By Ira Rohter

2/20/99

Most Honolulu residents know little about the Big Island's political scene, except for what they learn from the media. Last November, a long festering conflict burst into The Honolulu Advertiser, when it ran a lengthy op-ed piece titled "Big Islanders: We Just Say No." The essay claimed that economic growth is being held back by a "persistent vocal minority" who are "drowning out" the views of "the silent majority." And, say the writers, these strident naysayers are mostly "outsiders" who are grossly insensitive to "local culture."

A month earlier, Honolulu residents were exposed to the same "a vocal minority is thwarting economic growth accusation," in articles appearing in both major newspapers. These reports covered a talk given by First Hawaiian Bank economist Leroy Laney before the BI Chamber of Commerce. Laney also quipped: "five hippies and a pro bono lawyer" were enough to stop any development on the Big Island.

These are views that Big Island's Mayor Stephen Yamashiro has often voiced too, and they have been echoed by Governor Cayetano's top administrators as well.

Readers needs to note that these accusations are being voiced by big-business spokesmen and politicians whose favorite big-scale projects have evoked widespread popular opposition. The authors of the Advertiser piece are Big Island heads of Matson shipping line and the ILWU, a Bank of Hawai`i VP, and a former powerful State Senator. They speak for the Hawai`i Island Economic Development Board, the Big Island Business Council, the Big Island Labor Alliance, and the large-scale export-crop agriculture industry. The kind of project they've pushed for typically favor off-island investors, are undemocratically instigated, and would cause great harm to the Island's environment and local communities. Cayetano and Yamashiro — as the loyal spearcarriers for these interests — have readily backed these controversial undertakings.

The political wars being waged on the Big Island highlight a fundamental question confronting all of Hawai`i's citizens, as this island state faces the challenge of modernizing itself: "Whose interests will prevail?"

the old power-brokers. For generations the Big Island has been ruled by a small political clique. During the reign of Big Sugar, the plantation owners ran the island in tandem with their political appointees or loyal officeholders. Even after World War II, when the labor unions gained considerable power, labor leaders worked in league with the plantation owners, who sought to keep their taxes low, avoid environmental regulations, and control the local economy. With the decline of sugar and advent of tourism, the game on the Big Island switched to resort development, which meant the politicians worked hand-in-glove with local landowners and offshore financial capital.

The classic book Land and Power in Hawai`i documents many instances when, on all islands, the politically well connected worked comfortably together and prospered mutually. A small clique made up of elected officeholders, their appointees to government posts, their close advisors and friends, in tandem with investors, real estate developers, bankers, and construction industry members, pretty much ran County governments as their own mini-principalities. Government agencies and commissions (such as the State Land Use Commission and county planning boards) were staffed with loyal appointees willing to approve nearly every project that promised jobs, no matter what their impacts might be on the environment, local community, or Hawaiian rights.

But the political control of this old regime is being increasingly challenged as Hawai`i Island's demographics and economics change. Many newcomers have settled in Kona, Hawi, Waimea, and Ka`u. The younger generation is more educated and less seeped in plantation docility than their parents. Old sugar bosses have fallen, and no unifying economic leaders have replaced them. Union membership rolls have dwindled and labor's visionary leaders have died off. In 1990 the County Council contained nine Democrats, eight of whom were loyal to the Old Guard's agenda that favored multinational corporations over a local-people-first economy. The 1999 Council, however, is comprised of a Green, two dissident Democrats, a feisty green pro-Hawaiian Republican, a Republican, and only four old-style Democrats.

opening up backroom deals. In the good old days, decisions were made at the County Office Building without much public notice or debate. The Mayor, Council members, and State legislators, worked out mutually beneficial land deals with the business community, large landowners, labor leaders, and developers. Today, to the distress of insiders, sunshine laws are being enforced that require more open government. Government information once kept secret must now be released for public scrutiny. Public hearings — some televised — allow opportunities for questions and critical testimony. Activists are uncovering and publicizing a lot more information about decision-makers' conflict of interests as they vote on matters affecting their large campaign contributors or business associates. More than ever, the public is observing first-hand their elected officeholders or commission appointees making policies.

