I am honored to have received one of two “Unsung Hero” awards presented last night at the annual dinner of Hawaii’s Thousand Friends, the community-based environmental group formed back in 1981. If you’re not familiar with them, you should be! They’ve been in the fight for a long time.
The second award recipient was Chris Cramer, who formed the Maunalua Fishpond Heritage Center and together with the community, stopped the State Department of Transportation from auctioning Kalauha‘iha‘i Pond in Niu and a portion of K?newai Pond in Kuli‘ou‘ou as “remnant parcels.”
Cramer successfully lobbying for the passage of legislation in 2010 that prevents the sale of publicly owned Hawaiian fishponds statewide. Chris’s leadership has led to restoration of Kanewai Spring, begun in 2011, and community efforts to save, restore and preserve the fishponds of Maunalua.
I was extremely flattered to be in such good company!
Here’s the certificate that I received (just click for a larger version).
Unsung Hero 2017
The main speaker was Senator Laura Thielen, who discussed the “big picture” of what’s gone wrong with the city’s implementation of the idea of transit oriented development.
She showed that the city is not investing in infrastructure improvements in the areas most in need of TOD, which limits the types of developments that could take advantage of TOD incentives to those which will miss the segment of the population that should be targeted, the middle of the middle class.
Thielen presented some important statistics, including this one. The cost of the proposed redevelopment of Blaisdell Center currently being touted by the city is 22% more that the city’s entire capital improvement budget for FY 2016, and just 2% less than 2015.
So this one project would suck up the resources equal to or exceeding all that the city spent during those years for all capital projects, which include all infrastructure upgrades, all road repairs and repaving, sewage repairs and upgrades, investments in parks and cultural facilities, investments in homeless shelters and affordable housing, and on and on.
Laura Thielen on Transit Oriented Development
Thielen’s point is that if we’re serious about meeting the housing crisis head on, then public investments in infrastructure in the neighborhoods where workforce housing is most needed should be a priority. Instead, the city and state have poured infrastructure money into Kakaako, an investment that hasn’t yielded the kind of affordable housing once promised to justify redevelopment of the area.
Thanks to Senator Thielen for sharing!
