I knew it!
The story hit the Los Angeles Times yesterday.
“Killing cats to restore island backfires as rabbits take over“
Thanks to my old friend from college, Paul Helton, for the entry in his blog calling my attention to the story.
It’s a simple story. Feral cats were blamed for ecological problems on a remote island south of New Zealand. The response–kill the cats. But when the cat eradication was over, unintended consequences ensued that just made the problems much worse and it will now cost millions to repair the damage.
There’s a more detailed story in The Guardian.
Warning! Editorial comments follow.
I was sorry to see Lee Cataluna’s anti-gambling column today in which she refers to gambling as “an infection seeking an opportunity to invade and destroy.”
It seems to me that this reflects the irrational fear of gambling that infects a portion of our population. I say “irrational” because it demands a suspension of belief in everyday reality.
The reality, from all available data, is that gambling is deeply entrenched in Hawaii. The bad part is that, at least here in the islands, it is forced to be illegal gambling by antiquated laws and puritanical religious traditions.
And it’s the illegal gambling and the crime empires it breeds that cause our problems.
I know. This isn’t politically correct among liberals here, but it’s true. Saying “don’t let legal gambling infect Hawaii” is just saying “leave the gambling in control of our organized crime friends.”
People like to gamble. Look at the lure of Las Vegas, a Hawaii tradition. Who are we to say that people who enjoy vacationing in Vegas are doing so because they’re infected by some insidious fever?
It may be that gambling is not a good choice for Hawaii and that it could conflict with the “image” we want to project. It may be that our government infrastructure isn’t up to the administrative challenge. In other words, there may be practical reasons to sidestep full scale legal gambling. But let’s look at the issue rationally and make policy decisions without getting tripped up by the hangovers of our missionary past. Haven’t we had enough of trying to legislate morality?
And while I’m on a politically incorrect train of thought, I’m also sick of all the blathering about the legislative pay raises.
The recent attacks by pundits, reporters and editorial writers have all fallen into the old trap of politicizing the issue of salaries of public officials. The constitutional amendment that set up an independent salary commission was designed to lessen if not eliminate the political nature of these decisions, recognizing that in the long run we’re better off without the temptation to make those filling key positions the whipping boys of the moment.
It’s interesting to me that with all those spouting off on the issue, none have even mentioned, much less addressed, the 500-page report of the salary commission and the evidence and rationale behind its eventual recommendations. It’s not like their proposals were pulled from thin air, or devised in backroom deals, as knee-jerk punditry would have us believe.
I get crazy reading things like today’s Star-Bulletin editorial, which so casually misstates facts.
Even if you don’t like the pay hikes that were recommended and adopted, they weren’t created by the constitutional amendment. They were created by the commission. After, I might add, a pretty exhaustive review of evidence. I can’t say the same thing about the editorial.
Was the amendment “artfully designed to authorize generous salary hikes”, as the Star-Bulletin editors would have you believe?
Actually, the commission did not recommend matching legislators pay hikes to the raises of other public workers, saying that would have brought negative public reaction.
Editorial writers, as key shapers of public opinion, in my view have an obligation to begin with a grounding in facts. Since they have failed in this, perhaps readers will want to start with the source documents and make up your own minds.
You can download the commision’s full 508-page report from the Department of Human Resource Development, while the House Blog provides a link to a summary report circulated at the Legislature.
Dan Seto, head of the Planning Division of the Hawaii State Judiciary, commented on the Salary Commission report on his blog last year, and I’ll quote him at length.
As expected, there have been concerns expressed about the level of the recommendations. But I will note several critical and revealing factors that you may not be aware of:
Since 1990, all of the positions have had long periods of time where no salary increases were made (between nine and thirteen years). At the same time, those covered under collective bargaining contracts, Unit 13 for example, have received raises averaging about 3.5% per year. If you take that average and total it over that period it would be about 66% in collective bargaining increases. In addition, during that time, inflation has decreased the dollar’s buying power by about 54%. So, these position have seen no or few increases while, at the same time, what they had was seriously eroded by inflation.