Community associations and coalitions made up of ordinary citizens are also demanding that their views be taken seriously in the making all kind of decisions that affect their communities, especially zoning changes and development plans.

The now famous PASH Hawai`i Supreme Court ruling, for example, began with a suit filed by a Big Island citizens' group against County planning officials, who had refused to properly consider native Hawaiian access rights in granting a permit to build an oceanside resort. This December the Circuit Court ruled that the County Council intentionally violated state law when it pushed through revised zoning law changes in 1996, without allowing proper public participation. (Huge Clark, "Ruling may imperil zoning decisions," The Honolulu Advertiser, 12/18/98)

the ploy of "streamlining." It is no surprise then, that the Old Guard wants to curtail the right of the public to meaningfully participate in government hearings. Under the guise of "streamlining" and making government regulations more "flexible," officeholders are eagerly collaborating with business representatives to restrict public input, relax requirements for public notice, shorten the time available for people to comment on controversial administrative decisions, and curtail judicial review. This is why Hawai`i's economic élite wants to eliminate the State Land Use and State Water Commissions, and implement "automatic" and "fast-track" permitting for new developments.

During the era of the sugar plantations, Big Island's economy was dominated by a few large companies. Big Island's present élite retains this mindset, and enthusiastically welcomed a host of controversial projects that favor the profits of off-island corporations over the interests of local communities: Allowing TV production crews to take over a popular preservation area for many months. Erecting a Cobalt-60 powered plant to irradiate fruit for export markets. Leasing Hamakua agricultural lands for low-value pulptree plantations. Building a large prison in a semi-rural area. Siteing a frequently malfunctioning and health-threatening geothermal energy plant in the midst of a subdivision. Constructing a giant missile launching ("spaceport") complex in Ka`u.

discrediting the opposition. Rather than recognizing the validity of many citizens' reasons for opposing these projects, proponents of these projects resort to claims that the "silent majority" of "mainstream citizens" is being outshouted by a "vocal minority." This is a tactic commonly utilized by anti-environmental public relations consultants.

The Old Guard voices another familiar charge, claiming it is mostly "outsiders" who are opposing promising growth. Richard West and the other Advertiser pro big-business authors vilify their opponents as "agitators" who don't "understand or respect local values of quiet civility." They accuse them of being "young wannabees"; "impressionable, undereducated, artistic, idealistic"; a "small core of dilettantes posing in the roles of changemasters"; and "diehard political activists, extremists and international political ideologues."

Labelling opponents as "environmental extremists," "environmental terrorists," and agents of an "extremist agenda at odds with the views of a majority of the public," is another familiar public-relations tactic, as books such as The War Against The Greens, and Green Backlash: The History And Politics Of The Environmental Opposition In The United States inform us.

And, of course, encouraging racial divisions is an old political strategy in the Islands. It was employed with great cleverness by the plantation owners and their luna during their union-busting days. More recently, pro big-project spokesmen have tried to discredit their opposition by arousing "haole outsider" versus "local" tensions.

The Old Guard refuses to acknowledge that their projects evoke widespread opposition because:

The giant missile launching site proposed for Ka`û, for example, would have mostly employed Mainland technicians, and posed serious environmental hazards. The Hamakua pulptree plantations would have being owned by Japan's largest paper producer and tie up 10,000 acres of prime agriculture land for 55 years while only employing 100 low-paid local residents. The geothermal power plant, whose original purpose was to supply electricity to O`ahu and Waikiki via a $3 billion undersea cable, still continues to pose serious health and environmental threats to nearby residents. The proposed large prison in Ka`û would be build and run by a private Mainland corporation, and disrupt a semi-rural district's lifestyle. The Oceanside 1250 luxury housing project being constructed by Japan Airlines and a Mainland developer near Kalakekua Bay, would irrevocability urbanize South Kona.

Alan McNarie has described the political backdrop with unusual frankness:

It is thus no mystery why large numbers of citizens are showing up at public meetings to speak out against these boondoggles and big-investor oriented projects. They are angry because they feel shut out, ignored, and misled by insider-connected government decision-makers.

