To hell with it

Sitting here in Seattle, I have the pleasure of fuming over what's happening in Hilo. I might as well give up on the Hawaii County League of Women Voters, because we're being totally cut out of the loop. The faux alternative newspaper, the Big Island Weekly, completely owned subsidiary of the only newspaper in town, the Hilo Tribune Herald, which is owned by Las Vegas based Stephens Media, is putting on a mayoral candidates' forum on May 28, months before the one we had planned. We have been struggling to put something together and have run into big personality problems among the members which may lead to us having no forum at all. We can't compete with the big guns anyway. This is how outside interests, while appearing to provide local services, actually gun down local organizations.* Whereas they have infinite resources, we have only ourselves. In a moment of institutional weakness they move in and take over. So our little operation gets swept away, just like a mom and pop store.

What's perhaps even worse is that the county clerk has decided that we will not be allowed to register voters, even after some of us recently attended registrar certification classes. It has not helped that one of our members, a very aggressive person and recent arrival from one of the more belligerent parts of the country, has managed to get county officials angry at us by using our name and e-mailing list to more or less call them all a bunch of crooks. Worst of all, she used our e-mail list to urge us all to vote for the county council candidate of her choice! We are a non-partisan group, but she doesn't "get" that. She may have ruined our reputation in her single minded desire to at last bring democracy to our benighted little town. The first time I talked to her I knew she was a whack job, but my peers, who are all nicer than I am, just thought she was a little, well, intense.

I give up. The bad news is on Hunter Bishop's Blog. The only good news he has to report is that at least the county is refusing to accept money for marijuana eradication efforts.

*The Big Island Weekly is trying to run the real alternative paper out of business. The Hawaii Island Journal is our only news source not controlled by Las Vegas based Stephens Media, which also owns West Hawaii Today. They are putting up a facade of caring about local concerns, which is similar to Wal Mart's claims of being "for you nice folks in your unimportant towns." Their strategy is market driven and has nothing to do with actual local needs, especially the need for diversity of opinion in the press.  This is how we lose democracy, in these little struggles lost. 

Comments

[Brandon]

The forum sponsored by the Big Island Weekly was actually last night. I didn't see Hunter's original post but it seems he had dated it for 28 May. There's another forum on that date, however.
http://hunterbishop.com/journal/2008/5/21/mayoral-forums-in-hilo-keaau.html

[Brandon]

"to urge us all to vote for the county council candidate of her choice!"

Which district?

[Hattie]

I made a mistake, Brandon. It is for the Mayor's race, and her choice of candidate is Angel Pilago. She feels he would be best for West Hawaii interests.

[Brandon]

Shortly after I posted to your post on diets I went over to HunterBishop.com and saw this. I've noticed the most recent issue has shrunk to twenty pages.

http://hunterbishop.com/journal/2008/6/11/hawaii-island-journal-reported-pau.html