Surf a book, live a museum

This Saturday, September 23, 2017 there two awesome events that you won’t want to miss: the Surf-a-Book Festival and Museum Day Live!

If you read with children or have ever thought about writing a children’s book, you’ll want to catch the Surf-a-Book Festival, a celebration of children’s literature in Hawaii at the Hawaii State Library in Honolulu, 10 am to 1:30 pm. There will be free presentations, children’s activities, read-alouds, book signings, a book exhibit, and panel discussions, with the Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators.

Beginning authors and illustrators can dive into their own story and meet local authors and illustrators: Joy Au, Chris Caravalho, Kirsten Carlson, Ellie Crowe, David Estes, Leslie Hayashi, Dani Hickman, Lavonne Leong, Christin Lozano, Alina Niemi, Elizabeth Oh, Jessica Orfe, Tammy Yee, and more.

One of the best projects I’ve ever done with my son has been writing a book together. For a second grade recycling project, he created Mr. Roboto out of recycled materials (tissue boxes, plastic bowls, bottle caps) and started writing stories about him. That summer, he wrote and illustrated “The Story of SuperPoliceboto!” The best part of it was opening that bright orange Shutterfly box and seeing his book for the first time.

Another great way to spend your Saturday is by bringing the past to life at Museum Day Live!, an annual celebration of boundless curiosity hosted by Smithsonian magazine. Each Museum Day Live! ticket provides free admission for two people. Just find a participating museum or cultural institution, print your ticket or download it to your smartphone, and head to the museum.

In Hawaii, there are 7 participating museums:

* Honolulu, Oahu: Hawaii State Art Museum, which features contemporary artwork by artists with a connection to Hawaii (the current exhibit is “Hawaii: Change and Continuity”); Iolani Palace, the official residence of Hawaii’s monarchy; Japanese Cultural Center of Hawaii Historical Gallery, which exhibits Okage Sama De: I Am What I Am Because of You (displaying the Japanese immigration experience from 1868 to modern times) and the Honouliuli National Monument Education Center (highlighting Oahu’s World War II internment camp); and Pacific Aviation Museum Pearl Harbor, which exhibits aircraft and tells the stories of aviation in the Pacific.

* Lahaina, Maui: Baldwin Home, the oldest house still standing on Maui; and Wo Hing Museum, a restored social meeting hall for Chinese laborers who helped build tunnels and irrigation systems through the mountains.

* Lihue, Kauai: Grove Farm Museum, with authentic sugar plantation buildings and homes, orchards and pasture lands, and operating sugar plantation steam locomotives.

The Okage Sama De exhibit at the Japanese Cultural Center of Hawaii is a wonderful experience. Walking through the gallery is like stepping into the past. If you haven’t already visited the Japanese Cultural Center of Hawaii, I encourage you to take your family this weekend!

Share your Museum Day Live experience @MuseumDay  #BoundlessCuriosity  #MuseumDayLive

What are your favorite children’s books? Have you ever thought about writing a children’s book? Where will your curiosity lead you?

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Driving electric

Hawaii is good place for electric vehicles, with its year-round sunshine, high gasoline prices, and limited driving distance. As of July 2017, there were 6,084 electric vehicles and 24,378 passenger hybrid vehicles registered statewide, according to the “Monthly Energy Trend Highlights,” July 2017. That’s 2.88% of the 1,056,103 registered passenger vehicles in the state – and growing.

The electric car I drive reflects who I am – or rather, who I want to be. I try to be environmentally conscious, and reducing, recycling, and reusing are slowly becoming second-nature. I try to be positive, driving with aloha to reduce the stress of traffic. I try to be plan ahead and be prepared – though this hasn’t worked out as well, as just the other week I forgot to charge the car and drove around on my lunch break, desperately looking for an open charging station.

For those of you who are thinking about an electric vehicle, and those of you who already drive one, this week, September 9-17, 2017, is National Drive Electric Week – a nationwide celebration of all-electric and plug-in hybrid vehicles. Plug-in vehicles are better for the environment, more affordable than ever, and reduce our dependence on foreign oil – and the drive is surprisingly peppy.

Check out one of these upcoming three National Drive Electric Events in Hawaii:

* Hilo, Hawaii Island. On Saturday, September 16, 9 am to noon at the Home Depot, to meet other EV owners and families.

* Honolulu, Oahu. On Sunday, September 17, 9 am to noon at Kapiolani Community College, with specified staging locations for the Electric Island Drive and an Electric Vehicle Fair.

* Lihue, Kauai. On Saturday, September 16, 9 am to 1 pm at KCC Kauai Community College, with the opportunity to test-drive electric vehicles.

