HOOSER: What can we do, Gary?

I get the question every single day.

The question, of course, is “What can we do to make our government (island, state, world) a better place?”

I offer two suggestions, and I’ll expand on them here.

The first: Think globally, act locally.

The second: SHOW UP – at demonstrations, in the rooms, online and at the ballot box.

Acting locally means starting at the County Council level.

Thinking globally and acting locally translates to county issues, including …

Agriculture: Ensuring food safety and production, regardless of tariffs, barge schedules, or national food laws practices. This can be done via county land use requirements and tax incentives for food crops farmed with healthy, sustainable methods.

Law enforcement: Protecting the constitutional right of all county residents to due process, via agreements with federal authorities authorizing county support only when the federal actions follow county-specified legal guidelines.

Affordable housing: Protecting a county resident’s right to sleep in a private car parked in a designated county-owned area when no other legal options for shelter exist in the county. Requiring by county ordinance that large employers who want land use zoning changes, and who use workers from outside the county, must provide additional housing for those workers, thus increasing existing housing inventories. The county could also amend property tax and land use policies to incentivize the development of affordable housing, paid for by absentee, foreign, corporate owners, the resort industry and others.

Environmental protection: Via county land use and zoning ordinances, protecting sensitive areas like aquifers, shorelines, and coastal areas that may be at risk due to state or federal actions (or inactions).

These are just four areas in which county governments could significantly impact all of Hawaii, and even the planet. If all four Hawaii counties took similar action, the impact would be statewide … and as a model, even worldwide.

Fundamental political fact: Majority rules.

Passing any Hawaii state law requires the approval of 13 state senators, 26 representatives, and the governor.

A council majority on Kauai is four.

FOUR councilmembers have the power to change the laws within Kauai County. The mayor is also needed to approve such change and/or a fifth member of the council must be available to override a veto.

In other words, a total of five people must agree in order to change a law for Kauai County, versus 40 people for a state law.

For Maui, Hawaii County, and the City and County of Honolulu, the magic number is five, plus the mayor … which means that for change to happen, six people must come to agreement.

Seems pretty obvious that getting five or six people onboard is much easier than trying to corral 40 to do the same thing.

So why aren’t we focusing more on making change happen via our county councils?

True, the county area of responsibility and legal authority is narrower than that of state government, but the regulatory authority is still huge.

Creative county lawmakers can also develop “work-arounds.”

For example, the county may not have the power to tell farmers what they can and cannot grow — but they can leverage property tax authority by “use,” to incentivize healthy food crops grown for local consumption, and disincentivize unhealthy “factory farms.”

Similarly, the county may not have the power to legislate what restaurants can serve and sell — but they could provide a generous property tax incentive to those food establishments who commit in writing to serving and selling a minimum of X percent locally grown agricultural products. The county already provides similar incentives to landowners who rent their residential properties at affordable rates.

Bottom line: We need to spend more time and energy focusing on our county councils — acting locally, but thinking globally.

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Gary Hooser served eight years in the state Senate, where he was majority leader. He also served for eight years on the Kauai County Council. He presently writes on Hawaii policy and politics at www.garyhooser.blog.
Source: The Garden Island