Over 10,000 Big Islanders signed a ballot initiative petition that would prevent the building of a commercial Cobalt-60 powered irradiation food processing plant near Hilo. Though aggressively pushed by commercial farming industry interests, Mayor Yamashiro, and State officials, the plant is opposed by a broadbased coalition of small farmers and concerned citizens. The initiative lost by only 473 of the 50,513 votes cast (a 0.9% difference) this November. The pro-irradiation proponents outspent the grassroots side 7 to 1 in a heated campaign. The establishment's efforts included a legally questionable $15,000 transfer of Mayor Yamashiro's private campaign funds to the "Friends of Agriculture" advocacy group, along with his use of County money, employees, and facilities to influence the election.

In November of 1997, nine months of intense organizing by the Hamakua community prodded the state Board of Land and Natural Resources to unanimously reject a plan to lease 4,400 acres of public lands for 55 years, at give-away cheap rents, to Japan's Oji Paper Co. Mayor Yamashiro, Governor Cayetano, and State agencies had pushed this low-income producing, environmentally destructive pulpwood plantations scheme, without meaningfully consulting with the Council or affected communities.

Mayor Yamashiro, who worked for Oji Paper in the 1970s, carried out his own private negotiations with Oji to lease County lands, while out-of-hand rejecting a better proposal by New Zealand forestry company Fletcher-Challenge to create a diversified wood products industry. (Michael Christopher,"`Fletcher Challenge' Forestry Bid." 8/28/97 Viewpoint, West Hawai`i Today.) Governor Cayetano had also met with Oji Paper executives on O`ahu, to broker the State's side of the deal, yet refused to meet with Hamakua Community Association representatives.

Hundreds of Hamakua residents had turned out at a series of public meetings, over many months, to discuss their region's economic future. They overwhelmingly rejected the notion of recreating another 19th century-type plantation system, this time one owned by foreigners, who intended only to grow low-value pulpwood trees. Residents instead wanted the thousands of acres of former Hamakua Sugar land to be rented out to local businesses and farmers, to create diversified agriculture, family farms, ranches, and high-value hardwood forests that could supply profitable building, furniture, and crafts materials. Councilmen Dominic Yagong (D) and Curtis Tyler (R) worked closely with Hamakua, North Kona, and other residents, of all ethnicity, to bring about open decision-making and the economic alternatives they preferred.

Some years ago, Governor John Waihe`e and a few corporate executives vigorously promoted building a huge missile launching facility in the Big Island's semi-rural district of Ka`û . They spoke glowingly of thousands of jobs being created — though in fact most jobs for residents would be low-paying ones in a nearby Disneyland-type Space Park. But the project's economic viability was so highly questionable that not one commercial investor or operator could be enticed to take the project on. This was despite $7 million spent by the State over six years promoting the scheme, with many more millions of economic incentives promised.

The community's widespread hostility to the undertaking was fueled by insurmountable questions about environmental impacts, along with the troubling social impacts this huge industrial complex would have had on the semi-rural Ka`u district. Most residents preferred small-scale economic diversification instead. A community planning initiative envisioned a post-sugar era economy based on Ka`u's natural assets. The new multidimensional economy would emphasize sustainable agriculture and processing cooperatives. It would also have a strong cultural tourism component. Visitors interested in the area's historical past would be drawn to a plantation village built around a refurbished Ka`u Sugar Plantation; they could stay in locally-owned small inns and Bed & Breakfasts. Educationally-oriented Hawaiian cultural sites based on old villages, temples, trails, and agriculture sites found in the Ka`u and South Point areas, and crafts, woodworking, and Hawaiian handarts, would attract visitors interested in more than surf, sun, and glittzy golfcourses.

