When reporters talk shop and tell tales of valor, a certain measure of credibility comes with having covered neighborhood board meetings.
It’s one thing to have chased down senators in the halls of Congress or hunted for Wil Espero’s jaunty hat and ready quotes at the state Capitol, but sitting through neighborhood board meetings on humid, gnat-infested nights in some milk-sour school cafeteria requires inner strength. And that’s just to take notes and write about what happened.
Attending to testify, discuss, debate and vote is a much deeper commitment.
Talk of doing away with the 33 neighborhood boards on Oahu and shifting to a mix of Web-based interactions seems to minimize what actually takes place at the meetings. Some are full of fireworks and drama. Others are so quiet that the buzz from the fluorescent lights dominates. But they’re where dedicated grass-roots democracy really happens, not on Instagram or in distant, detached electronic testimony.
A true story:
Wayne Tadaki and his wife, Rae, moved to Mauna- lani Heights two years ago. Last month they went to a meeting of the Kaimuki Neighborhood Board. They had gone to a meeting last year and found it well attended and informative.
“This time we sat pretty much front and center, right in front of the full board of 10 upstanding fellow citizens, to see and hear without falling asleep,” Tadaki said.
The audience was sparse when the meeting began — about 10 people sitting in chairs and a few on the sides waiting to speak. The meeting proceeded with reports from Police and Fire Department representatives, then a power point presentation about an offshore wind turbine project.
“We got into it, asked some questions and nodded dutifully,” Tadaki said. Then came reports from the elected officials who represent the area.
“After each speaker spoke, he or she left. We didn’t realize until later because we were in the front, but the already small audience had slowly been shrinking,” Tadaki said. By the end of the night, it was just Wayne and Rae Tadaki sitting in the front row dutifully nodding at the remaining board members (one board member left early).
What could they do but laugh about it?
Even if nobody shows up, neighborhood board meetings are still important. They provide a good training ground and vetting process for future candidates in any position that requires working in a group and hearing the concerns of all comers. Neighbors need to sit together and talk about stuff that bothers them, even if it’s something as small as a colony of rogue chickens or as big as a condo tower squeezing in next door. Virtual reality is not the same as reality, and human interaction is still at the heart of negotiating how humans live with one another.
The Tadakis didn’t go to the most recent neighborhood board meeting. They heard that no one did, not even representatives of the elected officials. Still, they feel the system is vital. “Maybe it’s us that need to get off our okoles to go the meetings more often and get more involved in the community,” Wayne Tadaki said.
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Reach Lee Cataluna at 529-4315 or lcataluna@staradvertiser.com.
