Registered voters get the government they elect

Council Member Stacy Crivello’s Sept. 16 “Chair’s 3 Minutes” commentary in The Maui News acknowledges the absence of a county plan to prioritize and use funds regularly collected through real property tax revenue to facilitate development of much needed affordable housing. As chair of the Housing, Human Services and Transportation Committee, she reports that her committee will now introduce legislation to provide such a plan, noting that “In the past, the . . . Committee has consistently asked the county’s Housing Department to develop a strategic housing plan” and that “The department has stated a lack of development expertise and resources as reasons for not developing such a plan.”

The department to which she refers is Housing and Human Concerns, part of the administrative branch of government overseen by Mayor Alan Arakawa, who now wants to return to the County Council as does Ms. Crivello. Until recently, Mayor Arakawa appointed Carol Reimann to lead the department, even though her resume lacked experience with housing, and the council, in its wisdom, approved the mayor’s appointment.

Mr. Arakawa and County Council Member Crivello have twice rejected separate proposals to improve county government functioning through the hiring of a professional county manager, even though the root cause of many of Maui’s problems is systemic: poor management due to an outdated charter that politicizes county government leadership of operations. Unless or until we elect county leaders who will address this critical deficit, registered voters must ultimately bear responsibility for the situation.

Mark Hyde Kihei