On a related note… As part of October’s National Energy Action Month, mark your calendars for the Clean Energy Fair on Saturday, October 7 at Kahala Mall in Honolulu, 10 am to 3 pm, with interactive displays, live entertainment, keiki games, and a show by Mad Science of Hawaii at 10:15 am.

Do you drive an electric car? If yes, what made you go electric? If not, what holds you back? What does your car say about you?

Planning 21st century Kalihi

My memories of growing up in the Kalihi-Kapalama area in the 20^th century: going to Woolworth’s for Icees at the Kamehameha Shopping Center… spending a summer at the YMCA in Kalihi… taking the #2 School-Middle bus around town… borrowing books from the Kalihi-Palama Public Library…

Now we’re looking to Kalihi in the 21^st century. This summer the Hawaii Office of Planning and the Kalihi 21^st Century Transformation Initiative’s Vision Committee released the “21^st Century Kalihi Transformation Initiative: Vision Report 2017.” The report is based on work by the public and private sector committee members and community input at three public informational meetings, and spotlight’s the top priorities of economic development and housing.

Mahalo to the Vision Committee, which designed an impressive planning process. Community meetings began with the 5 Pillars of Aloha to ensure that participants are welcome and inclusive; and included a graphic recorder for visual note-taking, maps with sticky notes that highlight action items and priorities, word-clouds, and wish cards for community feedback. I especially like the comments by children.

I learned that 72% of Kalihi residents are renters (compared with 45% of Oahu residents) and 30% of Kalihi residents take public transportation to work (compared with 6% of Oahu residents). This tells me that transit-oriented development will help Kalihi – though the Honolulu rail may not take residents where they need to go.

I learned that as of November 2016, 10 alternate sites for OCCC are being reviewed. Construction costs alone are projected to be $433 million to $673 million, depending on the site selected. I have to wonder why it took over a decade to reach this point.

I learned about the Kalihi-Palama Action Plan (2004), which envisioned possible uses of the Oahu Community Correctional Center (OCCC) site. The most practical proposal is a Multi-Cultural Market Place with an open market, playgrounds, pedestrian paths, outdoor stage, and green spaces. The most inspirational proposal is the Lo‘i Kalo Cultural Park with a taro patch, hale pili (grass house), and cultural classes and workshops for schools, residents, and visitors – a gathering place and center of learning.

Lo’i Kalo Cultural Park, Kalihi-Palama Action Plan (2004)

At the end, I was left with two basic questions that are beyond the scope of the Vision Report, but that need to be answered:

How will Honolulu pay for redevelopment in Kalihi? The Vision Report deliberately avoids the financial impact of redevelopment, but we need to know how much our vision could cost, and who will pay for it. Will we raise property taxes, general excise taxes, gas taxes, or transient-accommodations taxes? Could we create a public-private real estate investment trust (REIT), which would allow people to invest and “own shares” in Kalihi?

How can we ensure that residents aren’t priced out of their homes? Whenever we redevelop deteriorating neighborhoods, there is the danger of current residents being unable to afford their homes. Could we limit property tax increases so that residents are not hit by large increases in property values and taxes? Will affordable housing be “affordable” for 10, 20, 30 or more years? Could we create “affordable” leases for small businesses, so that neighborhood businesses have a chance?

What are your stories about growing up, living, working, or doing business in Kalihi? What do you envision for Kalihi in the next 50 years?

“Clouds of Memories” by Mona Kahele

“To have Hawaiian blood is to be Hawaiian, but to love one another whether Hawaiian or any other ethnicity is also to be Hawaiian at heart.”

“Clouds of Memories” (2006) by Native Hawaiian historian, educator, and community leader Mona Kapapaokeali‘i Kapule Kahele (1921-2006) offers an autobiographical glimpse into rural Hawaiian life and stories from remote areas, specifically life in South Kona from the 1939s to the 1990s. It is a collection of diary entries, legends learned from Kahele’s grandparents and kupuna, and line drawings and maps. The book is divided into 6 sections: diary entries, early years, place names and legends, Miloli‘i stories, Miloli‘i legends, and fishing traditions.

“My material comes from my relatives on a hearsay basis and to me it is just like the clouds: they can paint an interesting story,” Kahele writes. “The clouds tell me more things than you can ever imagine. The formations that take place are out of this world.” She reveals, “All through the years, I kept these stories as my treasures. To me they mean a lifetime that cannot be repeated.”

Throughout “Clouds of Memories,” we see Kahele’s love of writing and her keen interest in writing down legends and stories to share (her grandmother Lokalia would save old scraps of paper and iron them for Kahale to write on). We feel her matter-of-fact acceptance about adapting to harsh living conditions, such as an abusive father, poverty, little food or water, and hard work. And we witness Kahele’s compassion, her devotion to children (from 1947 to 1959, they raised 23 children!).

