The Waikiki Neighborhood Board Met on May 10, 2011
The concept of the "Neighborhood Board" in Honolulu County is an interesting and worthy one. The idea is that a group of elected representatives get together every month in an advisory rather than a legislative or decision-making capacity. They hear reports from various County and local agencies, ask questions, and provide input.
There are a number of such boards on O`ahu; Waikiki has one, Neighborhood Board #9. To bring the concept closer to the citizenry, the Neighborhood Boards have subdistricts; Waikiki has three of them. Board members are elected for a term of two years. In Waikiki, an election is currently in process in all three subdistricts.
Members of the Waikiki Neighborhood Board During a Meeting
Candidates for election publish brief personal statements. These statements appear on the Internet, on the website of the Neighborhood Commission Office (NCO) and in printed material sent by mail to voters.
The first thing we noted was that statements were brief indeed and contained no contact information. Some candidates provided no statement at all.
We thought we should explore this issue further, so we contacted the NCO and asked for contact information for the candidates, stating that we wanted to poll them for further information about their candidacies. The response we received absolutely astounded us.
The NCO told us, very politely but in clear terms, that since Neighborhood Board positions were unpaid, voluntary, and non-decision-making, it was their policy not to release contact information. Elected candidates had the option, but not the obligation, to publish contact information on the NCO website.
In other words, Neighborhood Boards bring government down to the people--- except if you'd like to contact the candidates who want to represent you.
Not All Members Attend Each Meeting
Despite the NCO's refusal to provide contact information, we developed it on our own, and chose Subdistrict 3 to test things a little further. We wrote to each of the six candidates in Subdistrict 3, soliciting a more detailed candidacy statement and promising to publish whatever we received. We only got one response, and Mr. Frankie Kam's statement and photo appear at the end of this story.
To be fair, at least minimal contact information for each currently sitting member of the Waikiki Neighborhood Board appears on the NCO website. Some members give just an email or a phone number; some others give more detailed information.
But what can we conclude from all of this? An open, neighborhood-oriented representation process apparently is only open to a certain degree. The NCO won't provide more than the bare minimum of candidate information, some candidates provide none at all, and many candidates apparently don't want to be contacted.
An Address on Homelessness at the May 10 Meeting
Is there something wrong with all of this?
We answer that question with an emphatic "Yes."
But in any event, thank you Mr. Frankie Kam for taking the time to send us a detailed candidacy statement, which we're more than pleased to present below.
Mr. Frankie Kam, Candidate for Waikiki Neighborhood Board Subdistrict 3:
My name is Franklin "Frankie" Kam and I'm of third generation Immigrant stock, born in Waipahu, Hawaii on October 19, 1940 as both of my grandparents; Kam Tong on my father, Francis side and Lum on my mom, Thelma's side were from Canton, China and contract sugar plantation laborers plus farmers too (Kam Tong, 30 acre rice farmer & Lum, lotus root farmer) My parents Francis & Thelma were from big, 10-children families, where everyone worked hard and grew up in rural Waipahu, where "Sugar was King" in their days. My mom, Thelma tended to her one woman grocery store in Waipahu across from the Waipahu Sugar Mill and my dad, Francis took car of our hog slaughterhouse business ,receiving farmers with their livestock during the day and he started the boiler at night for the slaughtered hogs, pushed into a tank of hot water before being pulled on a table to have the hairs scrapped off and then, my father's younger brother, Albert "Yunny"would slit the hog carcasses in half and he then shoved them off to the Agricultural Inspector for his approval that the 1/2 carcasses would be okay for the markets. The insides on the 1/2 carcasses: heart, stomach, intestines and liver would be checked and my mom would wash them out with water to be sold in her grocery store. My parents grocery store was called New Hing Chong Store and their hog slaughterhouse was called New Hing Chong Slaughterhouse as they added the word "New" when they bought both businesses for $600.00 from the original owners.
I did go to public school, August Ahrens School on Waipahu Street but my parents switched me to Saint Joseph Catholic School, when I cried a lot after I found out that I wouldn't be with my neighbors: Mae and Michael Minagawa, who walked with me to school, in starting 2nd grade but I had to redo first grade at Saint Joseph's school and graduated there in 1955. I then went to Saint Louis High School and graduated there in 1959, when Hawaii became the 50th State! I later graduated from Chaminade University in 1964 with a B.A. in History.
As a candidate for the Waikiki Neighborhood Board, I do have a lot of volunteer work experience with a First Lady Volunteer Award in 1989 for my work as Neighborhood Watch Coordinator signing up everyone in my Alii Plantation community for this Neighborhood Watch Program with Honolulu Police Department from 1987-89 that included a men's Softball Team that I coached and opponents included Governor Waihee, Mayor Fasi, Hungry Lions Celebrities (Tom Selleck a member) Saint Louis 59ers, Crosspointe and Foster Village. In North Carolina, I started a Community Watch Program in 1995 working with Sheriff Randy Cartwright. Here in Waikiki, I've been involved with Kanu Hawaii regarding a Special Election for Congress (Colleen Hanabusa), Ballot Box Station 2010, Abercrombie for Governor Region 2 Volunteer and Organizing for America, Hawaii Democratic Party Member 2010-101. I am the author of 'Above The Clouds," Xlibris, my 19th poetry book and I have a Ainahau59 Blog. Please Vote For Me For The Waikiki Neighborhood Board! That would be "Shaka Hooray!"
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