Hawai'i Political Scene

Continuing his unbroken streak of absolutely jaw-dropping bad appointments, Governor Ige picked a Monsanto GMO seed corn farmer and illegal cock fighting enthusiast to represent Maui’s District 13 – a district which voted overwhelmingly in favor of the GMO Moratorium.  One assumes she could not have won the seat in an open election.

Ige was given three choices.  Lucienne de Naie had previously run for Maui County Council and won District 13. Lori Buchanan, popular and outstanding Moloka’i activist who works for Maui Invasive Species Committee was also one of the three finalists for the seat.  But like a heat seeking missile, Ige went straight for the most inappropriate candidate, GMO and cock fighting supporter Lynn DeCoite.

Speaking of the euphemistically named “Gamefowl Association” DeCoite defiantly defended her support of illegal cock fighting in the Moloka’i Dispatch

“The Gamefowl Association [is part of] Hawaiian culture, so we incorporated them in Kuhio Day this year, bringing education and awareness to the people and preserving and perpetuating gamefowl on Molokai,” said Lynn Decoite, president of Ahapua`a Molokai and co-organizer of the event.”

The “Gamefowl Association” is the brain child of illegal cock fighting enthusiast Mike Arce and Lynn is a proud member as shown on her Facebook page. Although Lynn has never been charged with cock fighting, various DeCoites have run afoul (afowl?) of the law against cock fighting.  In 2010 the Gamefowl Association attempted to get a resolution passed celebrating cock fighting.

Here is one of the DeCoites seated by a Moloka’i cock fighting pit:

The Humane Society condemns cock fighting as cruel saying:

Even birds who aren’t killed during cockfights suffer terribly. Regardless of how exhausted or injured they become (common injuries include punctured lungs, broken bones, and pierced eyes), the birds cannot escape from the fighting pit. The razor-sharp steel blades or “gaffs” (which resemble 3-inch-long, curved ice picks) tied to the birds’ legs are so sharp and dangerous that cockfighters themselves have been killed when accidentally slashed by their own birds.

Cock fighting is usually associated with illegal gambling.

Congratulations Governor Ige.  It wasn’t enough to appoint another lobbyist – you had to appoint someone who advocates cruel and illegal behavior.

UPDATE: Governor Ige shown with Lynn DeCoite at the Moloka’i Gamefowl Association.  Isn’t supporting organized crime an impeachable offense?

UPDATE #2: Moloka’i Gamefowl Association Facebook.  Here are a few screenshots taken this morning.

Ching has been universally acknowledged to be a nice man – a person with whom you’d enjoy chatting during your children’s soccer games.  But putting him in charge of the Department of Land and Natural Resources is like handing him a scalpel and asking him to take out your appendix.  He just doesn’t have the training nor the background to do the job. And it’s going to take more than a crash course to get him up to speed.

It appears that Governor Ige tapped him for the job due to Ige’s profound lack of understanding of DLNR’s role.

Ige, an engineer, has some magical thinking around the subject of business executives. The governor appears to believe they are the hammer that can accomplish every task.

Ching, a well compensated lobbyist for Castle & Cooke, is obviously good at what he does.  As Og Mandino advises in his book, The Greatest Salesman in the World, the secret to selling (or lobbying) is to believe in your product.  Ching believes in Castle & Cooke’s product – so much so that he took on the job of vice president of Land Use Research Foundation (LURF), an organization dedicated to advancing laws favoring developers.

When Gov. Ing asked Ching to take on the task of leading DLNR, Ching acquiesced out of a sense of civic duty although even he realizes he doesn’t have the experience needed.

That became alarmingly clear when Carleton Ching sat down with with Maui Hawaiian and environmental leaders on Saturday in a four hour frank discussion of his nomination to head Department of Land and Natural Resources.

He was unfamiliar with the Public Trust doctrine. It appeared he wasn’t even aware that there is a hierarchy of water users when he answered a question regarding private water companies on Maui.  Not only was he unfamiliar with the subject, the companies, or the controversies, he was unaware that the Public Trust doctrine pretty much puts them last in line for water.  He admitted his lack of knowledge with the subject and fell back on his stock answer which was that he would “balance” the competing needs and follow the law.

How do you “follow the law” when you don’t know it exists let alone understand it?

Why would you “balance” the competing uses of water when the law lays out in detail a hierarchy of users?

The head of DLNR is an advocate for natural resources.  He (or she) is not supposed to “balance” private profit against public welfare!

When we think “lobbyist” we generally think of sleazy, dirty tricks like those of PRP and of PR people who don’t care which side they lobby for as long as they get paid.