In the winter of 1998, another district-wide uproar in Ka`u was provoked by Governor Cayetano's sudden announcement that he intended to build a 2,300-bed prison near Pahala. More than 300 citizens attended a hastily called Senate hearing in Pahala, with opponents outnumbering pro-prison advocates three to one. "Many of those testifying for the prison represented businesses or business organizations from around the entire island," reported Alan McNarie. He also noted that:

Many residents were upset by the semi-secretive promotional process employed by a small coalition of businesspeople and a few former cane workers, spearheaded by an Ohio prison-building company called the V-Group. The V-Group corporation employed Harvey Tajiri, a well-connected former State legislator, as their lobbyist. Tajiri built local support with one-sided sales pitches to small pre-selected groups, in private meetings. What was pitched in these earlier "secret meetings" (as some residents called them), was a much smaller 1,000 bed, medium security facility, to be built more than 10 miles away from town. But in February, Ka`u's residents discovered that a "fast track" bill had suddenly popped up in the Legislature to build a prison that would house 2,300 inmates, including several hundred maximum security beds. They also belatedly found out that Governor Cayetano had made a "stealth visit" to consider three possible prison sites in Ka`u. These actions by State officials, reports McNarie, "fueled fears that residents were being cut out of the decision-making. The reaction was public outrage. Hundreds of residents signed counter-petitions against the prison or mailed angry letters to legislators." ["Roots of Anger"]

Legislative hearings were scheduled on O`ahu only a few days after Governor Cayetano's first public announcements about the State's plans. Dozens of Kau's residents were forced to fly to Honolulu to register their criticisms. A rapid succession of bills and vague amendments, and inadequate opportunity to address alternatives in committee hearings, left everyone confused, and residents frustrated. "It's like the same old story as the spaceport and the hotel, people are trying to shove it down our throats and lie as they do it," said one angry resident.

Opponents also challenge the supposed economic benefits of building and staffing a large prison in Ka`u. Few accept the admonishments of the economic élite to build big projects, which especially benefit the construction industry and offshore owned corporations. "Most Ka'u residents want more job opportunities while preserving and enhancing the natural beauty of the area, rural character, lifestyle and Hawaiian culture," reported a $75,000 EDA economic development plan finished in July of this year by Decision Analysts Hawaii, a Honolulu consulting firm. The plan, based on the visions shared by the Ka`u community itself, calls for building a $800,000 food processing and visitor center, which promise to provide jobs for 240 displaced sugar workers.

Last April between 150 and 200 Puna residents attended a six hour hearing called by the Department of Health and the federal Environmental Protection Agency to review — yet again — permits for the troubled geothermal plant owned by Puna Geothermal Venture (PGV). It was a familiar scene on the Big Island, with another angry group of residents testifying overwhelmingly against an intrusive project being built next to their homes by an impersonal distant corporation, with the support of their own government officials.

Over 40 people spoke. Only a handful from business and labor organizations, or with direct financial ties to the company, spoke in favor of Puna Geothermal Venture's operation. They emphasized that the geothermal plant supplies one fourth of the island's electricity, and reduced the environmental effects arising from burning millions of barrels of oil normally used to run generators. They repeatedly called PGV's operation "safe" and "economical."

But the vast majority of speakers bitterly opposed the plant's operation, contending that it is not safe, and that "they were paying for the island's electricity with their own damaged lives."

PGV has drilled several wells to tap energy from reservoirs of hot, pressurized brine in Kilauea's East Rift Zone. PGV has already suffered two "blowouts" - major explosive releases of steam and volcanic gases, including highly toxic hydrogen sulfide gas. And many "incidents" went officially unnoted.

Because the plant is built in a geologically unstable area, residents also fear the PGV's reinjection wells will contaminate the island's underground drinking water. These wells return the hot brine, along with various chemicals added during the generation process, to the underground reservoir. Wells can, and do, breach their protective liners. PGV has admitted to at least one incident of an existing well suffering a perforated liner. Neighbors believe other breaches have occurred, but gone unreported. Residents also worry that their catchment drinking water may be contaminated from "sulfur compounds released in geothermal steam, and from caustic soda, used to neutralize acid in the steam."

Most politically telling, was the fact that dozens of Puna residents pleaded with federal Environmental Protection Agency officials to protect them from their own county and state governments. PGV and government officials work in cahoots to subvert health regulations, they claim.

Two themes reappear again and again in all these disputes on Hawai`i Island:

* Many Big Islanders do not want to be dependent on industrial-style agriculture, or building prisons, spaceports, and large resorts, which create few well-paying jobs and allow most profits to be siphoned off by multinational corporations. They want instead to control their own economic destiny, and look to government to help them create a multiplicity of locally-owned businesses.

