Posted on: Friday, April 18, 2003

Island Voices
Governor had no sinister intention

James "Duke" Aiona Jr. is Hawai'i's lieutenant governor.

The Honolulu Advertiser recently described Gov. Linda Lingle's upcoming tourism summit and ongoing transportation meetings as "closed-door," and then chided her for this "worrisome pattern" ("Too much state policy is being made in secret," April 9).

According to The Advertiser, the public should be invited to all such meetings.

This is both impractical and shortsighted.

The kind of honest dialogue needed to begin identifying and sorting through longstanding problems is unlikely to occur in an entirely open setting. Of course public hearings are important — the issue is one of balance and timing.

Since taking office, the governor has brought together numerous groups of stakeholders to address longstanding challenges, such as improving public education, reforming the government contracting process, supporting high tech and bringing down the cost of prescription drugs, as well as the two described in the editorial: addressing Oahu's worsening traffic problems and challenges faced by the visitor industry in a post-9/11 world.

In addition to gatherings like these, Gov. Lingle has met with groups of decision-makers such as the Board of Education, Board of Regents, county police chiefs and county mayors. Some of these groups had never before held a meeting with a governor, or had done so only on a much narrower scale.

While some of these meetings have been more productive than others, all have been marked by candid conversation, spontaneous humor and an absence of grandstanding. In no case was the fact of the meeting a secret, and in most instances the media had an opportunity to interview the governor and each attendee immediately after the gathering.

Attendees are never sworn to secrecy, and in fact usually are encouraged to take ideas from the meeting to their constituents, or to the public at large for additional input.

Almost daily, the governor is readily available to media and to the public. Within reason, she answers any and all questions. More importantly, she regularly seeks out opportunities to inform the public of what she is doing and why.

It is unfair and just plain wrong for The Advertiser to suggest that the governor had sinister reasons for not inviting the public to the meetings in question.