Marshall Blann Responds

Aloha Susan,
You are preaching to the choir. But we need to operate in the real world, which in this case is the world of Alice in Hiloland,aka the state of Hawaii. Now a dose of reality:
The legislature is controlled in numbers by the Democratic reps of Honolulu.
Most of them
own hotels on Oahu, have families owning them, or friends- or so I have been told by a local poli-sci prof. They do not want clean restrooms, or good anything on the outer islands, because they want the tourists to stay on Oahu and patronize family and friends. I think that you are trying to apply logic to the situation, but in reality the issues are much more convoluted- and unless we understand all the leitmotifs we may be spinning our wheels.
The Oahu reps control the state budget and politics. They do not want city incorporation, lest Oahu fragment and they will LOSE POWER. So they cannot allow it elsewhere.
And county government does not exist for the great ideals you state- and with which I agree 100%, but to provide lifetime county jobs to friends and family of the Hilo pols, while establishing a county tax code which will maximixe west Hi. and part time resident taxes and minimize Hilo taxes. Nothing is perfect, but our county govt is as nearly perfectly corrupt as is possible, even including Bush's America. Your points are well taken and logical- but that is not the basis of the county gov't. You can demand change- Mr. Arakaki will have a good laugh.
Do the people stand a chance? I hope that your actions will stir debate; I've been trying for several years and conclude that there are many out there willing to complain, scarce few willing to go beyond that point. My guess is that the state is too hard to move. Our best chance- if we could organize enough citizens willing to work- is to try to get 5 or
6 councilmembers
elected who would support our goals. This would allow many of the reforms you suggest; 6 votes can put charter changes on the ballot- which as I suggested earlier might allow some power to be shifted from Hilo to cantons on the island- with budgets. But premature to expand on that.
Anyway, I hope that you can start a movement, and will start by putting out all the realities of the problem (government) and then make a list of possible changes ranked not by desireability, but by doability- as a starting point. In any case, many thanks for trying, more power to you!
best wishes,Marshall