The recent decision by a committee of the City Charter Commission to recommend that the 33 Oahu neighborhood boards be abolished came as an unpleasant surprise to many.

No one really expected that any such proposal would be given more than just a passing glance.

The committee essentially said that the boards’ face-to-face public discussion and debate should be replaced with social media, emails and faxes.

It also criticized the cost of running the board system even though 33 boards, with 437 volunteer members, are funded for less than the cost of one house on Oahu.

The proposal would take away a well-established system that promotes public expression of opinions and values concerning government decisions affecting our neigh- borhoods.

A little history may shed some light on how unfortunate the proposal is.

In 1974, there was a small office on the fifth floor of Honolulu Hale, with two new employees: the executive secretary of the newly formed Neighborhood Commission and her secretary. They were a result of a City Charter amendment recommended by the 1973 City Charter Commission, and approved by the voters.

Their task was to prepare a plan to form and operate neighborhood boards to present to the Neighborhood Commission for approval.

With few resources, the executive secretary held over 100 meetings around Oahu to ask residents to define the boundaries of their neighborhoods. From that effort, the neighborhood board system was born.

As a young planner with the city Planning Department, I attended hearings at the City Council where individuals struggled, usually with a one-minute time limit, to make themselves heard. Their efforts usually fell on deaf ears. A number of times, I heard Council members ask: “Who do you represent” or “How do we know that is your community’s position?”

At the same time, letters and testimony would come to the Council, the Planning Department and other agencies from community associations who claimed to represent their community, but appeared to be controlled more by special interests. It appeared that more attention was paid to their opinions, and no one knew how their members were chosen. Later, some of those groups would oppose the formation of the neighborhood boards.

Another obstacle surfaced during the preparation of the Neighborhood Plan when Mayor Frank Fasi, faced with overwhelming public opinion in favor of forming the boards, proposed that he should appoint all neighborhood board members. Someone suggested that he thought that would make a great campaign committee. But thankfully, after much debate, the Neighborhood Commission decided that it would give the boards more credibility if the members were elected.

In 1975, after final adoption of the Neighborhood Plan, I volunteered my efforts to help form the first board in the Mililani Town-Waipio-Melemanu area with Richard Poirier and others.

After being elected in the initial neighborhood board election, I was voted in as the first neighborhood board chair on Oahu — a distinction of which I am very proud.

The system grew rapidly as residents embraced a pathway to effective participation in their government’s decisions. Two months later, Waianae was formed, and then the late Al Lewis formed Waimanalo.

Today, despite being guinea pigs for online elections, and being criticized for the resulting low turnout, the boards are more meaningful and effective than ever in their 41-year history.

In these times, when 1 percent of the nation’s population has more than 95 percent of the wealth, it is even more important to have our neighborhood boards seeking the public’s opinions and values, and speaking on our behalf.