Both newspapers have stories today reporting on a City Council hearing regarding a proposed regional park in Nanakuli.
There’s a lot more to the story of this park proposal, but neither the Advertiser or Star-Bulletin goes beyond the superficial to get any of the underlying politics, noted here several weeks ago. The park initiative is tied to the mayor’s plan to raid a fund established by voters to save significant undeveloped areas, and instead put it to use for the mayor’s own favored projects.
The budget item the Hannemann administration inserted for this park indicates that the funds are to come from the Clean Water and Natural Lands Fund, which is administered by a commission which solicits funding proposals from all sources and then puts them through a rigorous screening process before making recommendations.
In this case, the mayor is proposing to take money from the fund and, so far at least, has made no move to do it through the established procedure.
At the same time that the mayor floated the Nanakuli park idea, he also announced that he would take money from the CWNL Fund for the proposed rail transit project.
It looks a lot like a political inducement to get Council Chairman Todd Apo, whose district includes the site of the proposed regional park, to go along with the mayor’s plan to use–or misuse–the Clean Water and Natural Lands funding while either bypassing, or eventually throwing out, the current rigorous screening process that this special fund will be used for its intended purposes.
Diluting the purposes of the Clean Water and Natural Lands Fund, which were set by voters when they approved an amendment to the City Charter despite Mayor Hannemann’s opposition, would be a significant move and not one in the public interest.
It’s too bad our newspapers don’t think it’s worth reporting.
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Ian,
Up until the time I clock out today, I’m a daily newspaper reporter. Space, time, and other stories often don’t allow us to do what you can do.
Sure, I’d heard about the use of the Clean Water & Natural Lands Fund, but I didn’t have the time to sink into that end of it – and get response from the other side like I’m supposed to do.
Hopefully, someone will look at all this before the issue comes up for a final vote.
B.J. and I both had to sit through another lengthy meeting yesterday afternoon and then write that up. I ate my only meal yesterday in the committee room.
What’s cursory and “worth reporting” to you meant staying way past the time you had your dinner and put your cats to bed.
It will be nice to have some time to look at one thing, or only a few things, at a time.
Take care.
I didn’t mean to appear to dump on you, Gordon. You’re among the best reporters I know.
It’s just built into the constraints that the newsrooms have imposed in terms of time to develop more than the immediate story, as you make so clear.
“Space, time, and other stories often don’t allow us to do what you can do.”
And, with just one newsroom that starts out swimming upstream in a river of debt, I don’t see a lot of those constraints being lifted.
But, as the old Wobbly saying goes: Don’t mourn, organize.
-Ian
Apologies if that came on a little too strong, Ian. I’m just particularly sensitive today of days.
you shouldn’t apologize Gordon. You just said what every newspaper reporter is thinking everytime someone greatly over simplifies how reporters like you go about doing their work. You are a pro. A very good one at that. I wish you the best.
Losing 50% of the metro papers is not going to improve this situation any. But hey maybe former reporters will donate their time and delve into these subjects now that they don’t have jobs.
Not a very promising model for this vital industry.
Meanwhile, local TV “news” does even less real reporting nowadays. If you deduct the amount of time spent on weather updates, sports and traffic reports, we’re lucky if there’s five minutes of actual local news in the nightly newscasts.
And half of that is devoted to the latest brush fire, car accident or demonstration at the State Capitol. But there’s plenty of happy fun talk in the mornings to wake up to! Also, I love when Joe Moore plugs his latest play and KITV tries to find local “news” angles for network shows like “Lost” or “Dancing With The Stars.”
Sigh. BTW, did you know CivilBeat.com is “free” today? Pierre Omidyar put the word out on Twitter, and has been repeating that message for the past 48 hours.
I’ve seen city newspaper reporters just twitter away with no homework done before-hand. I don’t know if it’s because they feel they can conveniently depend on press releases or word of mouth from the government’s press secretary or what. Whatever it is, it’s not a good thing when reporters do not question or second-guess information given to them by the fox.
Usually if someone asks questions, there are plenty information to be gleaned from. It also opens up more doors to more information.
Feeling Callous, I read Gordon Pang twitter once and knew it was totally wrong and never bothered to read his stuff again. It sounded like he echoed a press release from Bill Brennan.
Many of us work over time and burn the midnight oil. If a news reporter wants to have a 8-5 job and daily fixed meal times, may I respectfully suggest a clerical job behind the desk. Perhaps Watanabe Flowers or something pretty like that.
Mufi Hannemann pompously announced the “Regional Park” at his City Address. I
s transparency and due process needed any more?
His city worker, ‘Auntie” Patty Teruya is the Neighborhood Board Chair and she, not surprisingly, testified in favor of it. This includes condemnation of private property because owner refuses to cooperate with Mufi’s grandstanding.
Honolulu Hale has become a hui of thugs and bullies.