Carleton Ching is cut in a different mold.  He truly believes in development and in the goals of LURF.  He talks about “switching jerseys” and going to work for the other team (DLNR) and wants to apply the same techniques of “efficiency” to “move the needle forward” that he applies to his job at Castle & Cooke.  One has to give him credit for leaving his cushy job when tapped for public service and approaching it with sincerity.

But how do you switch your deeply held beliefs and attitudes?

I was left believing that he would do the best job he could.  But that job would be colored by his sincerely held belief that government needs to get out of the way of developers and that development is a priori assumed to be good unless proven otherwise.

The DLNR head is supposed to protect conservation lands.  Not “balance” their uses with private developers!

The “inefficiencies” he’d like to eliminate include more than one layer of development approval. For instance developers have to get permission both from the Land Use Commission and the counties for their projects.  While acknowledging that the LUC considers state land use law while the counties consider their own local plans, he advocated for combining these two reviews into a single review in the interests of saving time and money.

DLNR is woefully underfunded.  In fact we’re 49th in the U.S. as far as funding. In a state where tourism based on its natural resources is the top employer, this seems short-sighted.

All the “efficiencies” in the world won’t help when there just plain isn’t adequate funding.

DLNR employees, on the whole, have a passion for what they do. Their passion is to act as stewards of the land. They’ve lived and breathed the methods and laws involved in protecting Hawaii’s unique resources.

When Division of Conservation and Resource Enforcement (DOCARE) Maui didn’t have money for offices, the staff came in on their weekends with their own materials and tools and built offices in the abandoned armory which was all DLNR could afford for them.

As newly retired DOCARE head, Randy Awo, pointed out Governor Ige has been “purging”  those with a passion and history of environmental protection from DLNR.  In fact another person extended this to all agencies calling it “The night of the long knives” as effective leaders like William Aila, Mina Morita and Gary Gill were demoted or let go.

For all of Abercrombie’s faults, he appointed experienced experts to the board and agencies.  It is mystifying as to why Ige is systematically replacing  technical experts with lobbyists, businessmen and Oahu political insiders with no real knowledge of the job let alone a passion for it.

Awo took issue with Ching’s statement that he’d “move the needle forward” at DLNR, pointing to the immense strides that were made under William Aila despite the meagre funds allocated.

To his credit, Ching praised Aila. When asked, he couldn’t explain why Aila had been removed as head of DLNR.

Bottom line: Is it enough to be a nice person and sincerely want to answer the call of service? Almost 7,000 people say ‘no’ in an online petition asking the senate not to confirm.

 

 

Twenty-two environmental, Hawaiian and progressive organizations held  a press conference expressing opposition to the nomination of LURF director Carleton Ching to chair the DLNR. The press conference was held shortly before the beginning of Governor Ige’s State of the State address.

The Land Use Research Foundation (LURF) is an organization which is (in its own words) “the only Hawaii based organization devoted exclusively to promoting the interests of the development community, particularly in the areas of land use laws, regulations, and public policy.”

In an amazing reaction to last Fridays announcement of Ching’s appointment, this Monday the following organizations held a press conference to issue their statement of opposition.

HONOLULU, HAWAI’I (January 26, 2015) — Over a dozen environmental groups are asking the Governor to withdraw his nomination of Castle & Cooke lobbyist Carleton Ching to head the Department of Land and Natural Resources and to drop any plans to weaken or eliminate the Land Use Commission.

In a joint statement, the groups said:

We are extremely disappointed in Governor Ige’s openness to eliminating the State Land Use Commission. The Land Use Commission serves an essential role in the proper planning of land uses, developing land appropriately, and protecting public trust resources and the public interest. We question the motivation behind this proposal to dismantle the backbone of our state’s land use system.

We oppose the Governor’s choice of Carleton Ching to lead the Hawai‘i Department of Land and Natural Resources and ask that the nomination be withdrawn because he has no demonstrated expertise in managing the cultural and natural resources that fall under the department’s purview, including but not limited to endangered species, iwi, ceded land, water resources, forests, beaches, coral reefs, fishing and hunting resources, historic sites, and state parks.

It is still early in Governor Ige’s term, and we urge him to make the proper course corrections for the benefit of our natural environment and the people of Hawai‘i nei. We look forward to working with him and his administration to make Hawai‘i a better place for all the people of these islands, our children, and generations to come.