Through diary entries, we learn that Kahele was born at Nāpo‘opo‘o (“the great dents,” named after two hollows in the land that were once fresh water ponds) in South Kona, Hawaii in 1921. Kahele’s family relied on the land for food and trade, and she grew up in relative poverty. According to hānai tradition, she was fostered with her father’s adopted mother, Tūtū Mele, and rescued from abuse by her paternal grandmother, Tūtū Lokalia. They moved to Hilo and stayed with relatives, until an uncle helped them find a small home of their own.

She married Abel, who came from the fishing village of Miloli‘i. They adopted a son and daughter, Danford and Dolly. They farmed coffee, avocados, and mangoes, until Kahele became sick and temporarily wheelchair-bound.

Kahele retells stories learned from kūpuna in Miloli‘i in 1946, written in Hawaiian and translated into English. The stories and legends reinforce Hawaiian beliefs about that the gods and ‘aumakua were benevolent and would help people, like the stories of Ānuenue, a princess of the rainbow; Kanuha, whose ‘aumakua rescued him from the people of the sea; Lilinoe and Waihua‘i, who were transformed into pools so the people would have water; and Kū‘ula and Hinapukui‘a, who heard the prayers from a poor village and helped them because of the villagers’ kindness. These stories reinforce the Hawaiian values of self-sacrifice and compassion in response to suffering and misfortune.

For me, Kahele’s acceptance of poverty and abuse is distressing, but the reality that young women and girls were abused by Westerners in the 1700s is heartbreaking. Kahele states with brutal honesty that in Nāpo‘opo‘o, they talk about “…the women folk who were enticed and taken aboard ship by Captain Cook’s men where they were raped and beaten. Some of the women were beaten badly because they wouldn’t do what the sailors wanted them to do. Some of them died and were thrown overboard into the water… Some of these women became pregnant. Others became very sick…” She states clearly, “Some young girls were stolen by the crew and taken aboard, raped, and held captive.”

Through her memories, we can experience the fear of family, the land that is not prosperous, the wrong-doings against the innocent, contrasted with Kahele’s own life in her caring for children, caring for the land as a farmer, and her determination to make sure that voices are heard.

Two-minute rail testimony

For many students, August means back to school to continue their education. For the Honolulu Rail Transit Project, August means back to the legislature to ask for more money.

Hawaii legislatures have responded to Honolulu Mayor Kirk Caldwell’s call for more rail funding with revisions to SB No. 4. Public testimony for SB4 was held on yesterday on August 28, 2017 at the State Capitol Auditorium. The 3 pm start time suggests that Ways and Means Committee doesn’t really want to hear from the public; if allowed, I think that public testimony could go on for days.

I didn’t go to the hearing, but I wanted to share my two-minute testimony about the six parts to the funding proposal:

First, $1.32 billion would be raised by increasing the Hawaii Transient Accommodations Tax (TAT) by 1%. In theory, it sounds good to tax someone who doesn’t live or vote in Hawaii. In reality, I think we have reached a point where the TAT is excessive and may deter tourism – unless, of course, we really do want to limit tourism.

Second, $1.04 billion would raised by extending the 0.5%* rail surcharge on the Oahu General Excise Tax (GET) for three years until 2030. While I don’t usually support tax increases or extensions, the GET surcharge is the fairest way to raise funds because it taxes consumption (the goods and services you buy). It lets everyone feel the impact of the tax, keeping the tax front-of-mind.

Third, rail surcharge funds would be deposited into a mass transit special fund. I don’t think we should create another special fund, which could involve more paperwork and more staff to oversee the fund. If lawmakers don’t trust the Honolulu Authority for Rapid Transit (HART), they shouldn’t fund it at all.  

Fourth, the State Department of Taxation would reduce is administrative fee from 10% to 1% of the gross proceeds. This increases the surcharge revenue allocated to rail transit. This is long over-due. The 10% administrative fee is exorbitant; it appears to be a bribe to ensure the State’s support for rail.

Fifth, the rail surcharge can no longer be used to fund operating, maintenance, administration, or marketing costs, which was not prohibited before. SB4 could have gone a step further and required a financing plan for operations and maintenance by 2018 or 2019.

Sixth, the HART would be subject to an annual review by the state auditor; and a certification statement would be issued by the state comptroller before disbursing funds. Hawaii’s largest public works project should be audited periodically. I think we would all like to know how the GET surcharge has been spent, and who is responsible for rising costs and missed projections.

