The special legislative session that begins this morning will have more than the Superferry on the agenda. There’s a long list of public hearings on appointments being reviewed by the Senate, including important nominations to the Land Use Commission and the Intermediate Court of Appeals. There’s some unhappiness in town about Randal Lee’s nomination to the Intermediate Court, given his relative lack of experience.
After meeting Monday night and again yesterday, the Hawaii State Bar Association review of Judge Lee resulted in a deadlock between those who found Lee “unqualified” and those who felt he was qualified for the position. Senate leaders were originally told that the “unqualified” view had prevailed by a single vote, but apparently a recount resulted in a tie.
My only direct experience with Lee came in a condominium lawsuit against Carrier Corporation resulting from problems with a large air conditioning upgrade at Century Center. The case was assigned to Judge Lee and he was able to move the parties to a settlement in several rounds of intense bargaining. He was both pleasant and effective in that setting, although that situation certainly doesn’t necessarily reflect the skills needed to cope with the Intermediate Court’s heavy workload.
As to the LUC appointments, one attentive observer notes:
As for the LUC, I don’t think either nominee fits the bill for a statutory requirement under HRS sec. 205-1:
One member shall be appointed from each of the counties and the remainder shall be appointed at large; provided that one member shall have substantial experience or expertise in traditional Hawaiian land usage and knowledge of cultural land practices.
I understand (Kyle) Chock dances hula, but that’s about it.
Unfortunately, these appointments are likely to get only limited public attention against the backdrop of the looming Superferry debate.
I notice that the Senate Majority blog has almost nothing posted nothing original about the Superferry session, relying instead on simply linking to published news accounts, although Sen. Gary Hooser’s blog has been active on the issue. The House Blog has done much better at presenting useful information and the range of opinions on the issue.
Meanwhile, symptoms of global warming are dominating the headlines on the mainland, with the drought in the Southeast that has the Atlanta area running dangerously low on drinking water and Southern California in flames.
Is it possible that we’re moving towards a science fiction dystopia in which large parts of the country, and perhaps the world, become essentially uninhabitable or at least unable to sustain today’s large urban centers? How do we plan for such a possibility?
Everyone should probably read the long NY Times piece by Jon Gertner which appeared on Sunday, “The future is drying up“. I have to thank Liz Donovan’s Behind the News for that link and for her excellent entry on the current drought conditions.
I can’t help thinking about the evacuation of Phnom Penh and the rise of the Khmer Rouge government in Cambodia three decades ago. The stresses of today’s unstable housing market don’t compare to the impact of an evacuation of an area due to climatic change.
Another reader suggests some cause for concern on our part here in Hawaii.
While watching the situation on the fires in Southern California, I realized something that my friend told me a couple of months ago. The Hawaii Red Cross has only one emergency vehicle that they trot out for show. When it comes to setting up shelters and, most importantly, feeding the people, they have no ability to assist.
Shelter and feeding is the going to fall on the State and Federal Gov’t. I suggest you try out an MRE to get a taste of what will be the food fare during an emergency.
And did you notice the Los Angeles Times special yesterday by the Star-Bulletin’s Betty Shimabukuro, “10 Hawaiian culinary specialties to sample“?
4 responses so far ↓
1 LarryG // Oct 24, 2007 at 9:14 am
Thanks for the link to the NY Times article. It’s long, but I’ll read it after taking care of some Superferry testimony (sigh).
Global warming is about climate change. At some point, with bugs eating the trees and the trees burning and disappearing, California won’t have to worry about “drought” any longer. They’ll have “desert.” People don’t talk about drought in the Sahara because the climate is perpetual drought. It will be painful getting there, but for much of the country, it looks like that’s where we’re headed.
I don’t know how Hawaii will be affected. Rising sea levels make the news. We’re still dependent on oil for electricity, so I wonder if we have to look forward first to periodic electricity restrictions and eventual cutoffs. How will our water be affected? HECO doesn’t care because they make a profit as energy becomes scarce.
The governor convenes disaster preparedness meetings in secret, so we don’t know what they are talking about, whether it is Red Cross shelters for those unforseen but sudden emergencies, or if they are talking about chronic emergencies at all.
At some point, with some other governor, we’ll probably have to convene meetings about what we should do to face the coming changes.
Or we can start now to restrict in-migration and overdevelopment of housing tracts, require alternative forms of energy, increase sustainable crops likely to survive, make use of rainfall instead of paying good money for water to flush our toilets, and so forth.
Stop laughing. At some point we’ll have to do this and more. It benefits us all to start talking and doing something early.
2 RobertWood // Oct 24, 2007 at 11:40 am
Oahu Civil Defense offers training for the volunteer emergency support program CERT, Community Emergency Response Team. If you have pervious life and limb crisis, disaster relief, or military experience the training portion might be somewhat redundant. However, quite eye opening is a look at the current emergency response capabilities of our city, county, and state government authorities.
3 charleyfoster // Oct 24, 2007 at 2:53 pm
I liked the culinary article, but saimin was conspicuous in its absence.
4 schultz // Oct 25, 2007 at 8:07 am
Fleeing natural disasters is a bit different, I would say, from being forced to evacuate a large city by people who aim to kill you (the Khmer Rouge). But point taken about looming population shifts. Al Gore’s first book was good on all this (Earth in the Balance).
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