News of the selection of V.R. Hinano Rodrigues was not welcomed by many of the same groups who had pushed to have the governor pick a candidate from the two remaining on the original list forwarded to him in February.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In an interview that Hawai\u02bbi News Now reporter Daryl Huff had with Green the day after the Rodrigues\u2019 appointment was announced, Green was defiant and harshly criticized the groups opposed to the selection of Rodrigues, as well as the senator who will be presiding over his confirmation hearings when the Legislature is next in session.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cLet them see this person\u2019s resume. It\u2019s fantastic, you know. This is someone who has committed years and years of service in the field and by the way grows his own taro, for gosh sakes,\u201d he said. (Rodrigues\u2019 resume has not been made public.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Sen. Lorraine Inouye, who chairs the Senate Water and Land Committee and who will be presiding over Rodrigues\u2019 confirmation hearings, was also interviewed by Huff. She was skeptical about his background: \u201cOne needs to have some water resource management background,\u201d she said. \u201cCertainly from my standpoint it doesn\u2019t seem like this gentleman is qualified. I can\u2019t understand why the governor is already upsetting the community and not fulfilling the requirements of that seat.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Green repeatedly described his critics as ideological with a singular focus on restoring streams. \u201cI would ask those who bring an ideological position to instead trust that people are actually going to try to work in good faith,\u201d he told Huff. As for Inouye and other senators, he suggested they \u201ctalk to the individual, find out where they\u2019re coming from, long before lobbing a little hand grenade behind their back.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cLet me frame this for everyone so they understand the position I was placed in,\u201d Green said, speaking to the loea selection process. \u201cWe had four names, right? One person was not Hawaiian enough for others, okay? That\u2019s what happened. The second person got afraid because they were attacked before they were even chosen, leaving only two people \u2013 who are excellent people but neither of them were either going to be confirmed by the Senate or capable of getting what we needed to get done for streams, for housing, for our next iteration of fire protection.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
He referenced Rodrigues\u2019 12-year tenure in the History and Culture Branch of the State Historic Preservation Division, but described the political headwinds he will likely face. \u201cBecause of people\u2019s ideology, he is already going to be challenged. They haven\u2019t even heard this guy speak for one moment about what he would do, and he\u2019s from Wailuku. He\u2019s a taro farmer, for gosh sakes. Let\u2019s call it a small miracle that we found someone who can grow taro and also has some cultural experience.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cI think people need to calm down the ideological wars and instead of trying to just get their way, work with me. \u2026 I\u2019m trying to move the ball to help protect people and improve their lives, in this case on Maui,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u2014 Patricia Tummons<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" News of the selection of V.R. Hinano Rodrigues was not welcomed by many of the same groups who had pushed to have the governor pick a candidate from the two remaining on the original list forwarded to him in February. … Continued<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":16266,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[531,28],"tags":[7],"class_list":["post-16265","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-december-2024","category-water","tag-patricia-tummons"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/environment-hawaii.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16265","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/environment-hawaii.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/environment-hawaii.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/environment-hawaii.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/environment-hawaii.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=16265"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/environment-hawaii.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16265\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/environment-hawaii.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/16266"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/environment-hawaii.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=16265"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/environment-hawaii.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=16265"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/environment-hawaii.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=16265"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}