Ka Wai Ola - Office of Hawaiian Affairs, Volume 24, Number 3, 1 March 2007 — Well, Stryke me dead! [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

Well, Stryke me dead!

As most of you know, the U. S. Army, after encountering eommunity opposition to its plan to establish a Stryker Brigade Combat Team (Stryker) in Hawai'i, decided it would prepare an Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) in accordance with the National Enviromnental Protection Act (NEPA). The purpose of the EIS is to appraise the extent of any impact, physical or otherwise, that the project might have on our island eommunity and explore any amendments that might be proposed. As required by the EIS process, the Army held "scoping meetings" at various loeations in the islands to present the principal details of its project to interested people in the coimnunity. The purpose of the scoping meetings is to have people attend the meeting, examine the project, present argmnents for and against it, and point out how it affects the conununity's environmental or cultural well-being. The developer is then expected to revise the project, if possible, so as to mitigate any of its harmful effects, or to find ways to ameliorate the coimnunity's concerns. The meetings are a very useful and necessary tool in the preparation of the EIS. I attended the Army's first scoping meeting on lan. 29, 2007, in Wai'anae. It was a sham. It was like no other scoping meeting I have ever seen. There was no general gathering of the people who eame to give their mana'o, no oral presentation and no discussion. Instead, the Army presented a slide show without narration, live or otherwise. Additionally, "nests" of tables had been placed around the

room on whieh there were enlarged copies of the slides. The people were advised that they could view the copies at the tables and address any questions to Army representatives stationed there, but that they would only be allowed to make their coimnents at another loeahon in the room - into a tape recorder. No puhlie discussion or questioning would be allowed. The Army's "tactic" was clearly designed to accomplish a "strategy" of dispersing the "enemy" and not allowing the audience, as a unit, to confront the Army directly. It was really clever: the people in attendance were not allowed to openly hear what others were saying and to build on their coimnents. The procedure had been designed by the Pentagon as a "moek battle" and a eolonel, ramrod straight and unmoving, was there from Washington to run the show. When he was asked to relent and allow open questioning he emphatically said, "No." Annelle Amaral had been hired as a "facilitator," but she and I agreed that there was really nothing to facilitate. The process, whieh was followed at other meetings on O'ahu and Hawai'i, was entirely demeaning to the audience, who were mostly Hawaiian. Beyond that, however, it was a deliberate affront to the entire populahon of Hawai'i, not just Wai'anae. The Army missed an opportunity to connect with the connnunity and to build rapport, if not acceptance, for itself, the Stryker project and for future projects it might undertake. I believe that the Army's credibility has been completely undermined by the Stryker scoping process, and any future projects will surely encounter rough sledding. "Hats off!" to Bill Ailā, Ikaika Hussey, and Kyle Kajihiro for putting up the "good fight" to get the Army to follow a format and procedure that was recognizable as the "pono" way of engaging the community and learning openly of its concerns. E

LEO 'ELELE ■ TRUSTEE MESSAGES

Walter M. Heen TrustEE, O'ahu