alvin e. toda

The Honolulu Weekly last week had a cover story on some
legislation...

http://www.honoluluweekly.com/cover/detail.php?id=93

Jeff Mikiluna of the local Sierra Club authored these
words...

" Unfortunately, the same tepid approach was adopted
with HB 1640, an attempt to fulfill the 27-year-old
constitutional requirement that the state identify and
protect important agricultural lands. The final bill,
however, contained an 11th-hour amendmentinserted at
the behest of large landownerswhich prohibits the state
from designating more than 50 percent of any landowners
farmland as important unless they request it be
designated as such."

"Despite the half-okole treatment of the above issues,
overall the Legislature made progress on other
sustainability policies in addition to the Legacy Lands
Act.

"One surprise land use bill (HB 109) that found its way
to the governors desk would prohibit future golf
courses from being located on agricultural lands,
instead allowing them to be built on lands classified
as rural. A proposed conference draft of the measure
floated during the final week of session would have
allowed the contentious Hokulia project in South Kona
to proceed despite court rulings that have correctly
stopped the project after the developer tried to
side-step Hawaii laws. Lawmakers later removed the
language."

-- alvin

martinez

Well I cant say that I agree with every member of the Sierra Clubs
goals , expecially if they have a goal to shrink the population way
down and stop any more development. If they want to push a well
reasoned argument on why we shouldnt develop any more than XX % of
the land in relation to local sustainability in regards to water usage
etc balancing everyones needs --- business and workers , then Ill
listen. But like stats from land developers who want to develop every
inch of land - Im going to take any "experts" they quote and arguments
they make with a grain of salt and check up on any claims before I
believe them. Remember in any org and with any organziation theres a
specturm of preferences from people who dont care if they live in a
shack and make 300 bucks a month as long as they can have a cool
environment to surf in ---screw everybody else vs families and blue
collar workers who want decent pay , jobs and housing.and would
sacrifice some cool scenic rolling fields and uninhabitated beaches.
Everything is a compromise.

I used to know a guy in college who hated people and loved Alaska. He
liked areas where you had miles and miles of uninhabited space
between people . It was just his nature -- didnt like people all that
much which is his right but society doesnt really have an obligation
to preserve hundreds of miles per person to suit his taste. At this
point in time of course hes free to go to Alaska or whereever to get
that sort of "freedom" as he calls it but unless he can support a
reasoned argument about why its imperitive to keep it that way ---
some agregious harm to the environment that will have dire effects for
everybody and not just because he thinks its cool ---- especially when
you are talking about private land or some usage that will have some
econ benefit to a lot of people -- its not very convincing as a vision
to impose on everyone else who may have different preferences.

However I think its really ironic that the tactic of racism the "big
bomb" in the arsenal of ad homenim attacks in the current Zeitgeist is
used to justify runaway population growth that could literally trash
all the areas they want to preserve probably on a level that they
never dreamed in their nightmares. If we ever apporached one bil
people - yikes. Then maybe Hawaii should secede as even a bit of
spillover from that kind of pop growth would trash these islands.

If peope start seriously talking about how pop growth up to 700 mil
isnt that bad or even 1 bil --- I might become a radical
environmentalist or secessionist myself cause that sounds insane if
some of the possible Census projections are real with immigration
flows.

alvin e. toda

You'll need to do more than listen if you expect that
their worthy agenda should succeed. For example, in the
article, Mikiluna mentioned the new legal definition of
agricultural land-- only if the landowner agrees. From
a mandate of the constitutional convention 27 years ago
when the public was more sensitive to sustainability
issues to today when the implementation of this mandate
may mean there is no longer any agricultural land to
save from development in the state of Hawaii.


This wont happen. Sooner or later people need to plan
on what kind of vision they would like to see of
Hawaii in the future. This wont happen until different
organizations can work together and also influence
public policy. For example, it was disappointing to see
the failure to pass the Clean Elections Bill. It would
have insured better candidates for public office
because of public financing of political campaigns,
which would increase competition in elections. The bill
would have passed if more community organizations and
people supported this bill.

--alvin