Off the Beat: Why Are PLDC Board Members Nowhere To Be Found?
So where were Sen. Donovan Dela Cruz and the Public Land Development Corporation’s board members Wednesday night?
More than 100 angry Oahu residents showed up at a downtown Honolulu meeting room to testify on proposed rules to govern the agency — rules that the board members are responsible for approving.
But only one of the five board members was there to hear it — William Aila Jr., who is also chair of the Hawaii Department of Land and Natural Resources.
He sat for more than four hours with PLDC staff, Lloyd Haraguchi and Randal Ikeda, as they listened to one person after the other call for the repeal of the agency. The speakers listed a litany of grievances about why the proposed rules didn’t do enough to protect the state’s environmental and cultural resources.
Maybe it’s understandable that the PLDC’s board members, who live or work on Oahu, didn’t make the neighbor island meetings, which have been equally heated.
But why not come to the Honolulu meeting?
Board members aren’t required to attend the public hearings, as Haraguchi pointed out to an angry member of the public Wednesday night.
But maybe board members should refrain from more of the snarky comments some have made in the past about Haraguchi not moving fast enough. Given the growing public chorus calling for the PLDC to be abolished, slowing down might be the best thing to do.
Also absent was Dela Cruz, who sponsored the legislation that created the PLDC, which was signed into law by the governor last year. Dela Cruz is widely considered to be protecting the PLDC from legislative action that might change it’s original concept or weaken its powers, authority that many see as too broad. He too has berated Haraguchi for not moving fast enough.
The board members who were missing in action Wednesday night are: Kalbert Young, director of the Department of Budget and Finance and chair of the PLDC; Mary Alice Evans, deputy director of the Department of Business, Economic Development and Tourism; local real estate attorney Duane Kurisu, and former state Sen. Bobby Bunda.
