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Recent articles marking the three-year anniversary of COVID-19 raise good points. Here’s another.
We’ve become addicted to emergency proclamations. Taxpayers support two houses of the state Legislature and councils for each county. And yet, whether it’s homelessness, building affordable housing, North Shore erosion or basic maintenance of the road into Waipio Valley, it seems to require emergency proclamations to get anything done.
Hawaii’s emergency management law (HRS 127A) is now used for almost any purpose, for almost any length of time. The law’s 60-day time limit for emergency provisions has been rendered irrelevant. Proclamations just get repeatedly renewed for another 60 days, which can be done forever, apparently. We might as well dissolve the Legislature and the county councils, save the money, and be honest about our preference for dictatorship.
Perhaps by suspending all the relevant environmental review and permitting laws, we can get rail and a new stadium finally built. And why didn’t we think of it sooner?
Joseph Perez
Kakaako
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