Slip Slidin’ Away: Review Panel Is Taking its Time Delivering Response Recommendations

Erika Engle’s “The Buzz” column in today’s Honolulu Star-Bulletin follows up on CHORE’s 12/14 post and has more insight about the workings of the Comprehensive Communications Review Committee.

From our perspective, the biggest insight is how little urgency the committee seems to have about improving the state’s emergency communications capabilities, which could be required at any moment to respond to our next natural disaster.

Governor Lingle formed this committee on October 17th, two days after the 6.7 Big Island earthquake and hours-long power blackout on Oahu. Her formal message said the committee members “...will begin meeting immediately and submit their findings and recommendations to me within 60 days.”

Beginning the count on October 18th, the 60th day was yesterday – December 16th. But as Engle reports, Lenny Klompus, the Governor’s senior communications advisor, sees it differently: “Sixty working days…. In our mind, that takes us to the end of this year.“

Will 60 Days Morph into 91?

With due respect, the issue being discussed here is improving the public and private response capability to ensure public safety, so shouldn’t 60 days mean exactly that?

The CCRC’s “business days” model makes even the “end of this year” goal suspect. Not counting weekends and holidays, the 60th “working day” from October 17th falls on January 16th – exactly one month later than what the Governor’s initial statement would have led us to believe and 91 days after she formed the committee.

Somewhere along the line, the urgency we all felt following the earthquakes has evaporated. Here are the Governor’s comments in her October 17th press conference about the committee she had formed and the timing of its report:

“…(in) every event we have an after-action analysis, come up with recommendations. I think in this case we’ll be extremely public with what we learn to let people know exactly where we did well, where we could have done better, so they have a high level of confidence that in fact we have reviewed the things that they themselves saw we could do better. So I think that getting the information out to people is going to be very, very important, not just that we do an internal report and try to do better, but that we tell the people, this is what happened from our perspective, and these are the areas that need improvement, and these are the steps that we’re going to take to make it better next time.” (emphasis added)

When reporters asked when the government’s after-action reports would be available, the Governor continued:

“The only one that I’ll tell you will be quicker than (early next year) will be the communications review. They’re looking at a 60-day turnaround to come out with some specific recommendations, both for the government and for the private sector on how to make things work better next time.”

Public Involvement Long Overdue

Lenny Klompus told CHORE last week the committee's draft recommendations will be distributed to its members this coming week. CHORE sees no reason to withhold draft reports from the news media and others so the public finally can know details of the committee's findings.

"It was an amazing collection of brain trust," Engle quotes Klompus in her column about the committee's meetings. "If you think about all the people in the room, you can just imagine the dialogue."

Unfortunately, imagining the dialogue is all the public's been able to do, as citizens have been shut out of the process to date, making the committee something less than "comprehensive."

Once the public sees the report, the State needs a mechanism for average citizens to weigh in with their own questions, comments and recommendations. We are the ultimate consumers of emergency communications and therefore deserve to be heard.

As the Governor implied on October 17th, the state's response to the earthquakes shook citizens' confidence in the emergency response process. Releasing the report this week and opening it up to public input would honor the spirit of her remarks two months ago today.