Among the groups are:

Sierra Club, The Outdoor Circle, Conservation Council for Hawai‘i, KAHEA: The Hawaiian-Environmental Alliance, Hawai‘i’s Thousand Friends, Life of the Land, Friends of Lana‘i, Progressive Democrats of Hawai‘i, Earthjustice, Defend O‘ahu Coalition, Surfrider Foundation, Hawai‘i Wildlife Fund, Hawai‘i Alliance for Progressive Action, Hui Ho‘omalu I Ka ‘Aina, Kupa‘a No Lana‘i, LOST FISH Coalition, MANA (Movement for Aloha No Ka ‘Aina), Maui Tomorrow, Puna Pono Alliance, Wailua-Kapa‘a Neighborhood Association, West Maui Preservation Association, and ‘Ilio’ulaokalani Coalition.

The Director of the Department of Land and Natural Resources serves as the chair of its governing body (the Board of Land and Natural Resources), the Chair of the Commission on Water Resource Management, and as the state’s Historic Preservation Officer, in addition to overseeing many critical programs.

Marti Townsend, Executive Director of The Outdoor Circle urged the Governor to withdraw Ching’s nomination to head up DLNR citing Ching’s “lack of experience in protecting natural resources, which is the agency’s primary responsibility.”

The announcement of Ching’s appointment was buried in the Friday news dump.  It blew up on social media over the weekend resulting in a MoveOn.org petition that had over 4,000 signatures by Monday morning.

The question people are asking is, “Who is giving Governor Ing this bad advice?”

Did governor Ige appoint the appallingly bad Carleton Ching to head DLNR in order to sneak in an equally unacceptable first vice chair, Kekoa Kaluhiwa?  While voters are concentrating on blocking confirmation of Ching, will Kaluhiwa sail through without any hard questions as to his qualifications and connections?

We don’t know much about Kaluhiwa except that he is a lobbyist at Kuano’o Communications and Nevada registered GeoPolicy Group and has worked on the developer side of things.

We attempted to reach Kaluhiwa to ask about his developer clients but he is keeping a low profile and not responding.

With Ching almost certain not to be confirmed, is the real goal to put in an equally bad but not as well known lobbyist for developers?

In an inexplicable move, Gov. Ige replaced native Hawaiian William Aila with a Castle & Cooke developer as head of the Department of Land and Natural Resources.

Talk about putting the fox in charge of the hen house!

Carleton Ching acts as a lobbyist for developer Castle & Cooke.  In 2005 Ching was already advocating for weakening the Land Use Commission and “streamlining” the development approval proces according to the Star-Advertiser.  This is the man to head up the organization designed to protect the land?

Kekoa Kaluhiwa who has been appointed first deputy DLNR director is also a lobbyist at Kuano’o Communications and Nevada registered GeoPolicy Group.

We attempted to reach Kaluhiwa to ask if Castle & Cooke is one of his clients but did not receive a call back by publication time.

Be that as it may, exactly how are two lobbyists qualified to head up the most important agency in protecting our natural resources?

And just how good a job will a developer do to protect the land and water from inappropriate development?

The Sierra Club sued Castle & Cook over its controversial Koa Ridge development and the court ruled the Land Use Commission’s (LUC) approval of the project was not valid.  Oh what a coincidence:  Gov. Ige wants to reduce the influence of the Land Use Commission!

Castle & Cooke was one of the Big Five and has a history of exploitive acts which damage the water and land.  Before Dole Pineapple was spun off, their operations polluted aquifers on both Oahu and Lana’i with cancer-causing DBCP, TCP and EDP.  How ironic that their lobbyist will be in charge of the Water Commission now.

These appointments will go to the state senate for confirmation.  Hopefully they’ll be soundly rejected – not only because the candidates have no experience in running the most important state environmental agency but because they are actually antithetical to DLNR’s mission.

David Ige was elected on a swell of indignation over former Governor Abercrombie’s pro-developer actions.  As one irate former supporter said, “The honeymoon is over and Ige’s true priorities are revealed in these appointments.”

UPDATE: Carleton Ching is not only a lobbyist for Castle & Cooke, which converted productive Ag lands at Koa Ridge for development, he is also on the board of the Land Use Research Foundation (LURF) which according to their website (and history) is “devoted exclusively to promoting the interests of the development community, particularly in the areas of land use laws, regulations, and public policy.”

Ching is also on the board of the Building Industry Association.  Along with the Carpenters Union and the General Contractors Labor Association  they control the lobbying group, Forward Progress.  You will recall that Forward Progress attempted a coup on neighbor island councils to remove councilmembers who favored sensible planning rules.

With Ching’s nomination, the developers have hit the trifecta! A longtime key advocate for their interests  will be put in charge of Hawaii’s public natural resources unless the senate rejects this confirmation.

One reason Abercrombie’s approval rating tumbled was his Public Land Development Corporation (PLDC) which appeared to turn state government into an enabler of development interests.  Out of the frying pan into the fire with Gov Ige! Ching’s nomination skips the PLDC and puts the developers  directly in charge!