In fact, whether you take the Unit 13 collective bargaining increases and adjust the 1990 salaries for these positions forward, or take the inflation rate and adjust likewise, the Commission’s recommendations would still be lower than either of those metrics. In other words, these positions are still trying to “catch-up” to what other state employees have gotten or just trying to stay even with inflation, but are failing to do either even with these increases.
And so it goes on this Sunday morning. Now for some coffee.
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Burl, everyone knows the legislature can propose constitutional amendments. The reference to a Con Con was made only because the legislature is not likely to propose a constitutional amendment lengthening their annual session, at least not if they are of the “I want fulltime pay for part time work” mentality that you seem to be suggesting. As a practical matter, it ain’t gonna happen absent a Con Con, whatever one’s thoughts may be about the other pros and cons of having one.
There is only one state, New Mexico, in which legislators are paid no salary and, even there, legislators receive $144 per diem, albeit for a session that lasts 60 days in odd years, 30 in even. And when you pay your public officials like that you find them trying tio grease their palms elsewhere. New Mexico, in fact, has endured a series of scandals involving public officials. Talk about vestiges of Territorial days, over the past three years, two former state treasurers, a state deputy insurance superintendent, and a former president of the state senate all have pleaded guilty to or been convicted on corruption charges in New Mexico. Even Hawaii’s not THAT bad. Do we want to be?
Dare I say it? Maybe it’s like the argument that was made to raise the judges’ pay: if you want good people to be judges, you’ve got to pay them. I said above, you get what you pay for and you said you have no truck with that. So which one is it? If you want to keep the dreck we have, leave the pay as it is. If you want to perhaps get something a little better, you have to pay to be willing to for it.
I don’t think I’d refer to our current legislators as “dreck.” Most are fine, smart, hard-working people, and deserve every dime they can negotiate.
The only problem I have is tax dollars being spent without realistic public input. Supposedly, the salary commission hearings were open to the public, but the public didn’t know much about it. Maybe Ian, with his fine online sleuthing, can dig up some actual public testimony during the meetings.
Hmmm. Is there any way to monitor legislators’ actual office time throughout the year?
OK, maybe “dreck” is too extreme for some, or even most, of them but there are a few . . . .
As for “in-office” monitoring, much of the work required by the job, even during session, takes place outside the Capitol. But I see room for a Concurrent Resolution asking legislators to keep records of time spent on legislative work and making those records public. Some records should already exist becaue Neighbor Island legislators get per diem when they are in Honolulu (at least during session).
Burl, uh, I suppose legislators could have a time clock and punch in and out but I don’t know if that’s a fair measure of time spent working.
It’s like being a journalist. I would suspect some days are busier than others and to measure how much time a reporter spent cranking out a story doesn’t really capture the work involved.
It’s the same with legislators. Sitting in a four-hour neighborhood board meeting is “work” since it’s expected they will be there but it’s not the same as crafting a bill on a substantive issue that requires critical thinking, research, etc.
And, by the way, the salary commission wasn’t “supposedly” open to the public. By law, it had to be. If you have information that it wasn’t, you can file it with the Office of Information Practices.
As far as I can tell (I didn’t go to any of the meetings), it was at least as well-publicized as any meeting of, say, DLNR or the Board of Education.
If your concern was that it wasn’t announced on the radio and television; well, you’re right about that.
Thank you for quoting from a post on my personal blog. I would like to point out that although it is true that I am the head of the Judiciary’s Planning and Program Evaluation Division, the views expressed on my blog are mine alone and do not necessarily reflect those of the Judiciary. This is as indicated at the end of the post by the words “insert disclaimer here” (link to disclaimer at the top of each page).
Part of the disclaimer are the following words: “The opinions that we express on this site are ours alone. They do not necessarily reflect those of our employer and should not be construed to be so.”
Aloha – Dan Seto