* Many average citizens are now unwilling to passively accept orders from the top down. They want instead open and responsive government, with full participation in decisions that affect them. And they want to be treated fairly.

Reporter Alan McNarie, who has closely followed these issues, tells us that a wide range of citizens are challenging business-as-usual politics.

The Old Guard likes to portray their critics as "anti-development" fanatics. Again they misread (or deliberately demonize) their challengers. Take Ada Lamme, a key leader in organizing the Hamakua community to reject the Oji Paper pulptree lease scheme. Lamme is a well-known Honokaa businesswomen who owns Tex's Drive-In, with 28 full time employees. She is a former corporate planner and manager. Lamm asserts: "Most people here are not anti-development . . . We're working very hard to bring certain industries here. . . I think that should be respected."

But they are not. Average citizens feel rejected, ignored and embittered by the self-serving wheelings-and-dealings of the inside players. Says McNarie:

Despite the considerable efforts of the Old Guard to keep their political friends in power, new grassroots-supported leadership is emerging on the Big Island. Two newly elected Councilmembers have joined with two dissident incumbents to push for major procedural reforms, to end what one calls "the politics that people are sick of." [Alan McNarie, "Curtis Tyler Comes in from the Cold," Ka`û Landing, Jan. 1999] The new minority's goal is to establish a more open-government and involve citizens early on in determining policies that affect their districts.

Economic development that encourages locally-owned businesses is another agenda being pushed by the reformers. Councilmembers Tyler, Pissicho, and Jacobson are vigorous proponents of community-centered planning that promotes small businesses that are appropriate to the natural environment. Yagong has championed his district's small farmers and bussinesspeople in their fight to obtain leases on publicly-owned Hamakua lands.

Tyler, who now chairs the Committee on Economics and Social Services, intends to end the County's providing lucrative incentives to large projects — such as leasing county lands cheaply and providing large tax breaks to big timber corporations and shopping center developers. Tyler speaks instead of "creating opportunities" by providing support for small businesses, farmers and entrepreneurs, and letting the county's citizens, rather than government officials, come up with the economic projects they prefer.

Tyler also shares the view held by many Big Island activists, that tourism development should shift from emphasizing large resorts and shopping centers, to fostering a more at-home infrastructure attractive to "independent travelers" who plan their own agendas and venture away from the resorts and usual commercial attractions. These visitors are instead seeking "beauty and uniqueness . . . . We're losing sight of those unique things that have captured the imagination of people from afar. I see a rekindling of this in the Bed & Breakfasts, the ecotourism, the cottage industries."

"The future lies in free independent travelers who stay longer, circulate more and seem to contribute more to . . . the small town economies. They're not coming for four-lane highways," he argues. Tyler also advocates marketing the Islands' unique value added products, such as gourmet foods, arts and traditional crafts, and developing its centuries old tradition as a healing center.

State Representative Dwight Takamine, who represents North Hilo, Hamakua, and North Hawai`i, recently became Chair of the powerful House finance committee. Takamine promises to continue to support grassroots efforts by communities creating their own fresh economic visions. "A big lesson that we've learned during this economic transition is that communities need the ability and support to empower themselves." [Bobby Command, "Big Island lawmakers set to focus on economy," West Hawai`i Today, 1/16/99]

Hawai`i Island will elect a new mayor in 2000. Given the names most frequently mentioned as possible candidates, it seems clear that whomever is elected — regardless of party affiliation — he or she will not be another handmaiden of the Old Guard. The new mayor will advance instead a populist agenda based on open government, and locally-based economic development that favors businesses in harmony with the Big Island's natural environment and diverse cultures. Many union workers, small businesses, and some of the more progressive corporations, in fact, already support this vision of Hawai`i Island's future.

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Ira Rohter is Professor of Political Science at the University of Hawai`i — Manoa. He has written about the spaceport and Hamakua pulptree issues. A fuller report is available on-line at http://www2.hawaii.edu/~irohter/

FOOTNOTES