Randy Iwase’s Demanding Leadership Just Right for the PUC
Gov. David Ige nominated a leader to bring “transformation” to the utilities commission. He’s getting his money’s worth.
The return of the tradewinds has been lovely this past week, but not quite as invigorating as the breath of fresh air coming from the and the leadership of Chairman Randy Iwase.
The no-nonsense appointee of Gov. David Ige is making waves for his efficiency-oriented management approach, aimed at kicking the notoriously sluggish commission into gear. It has caused some behind-the-scenes grumbling from supporters of the status-quo, who apparently see nothing wrong with taking years to make critical decisions on dockets with major implications for those reliant on energy, telecommunications and energy — in other words, all of us.
If the grumblers are looking at Iwase for sympathy, they’re clearly looking in the wrong direction.
“We just cannot afford to have situations where decisions sit for no reason whatsoever. It’s an embarrassment,” Iwase told Civil Beat’s Nathan Eagle. “It’s still rough. People have to adjust to this. People may still want to go back to how it was — but how it was, was not satisfactory.”
How long has it been since you heard that sentiment expressed with regard to Hawaii government? In truth, there are other divisions and offices where that sense of urgency, of doing the people’s business as promptly as though it were their own is sorely needed. Iwase gets that, and rightly describes his efficiency measures as “means to get the commissioners to do what they’re paid to do, and that is make a decision in a timely manner.”
The dysfunctional culture that Iwase is confronting has been many years in the making. State audits have repeatedly criticized the PUC for everything from lack of strategic planning to poor personnel management inadequate information systems, to no avail. As the , such issues were raised time and again, with little or no response from the PUC — and that 11-year-old audit is the most recent for the commission.
“Without a vision and corresponding plans to achieve it,” the State Auditor wrote in that report, criticizing the PUC’s planning efforts, “the commission and the division trudge through daily operational work mired in process and individual case details.”
If the PUC were some obscure body — say, the state Board of Massage Therapy or the Historic Places Review Board — perhaps its plodding nature might not be so problematic. But in matters such as NextEra Energy’s proposed $4.3 billion purchase of Hawaiian Electric Industries, the implications are enormous, and the passage of time is often more an enemy than a friend.
State audits dating back to 1975 have repeatedly criticized the PUC for everything from lack of strategic planning to poor personnel management inadequate information systems, to no avail.
Iwase’s get-it-done sensibility might be destined to fail if he didn’t have the professional background and local credibility that he does. But as a leader who has previously served as a state lawmaker, a deputy attorney general, a Honolulu City Council member and Democratic nominee for governor, he is a known quantity with a sterling reputation.
When nominating him last January, Ige said Iwase’s “extensive experience” made him the right leader for the PUC during a “time of transition and transformation.” Transformation demands strong, decisive leadership, and Iwase is proving that with comments such as this one he offered on laborious decision-making processes: “I’m not here to make everyone happy with a consensus opinion that’s so watered down it’s meaningless.”
When a campaign supporter encouraged another change agent, President Harry Truman, to stick it to GOP leaders in Congress, famously shouting, “Give ‘em hell, Harry,” Truman responded with the equally famous line, “I don’t give ‘em hell. I just tell the truth and they think it’s hell.”
Iwase seems cut from the same cloth.
Any more where this one came from, Gov. Ige?
