David Shapiro: Visiting mayors are served dirty laundry at royal buffet

It was a scene of contrasts last weekend when municipal leaders here for the U.S. Conference of Mayors gathered at Iolani Palace.

Inside the gates, mayors and spouses in upscale casual attire got a VIP tour of the seat of the overthrown Hawaiian monarchy and then enjoyed a buffet on the lawn, attended by a royal guard dressed in red.

Outside the gates was a different crowd: dozens of protesters lining King Street to express displeasure about the handling of myriad local issues by Honolulu’s mayor and other leaders.

A photo stream of the demonstration by Stan Sakai showed men and women, young and old, bridging economic strata and representing virtually every island ethnicity.

They wore jeans, Jams, slacks, flowered blouses, T-shirts, tank tops, malo, baseball caps, straw hats, rubber slippers and sneakers.

Some of their signs said “Save Our Sherwoods,” “Stop Ala Wai Project,” “Save Ala Moana Beach Park,” “Listen to the People,” “We Are Mauna Kea,” “Broken Promises Lies,” “Respect the Land” and “Impeach Mayor Kirk Caldwell! Pricing of locals out of Oahu!”

One of the most telling protest signs depicted Caldwell with his fingers in his ears and his tongue sticking out, saying, “I can’t hear you.”

The number of bitterly contentious issues in our community was striking, as was the resolve of those who fought traffic into town to spend a Sunday sounding their unhappiness.

The thread connecting the diverse grievances was a frustration over how land use decisions here so often end up with more ground paved over.

Increasingly, people feel they’re not being listened to, playing in a rigged game in which the money — usually tied to big developers, big business and big labor — always seems to get its way.

They cringe when elected schlubs propped up by special-interest bucks act like alii.

The city, state and federal governments assumed everybody would support a massive Ala Wai flood control project to protect Waikiki hotels without adequately consulting affected residents of upstream valleys.

A “world class” playground for Ala Moana Beach Park pushed by nearby luxury condo developers jumped years of master-planning for the park and became a mayoral priority virtually overnight.

Park development at Sherwoods in Waimanalo went through environmental study and neighborhood board review years ago, but somehow the conversation didn’t include many now shocked to see beloved trees bulldozed.

Native Hawaiians have resented telescopes on Mauna Kea since the first pimple appeared on the mountaintop in the late 1960s, but keep being pushed aside with promises of “just one more.”

Get burned often enough and even good science, planning and engineering start to look suspect.

Whether or not we agree with all the positions espoused by these protesters, we should respect their hard efforts to make our local government of the people.

Reach David Shapiro at volcanicash@gmail.com.