Abercrombie pledges harbor improvements Takes issue with HSTA, cultural and environmental activists

Gov. Neil Abercrombie took on a triumvirate of state touchstones Thursday, criticizing “self-designated” Hawaiian activists, challenging environmental protection regulations and touting his labor bonafides while criticizing the state teachers’ union.

Work on Queen Kaahumanu Highway needs to begin soon, Abercrombie told a couple of hundred people at the Kona-Kohala Chamber of Commerce event at the Keauhou Outrigger Hotel.

“It’s being delayed by what I’m told are Native Hawaiian organizations,” he said, adding he asked which organizations. “It’s somebody self-designating and getting some standing. That’s something we’ve got to move past.”

Such “self-designating” organizations, he said, grab on to cultural protections and environmental protections and seek standing to prevent action in areas they decided they needed cultural activities “discovered six minutes ago.” Those people shouldn’t get standing and should be thrown out of court, he added.

“If we don’t have some relief, this is going to cause jobs not to occur and there’s no good reason for it,” Abercrombie said.

He went on to defend Senate Bill 755, which began as an unrelated measure but now proposes to give the governor broad leeway to exempt projects from environmental review.

“If you don’t approve of what I’ve done, you can vote me out of office,” he said, pointing out he has been involved in more than 40 elections. “I’m accountable.”

He accused “pseudo-environmental and cultural” organizations of standing in the way of necessary projects. Abercrombie said he helped write Hawaii’s environmental laws, and the intent was not to stop projects from going through.

Asked about the Hawaii State Teachers Union contract, Abercrombie spent nearly as much time talking about his own union organizing experiences as why the teachers union was unable to pass the last contract. The contract the administration offered, the governor said, included “virtually every policy request the union demanded.” But HSTA didn’t even take that contract to its members for a vote.

The second contract, which teachers voted down, had provisions teachers said they supported, when polled after the vote, Abercrombie claimed.

“What I think is going on here now is an internal union problem,” he said.

He criticized the union’s ethics complaint it brought against the state regarding the contract negotiations. The Labor Relations Board is still hearing testimony, months after the procedure began.

“The whole issue is, do I have a constitutional right to act like a governor, to put a contract forward under the conditions I did?” Abercrombie said. “That’s a yes or no answer. (HSTA officials) don’t want an answer.”

Abercrombie told the crowd he had returned money to the state’s hurricane and emergency reserve funds, because of savings the state realized when it went to sell $1.3 billion bonds. The state has yet to put any money back into those funds, and will not be able to until Senate Bill 2787 is passed through the Legislature.

He told the group he was “ashamed” of conditions at Honokohau Harbor, adding “it doesn’t remotely measure up to the standards of what it should be.” He said improvement plans are being compiled and he said he wanted those ready to go for implementation by January. Everything from road improvement, comfort stations, lighting and loading docks were mentioned. During his campaign, Abercrombie used the harbor as one example of a state project he could tackle quickly, simultaneously improving infrastructure and putting unemployed construction workers back on the job. Thursday, he called the state’s handling of the harbor “woeful and neglectful.” At the beginning of his speech, he said he delayed capital improvement projects for 20 months, “to prove this state was being run on an accountable basis.”