Lingle Should Be Held to Account
Recently, David Frankel, executive director of the Hawai`i Chapter of the Sierra Club, wrote a short article highly critical of the Lingle record. The article was published in Maui newspapers, and, on January 9, Lingle responded with her own viewpoint article, published in The Maui News.
In that article, Lingle writes, “Frankel said that I have failed to meet the environmental litmus test set by Frankel and his friends. I confess he is right.” While the “environment is important,” she goes on to say, “Hawai`i is not a park, a natural preserve where we can simply freeze time and stop progress. People live and work and raise their families here. For our children to have opportunities to stay here, environmental protection must be balanced with economic growth.”
In any event, she goes on to say, Frankel’s article ignored several of her administration’s accomplishments, including the establishment of a recycling program and the first municipal co-composting program in the state. (Lingle should be cautioned not to boast too much about her recycling program; it is surely one of the more controversial aspects of her administration, beset by charges of favoritism and ineptitude, among other things.)
Lingle also claims that Maui leads the state in the reuse of wastewater. (According to the report of the state Environmental Council for 1996, Maui recycled 725 million gallons — 13.7 percent — of its treated wastewater. Percentage-wise, that comes in second to Kaua`i, which reported 63 percent of its treated wastewater was reused. In terms of actual gallons reused, Maui comes in behind O`ahu, which recycled 1,570 million gallons of its treated wastewater.)
To be sure, there’s more to Lingle than just her environmental record. Consider her ethics. When sued over the firing of a sewage treatment plant worker, Lingle hired at county expense her then-husband, William Crockett, and other attorneys to represent her and administration officials in the Department of Public Works. Crockett was paid $77,000 for his efforts in a lawsuit that was settled for $45,000. Other private attorneys were paid about $273,800. The County Council challenged Lingle’s right to hire the attorneys in a case that went all the way to the Hawai`i Supreme Court, which, in December 1996, found Lingle had erred.
Then there’s the case of her director of public works, Charles Jencks. Although Jencks has an ownership interest (valued at $35,000 in 1987) in the Ma`alaea Triangle development, Jencks oversaw the developer’s compliance with terms of its Special Management Area permit. Following complaints from many Ma`alaea residents and others about the developer’s failure to control silt and dust, the matter of Jencks’ interest in the project was raised before the Maui County Board of Ethics. In December 1997, he was asked to step down from any role in the administration of the permit.
In eight years as mayor, Lingle has established a long record of accomplishments on which her suitability for higher office can be judged. And just as she takes pleasure in touting her economic strengths, she should be held accountable for all that she has accomplished — or not — in the area of environmental protection.
Volume 8, Number 8 February 1998