TMT protest, and arrests, exemplify aloha

There is no doubting the heartfelt dismay felt by the peaceful protesters who blocked the road leading to the summit of Mauna Kea on Thursday, stopping construction crews from reaching the work site of the giant Thirty Meter Telescope. And it appeared that those given the difficult task of confronting the protesters — Hawaii County police officers — felt their pain as well. The officers did their job, arresting 31 people for obstructing the road and allowing the trucks to rumble through. But, as seen on bigislandvideonews.com, both sides provided a model lesson in how to handle a potentially tense encounter — with mutual respect, patience and self-control.

It doesn’t hurt to dream, but don’t forget reality

There’s been a lot of talk recently about interests on Hawaii island and now Maui taking over the Hawaiian Electric Industries (HEI) subsidiaries on those islands and turning them into publicly owned companies. But for now that’s all it is — talk. That’s because you can’t take over something that isn’t for sale, unless somehow government can be used to exercise eminent domain — which in this instance is highly unlikely.

Of course, HEI overall is for sale, and pending regulatory approvals, it will be acquired within the next year or so by NextEra Energy of Florida, for $4.3 billion. Maybe something could come up before or afterward that would result in the sale of those neighbor island subsidiaries (Hawaii Electric Light Co. and Maui Electric Co.). Not likely, is our guess, but it will be interesting to see how it goes.