Did you submit testimony to the public hearing on August 28? Do you think legislators came up with a good funding plan? Who is responsible if rail transit is under-funded?

 

* Corrected: the surcharge is 0.5%, not 0.05%. Mahalo to a diligent reader who caught my typo!

My cellphone is smart enough

95% of adults in the U.S. own a cellphone of some kind. 77% own a smartphone and 18% own a basic cellphone, according to the Pew Research Center’s “Mobile Fact Sheet” (January 12, 2017).

I’m one of the 18% with a basic cellphone.

My basic cellphone that suits me very well. To modern technology, it’s the equivalent of a touch-tone phone, but it’s small, thin, and light-weight, and I can password or pattern-protect it. It’s a phone you might give to an elementary school student, but I refuse to exchange it for something that can do more.

For people who can’t live without their smartphones, I want to explain that my basic cellphone is smart enough.

I’d rather spend money on books. I don’t want to spend extra money on a smartphone, and I don’t want to be enticed into buying a smartphone every time a new one comes out. Cellphones should not be designed to be obsolete.

I want a good work-life balance. I don’t want my job to follow me home. I don’t want to answer work emails, texts, and calls when I’m spending time with family or relaxing. And I don’t want to be distracted at work by personal messages and alerts.

I want to look up. I want to see people and be seen. I don’t want to look down, unaware of the world around me. Most of the things people do on smartphones, I can do on a computer – and I can choose to get up and walk away when I’m done.

I confess… I sometimes “borrow” my husband’s smartphone to make phone calls – but not because it’s a smartphone. It’s the unlimited minutes that I mildly envy.

But the real truth is… Instead of watching videos, texting, or peering into other people’s lives, I’d rather live my own life.

Do you have a smartphone, cellphone, or landline phone? Do you constantly want to upgrade your smartphone to the latest model? How much cellphone screen time is too much?

Reimagining the Neighborhood Board

Every 10 years, the Honolulu Neighborhood Commission reviews the Neighborhood Plan and asks for input from the community. What works? What can be improved? I have to be honest: unless you enjoy reviewing bills and contracts, the Neighborhood Plan is not easy reading; but the discussion about Neighborhood Boards is worthwhile.

A year ago, when the Charter Commission considered eliminating Neighborhood Boards, I thought it was a terrible idea. I strongly support monthly neighborhood board meetings because they give people the chance to find out what is going on in the community and voice their opinions.

The first idea I had to improve Neighborhood Boards was term limits. We need term limits at all levels of government to encourage community involvement in local issues, and we service could be limited to four consecutive two-year terms.

Then I decided to challenge the very concept of Neighborhood Boards. If there were no Neighborhood Boards, how would I want to participate in the community? How could I reach out to government leaders and lawmakers? What is the most effective way I could make my voice heard?

I realized that what I strongly support is the monthly neighborhood meetings, rather than the Neighborhood Board itself. The Neighborhood Board is a formal and structured system – with precise district boundaries, elections, and oaths of office – but it’s really more of a Neighborhood Advisory. In some ways they are another level of bureaucracy that separates residents from government leaders and lawmakers.

We could change the name to “Neighborhood Advisory” to more accurately reflect their role as advocates for the community, and remove some of the formality of the Board – with fewer district members and more “at-large” advisers.

Or we could change the focus from a “Board” to a “Forum” completely. We could keep the monthly “Town Hall” meetings with City Councilmembers, State Senators, State Representatives, and representatives from the Mayor’s Office, Police Department, and Fire Department, but instead of Board members, elect “Community Coordinators” who would organize and run meetings.

The Community Coordinators (one primary coordinator and two assistant coordinators) would be liaisons between the neighborhood and government leaders. They would be social media mavens and meeting moderators who would get the word out about monthly Town Hall forums, confirm agendas, take attendance, conduct meetings, and track neighborhood-generated issues. The emphasis would be on facilitating communication, not leadership.

With Community Coordinators, there would be no Neighborhood Board Commission and no Board members. We would need an Executive Community Coordinator as a resource for the Community Coordinators. Formal letters of support or opposition to community issues could be written by Community Coordinators and signed by residents at the next Forum, or offered as templates online for individuals, homeowners associations, and organizations to submit directly to government leaders.

Or we would continue with our current Neighborhood Board system, fine-tuning it and changing it to account for changing technology. We would offer Google Hangouts or Skype video conferencing. We could allow comments by phone or chat, to be read aloud by Board members. We could elect a Social Media board member who would post updates and community feedback in real-time.

What do you think about your Neighborhood Board? Do you attend meetings regularly, or do you feel empowered knowing that you have an opportunity to share your thoughts?