Hawaii, get ready for 2010 ConCon

It’s been nearly 30 years since Hawaii held its last state Constitutional Convention and re-examined in a holistic way how our government could be reorganized to better meet the many challenges facing the islands today. Hawaii is a different place from the one it was in 1978, the date of the last ConCon. The number of people residing on Hawaii Island, Kauai and Maui has doubled. Oahu has grown by 230,000 — nearly a 50 percent increase. Sugar and pineapple plantations, once the defining industries of the islands, have practically disappeared, and our economy is still dependent on mass tourism, whose future looks shaky as we approach an era of Peak Oil raising costs of airfares and all our imported goods.


We especially need to modernize all our governmental institutions that deal with land development, sustainability and governance, because they are not working very well.

Booming development on each island is overwhelming us environmentally and socially. The profusion of extravagant second-home mansions, cookie-cutter subdivisions and shopping malls sprawl over the countryside, devour large amounts of electrical energy and, along with more golf courses, draw down the islands’ finite water supply. Our prolific consumptionism produces enormous mounds of waste, overflowing our existing garbage dump capacities. No wonder every island is running out of fresh water and struggling to modernize its inadequate sewage facilities. With 1.2 million vehicles on our limited roads, major traffic congestion is the norm. Our lack of affordable housing is driving middle-class and young people away.

Even though tourism is Hawaii’s main cash cow, 62 percent of residents recently polled agreed that “This island is being run for tourists at the expense of the people.”

Star-Bulletin