An open letter to the Hawaii County Council:
I have been hesitant to submit testimony on this matter as I am fully aware that it will be taken with a grain of salt, given my profession. I am a civil engineer, 31 years old, born and raised in Kona, currently practicing here in a design and consulting capacity for a company, which I started three years ago. I ask, however, that you don’t let that be your only frame of reference when trying to decipher my motives here. I am also a surfer, a paddler, a hater of traffic and disrespectful people, and irritated by the fact that our beaches and open spaces are becoming more crowded with each passing year. In short, I’m a Kona boy.
But I’m also a realist and know that the growth we see here is happening across the globe. We will not stop people from wanting to move to beautiful places. What we can do is plan for it in ways that preserve and promote the parts of our community we cherish; open spaces, more parks and ocean access, places for families to gather and grow. This kind of planning is ultimately done on the legislative level of government, your level, not the administrative one. I would ask you to keep that in mind when voting on whether to install Mr. Zendo Kern as planning director. It will not be his job to plan the community or allow certain development interests over others. It will be yours.
There is a misconception that the planning director is some kind of development tsar and that new projects are approved or denied at his or her whim. What the county needs desperately in this office is someone that has had to navigate the intricacies of these codes and documents and has seen the impacts that poor and shortsighted interpretation of the rules can have on the community, not just a specific project. I’m talking about lawsuits for inconsistent plan reviews that the county must pay to defend, affordable housing projects being scrapped because of outdated community development requirements, and families being told that they cannot add an ohana dwelling to their property because they might, one day, illegally alter or add to it, despite the fact that their building plans are consistent with the current code. Poor administration cuts both ways, remember that. These things have all happened during my short time as a licensed engineer and I would like very much to see future mistakes like these avoided, as I am sure you would as well.
I can speak for anyone with talent in my industry that we don’t need more work. I don’t favor Mr. Kern because I think it will mean more development or more money in my pocket — I favor him because I believe he can build an administration that consistently holds us accountable to the rules as they are written and as they were intended. Nothing more. In the short time he’s been given the chance he has already made moves toward that end and I have seen personally the positive impact it has made on local families.
I don’t know Mr. Kern by any measure other than reputation. And I don’t know how anyone convinced him to step away from private industry to take the planning director’s seat. But I do know that he will be sacrificing income, free time, peace and privacy to take on this thankless job. Make no mistake, he has much more to lose than he has to gain from serving the community in this manner and we would be foolish to take away his opportunity to do so.
Palani Greenwell is a resident of Kailua-Kona.
