If the neighbors are lighting illegal fireworks next door, call and report it.
If the house across the street is an illegal vacation rental with strangers coming and going at all hours of the day and night, go online to complain.
Also, call to complain if the sweet old house down the road gets bulldozed and suddenly a mysterious construction crew is pouring enough concrete to erect an apartment building on a quarter-acre lot. Make a complaint about suspected monster houses so the City can follow up.
Follow up on your initial complaint with subsequent complaints.
If you see something, say something. Call it in. Stand up. Bear witness. Stick your neck way out there. Be a hero. Take surveillance video. Post photos. Collect evidence. It is all up to you.
Politicians and government administrators have been encouraging the public to be the “eyes and ears” in the community, to catch bad acts as they’re being committed and to be surveillance for everything from building code violations to abandoned cars.
Anybody resolving to complain less in the new decade? Probably not a reasonable resolution.
The community has been trained to complain. Action by government agencies seems to only be reactive, not proactive. If nobody complains, nothing gets done. It’s as though every department is operating like the police department, jumping into action when somebody puts out the bat signal.
A result of this approach to management is that the loudest, most visible or viral complaints get priority.
This modern model of government has cranked up the crankiness in Hawaii. In order to stop illegal dumping, regular citizens have to assume the responsibility of tattling on others.
Not only that, they have to commit to repeat complaints and, if they truly want to be taken seriously, must get cell phone photos and videos documenting the dumping.
The same is true for so many troubles that plague the community, from illegal fireworks to neighborhood projects that egregiously violate zoning codes.
It is a tough way to live for a community that has long told itself that it is a laid-back, live-and-let-live, “ain’t no big ting, braddah” kind of place. We’re not persnickety. We’re not particularly judgmental. People in Hawaii don’t relish busting on those who break rules.
But this is now what we are told we must do if we want a community that functions well, that is reliable and safe, that doesn’t have festering trash piles or crazy rooming houses popping up in quiet neighborhoods.
“See something, say something” is a good policy, of course, especially where public safety is concerned. But it is a heavy burden to bear when it is applied to so many areas of life and is used as the first warning of something going wrong. It’s hard to be a community watchdog when you’re just trying to do your job, pay your bills and watchdog your own life.
(On a side-note, government leaders who then complain about citizens who complain are such a heaping helping of hypocrisy.)
This loop of complaint-and-response is not democracy and citizen-engagement. It’s a symptom of a government and business climate that can’t be trusted to take care of things without folks yelling at them to do their jobs.
Maybe we can all try to do better in the coming decade to dial down both the complaining and the need for complaining in order to get anything done.
Reach Lee Cataluna at 529-4315 or lcataluna@staradvertiser.com.
