This emperor has no clothes: Hawaii Attorney General Anne Lopez last week released what’s just the first part of a three-part study of the Maui wildfires and with 12,000 data points the 400-page report takes a bit to get through. But one theme that is pretty clear: While firefighters and cops were risking their lives saving lives and battling a fast-moving massive wall of flame in Lahaina, Maui County Mayor Richard Bissen and his top emergency management staff were painfully unaware, unprepared and inept.
A national news reporter asked Lopez at the press conference unveiling the report if Bissen’s behavior amounted to negligence. Lopez’s artful dodge: “I am going to focus on the purpose of this report. I am not commenting at this time on the actions of anybody. … The underlying purpose of this report is not to place blame on anybody.”
That’s too bad. But that’s why you need to read David Shapiro’s column in the Sunday edition of the Honolulu Star-Advertiser. His straightforward yet damning indictment of Bissen and his emergency management chief, Herman Andaya, doesn’t hesitate to lay out the mayor’s culpability in the mishandling of the deadly Lahaina fire.
“The report depicts Bissen as shuttling cluelessly between the emergency center, his office and a medical appointment, asking ‘layperson questions,’ getting spotty information from social media and generally trying to stay out of the way as the fire built,” Shapiro says, noting that he turned down help from the state and other counties and let Andaya continue to stay at a conference on Oahu instead of ordering him back to take charge.
“Bissen is right; it wasn’t his job to tell emergency workers how to do theirs,” Shapiro notes. “It was his job, however, to set a tone of urgency, assure key information was gathered and communicated to the front line and the public and marshal all possible help.”
Throughout the column, Shapiro, a longtime Hawaii journalist, points out the obvious — that Bissen was ill-prepared for the job of running the county and isn’t doing any better now. His continued lack of openness and communication is causing confusion and is helping no one.
We absolutely agree and would take that just one step further. This idea that Maui can run its own show and, as Civil Beat reporters have been told recently, shouldn’t have to be accountable for what the administration is doing fails to recognize that what is happening with Maui affects the entire state. You don’t need to look any further than the numerous important programs and projects and organizations statewide that are seeing their budgets cut to ribbons to divert money to help Maui.
It’s long past time for Bissen and his administration to recognize it’s not just about Maui anymore.
A Special Commentary Project
Civil Beat opinion writers are closely following efforts to bring more transparency and accountability to state and local government — at the Legislature, the county level and in the media. Help us by sending ideas and anecdotes to sunshine@civilbeat.org.
RFK Jr. beats Hawaii Dems: Despite a concerted effort on the part of the Democratic Party of Hawaii, the son of Bobby Kennedy and nephew of JFK is one step closer to appearing on the state’s general election ballot in November.
The Hawaii State Elections Office ruled Friday that We The People qualified as a political party, so Robert F. Kennedy Jr. could well be a choice for local voters this fall along with Joe Biden and Donald Trump.
Hawaii Democrats argued that two party officers with We The People violated their own party bylaws because, as attorney William Meheula alleged, they were Democrats.
But hearing officer Aaron Schulaner ruled in an 18-page opinion that Democrats did not provide sufficient evidence and documentation to prove their claim. Voters in Hawaii are not required to register with a party.
“The petition of We The People is hereby deemed approved,” Schulaner wrote, adding that the parties have 30 days to file an appeal.
In a press release Saturday the Kennedy campaign said that the ruling represents their candidate’s first legal challenge survival. The Biden campaign and the Democratic National Committee are worried that the Kennedy scion will help Trump win.
They like Green, they really like Green: A Morning Consult Pro survey released Monday shows favorable marks for Hawaii Gov. Josh Green. He has an approval rating of 61% among voters, nearly the same percentage that said they liked him during the first quarter of last year. His disapproval rating is up 6 percentage points to 28%.
The numbers place Green, a Democrat elected in 2022, among the Top 10 most popular governors in the nation. Republican Phil Scott of Vermont ranks No. 1.
Green told The Blog he was grateful for the survey numbers, given the big challenges of the past few years — first Covid and the housing shortage, and then the Maui wildfires.
Thanks for reading Civil Beat: Community and labor groups say what they hope will be a weeklong rally at the Capitol Rotunda beginning Monday was made all the more urgent by the recent Civil Beat and New York Times story on the big money ties involving Hawaii politicians, government contractors and other special interests.
The story by reporter Blaze Lovell and two others relied on exhaustive research into state contracts and campaign finance records going back years to document millions of dollars being donated to elected officials by people who are getting often lucrative contracts from the state. About a dozen lawmakers are themselves benefitting from the flow of state cash through the contracting process, the research documented.
The community and labor groups hope to hold legislators accountable to local working families, as a media advisory states. They say it will be a week of action that will culminate with a march and rally for International Workersʻ Day on May 1.
The goal is to influence legislators as they try to finalize the last bills still alive at the Legislature, including ones concerning the protection of water rights, the regulation of vacation rentals, the providing of affordable child care, the creation of housing for Lahaina fire survivors and the enacting of tax credits for low-income workers and families.
The hui includes Unite Here Local 5, Hawaii Appleseed Center for Law and Economic Justice, Lahaina Strong, Clean Elections Hawaii, Kona 4 Palestine and Common Cause Hawaii, among numerous others.
Civil Beat’s coverage of Maui County is supported in part by a grant from the Nuestro Futuro Foundation.
