENED TO THE CITIZENS.
They just had to gather statistics to show the feds the public had their chance to have a say. Now they can go on with business as usual. Because through their lies and the meticulous record-keeping of the Planning Dept.'s Larry Brown, the county can now show the feds that 100s of local residents have had their chance to give public input and that they supported the Shipman-influenced results.
In hearing after hearing before Hawaii County's Planning Commission and County Council, Bill Walter has complained that he was shut out of the process on the working level. And several citizens, including myself and Sarah Burgess, publicly testified that he was involved in meetings they attended and that he was treated with respect. However, the steering committee and working groups did not adopt his proposals, just like they didn't accept David Fukumoto's because both participants were seen as being more self-serving than working in the whole community's interests.
Bill Walter complained from the very beginning of the Puna CDP process because he was not nominated to the steering committee. He should have realized how his neighbor, then-Mayor Harry Kim, and Planning Director Chris Yuen really had made a smart political judgment by NOT naming him to the steering committee. That was a way of deflecting the public's attention to what the powers-that-be planned would prevail in the long run.
The Puna CDP process was not perfect but that wasn't because those citizens taking part in it weren't doing their best to represent everyone's interests. I challenge anyone to show me one place in the Puna CDP and say it benefits a specific interest beyond the native population and native environment. It was a long and tedious process and beyond a few core of dedicated citizens, we couldn't get people to turn out and give their input. Many scoffed at the naivete of participants. They said they'd responded so many times to similar planning efforts in the past and been completely ignored. So they refused to come to the meetings.
From the first meetings in 2006, it became quickly apparent that the fix was in. The Planning Department gave participants extremely short, tight deadlines for working group proposals, the meat of the CDPs. They also gave the groups conflicting instructions and stonewalled requests for input from public officials and public records. As for the language adopted in new zoning proposals, all such guidance was provided by the County-picked consultant whose expertise cost 100s of thousands of county dollars!
Well, as a result of the 8/30 public hearing, the county undoubtedly has its statistics to satisfy the feds. It is my understanding that that's all the state and county powers had to do, prove they had conferred and gotten input from various demographic strands before adopting their plans. And I think by fooling the Hawaiian and local community about who truly had their interests at heart-- in the quest for better jobs and education and social services and protection for the environment of Puna -- they can claim they actually followed the input of the people of Puna.
The missionary and the plantation eras, two archaic systems from post-contact historical Hawaii, live on. How sad! Our young people and our elders as well as our hard-working families deserve more than political games used to gut the true planning and community input of the CDPs. Using the uneducated, the unsophisticated members of our community to serve vested interests and circumvent justice is demagoguery.
Beware, those who are involved in community planning in other districts. What was done to Puna can be done to you! Malama pono.