State Civil Defense Disses Public Meeting Idea, Says Citizens Already Had Their Opportunity

Nobody knows what’s next in life, so we really have no idea whether State Civil Defense will relent and conduct public meetings on each island to engage citizens in a dialogue on emergency communications – as it should, in CHORE’s opinion.

That said, I’d bet the farm it won’t if today’s informational briefing testimony revealed SCD’s rock-bottom intentions. And I’d double the bet that it won’t happen without intervention from State legislators.

CHORE was first to testify at the briefing held by two legislative committees; we focused on our ongoing theme that the public has been improperly excluded from the post-earthquake discussions on how to improve emergency communications.

We argued that improving emergency communications is not a one-way street, with a government-dominated committee deciding what’s good for us without talking to us. Legislators surely know the value of citizen input. Ignore it, and they’re out of a job, but that’s not the mindset at State Civil Defense.

One Hearing Was Enough?

State Adjutant General Robert Lee followed CHORE’s testimony and countered it by noting the public already has had its chance for input into the post-earthquake assessment. When? During one hour of the January 9 hearing conducted by two legislative committees, that’s when. Also, according to Maj. Gen. Lee, the public sent e-mails and made phone calls to SCD, and the Governor received a few letters, too.

With all due respect to General Lee, that is not a strong position, sir. It means that if neighbor island residents wanted to help SCD do a better job by giving them feedback on the October 15th communications breakdown, they should have flown to Oahu to testify at that hearing -- at their own cost and inconvenience.

We just can’t go along with that kind of thinking, which doesn’t fit in with the Administration’s alleged “greater transparency and accountability” that we’ve read about recently.

Legislators, Please Sign In

We really don’t see these meetings happening without legislators on each island firmly asking State Civil Defense to include the public in the emergency communications dialogue. Citizens who want to communicate with their senators and representatives can find their emails at the Hawaii Legislature web portal.