August 28, 2007

In the alphabet soup of Hawaii’s state agencies, DLNR, the Department of Land and Natural Resources, rose to the top of the bowl this year. Not because the public suddenly realized the agency acts as landlord for hundreds of thousands of acres of public land and all of our ocean areas, but because the State Senate rejected the reappointment of DLNR Director, Peter Young. The rejection angered both the Governor and the environmental community.

The dispute that followed wasn’t pretty, government turf battles seldom are, but at least the public and the legislature are finally focusing on the problems that plague this troubled and underfunded department. Here are a few suggestions to help DLNR get back on the right track:

Eliminate Contradictory Jobs: Under our state’s Constitution, DLNR is supposed to preserve land, but also open it up for development; conserve fish while it enables access for fishing; preserve water as it governs its distribution. These conflicting mandates almost guarantee that when the department succeeds it one arena, it will fail in the other. Other states take a different approach. They separate these functions. In Hawaii, we put them all in the same basket and the result is bureaucratic infighting and lack of a common vision. The legislature can begin to fix this, but a constitutional amendment would be necessary to sort out this self-inflicted mess.

Leadership: The legislature needs to give clear guidance, through the law, on what the department should be doing. This is where lawmakers should lead, and stop micro-managing the manini operational details of each departmental division.

The administration, after a fairly awful start, executed a turn-around, creating a solid record on most environmental issues. Their job now is to understand that, as ex-GE CEO Jack Welch puts it, “strategy is execution,” and good policies aren’t enough. Many DLNR divisions simply do not perform adequately and this has nothing to do with ideology or political philosophy. Making good policies is not enough. The Governor needs to get her hands dirty-fire, rehire, re-organize, motivate or coerce. Do what effective chief executives do to fix problems like the ones that currently afflict divisions such as the State Historic Preservation Department, the Bureau of Conveyances, and the Small Boat Harbors. The Governor has an opportunity to demonstrate some executive leadership. She may feel she has more important things to do than wade into an agency’s individual trouble spots, but if she wants to help fix DLNR before her second term expires, she can’t pretend to float above the fray.

Structural Changes: Some DLNR divisions probably belong in other departments. Moving them will allow the agency to focus on its main job: the preservation of Hawaii’s natural resources. Take as an example the Bureau of Conveyances. Why does it matter that the Bureau records all land transactions?  It matters because without an official record, the whole local lending, title, insurance, and real estate industries would implode. Right now, this work is simply not getting done. The staff spends a great deal of its energy and time engaged in agency family feuds. Moving the Bureau to the Department of Commerce and Consumer Affairs could be part of the solution. Consider Small Boat Harbors. That division is in such bad shape that many boating areas, including the Ala Wai, have been condemned. These facilities are literally falling into the ocean. There was a time when the Small Boat Harbors were part of the Department of Transportation and things ran more smoothly. Transportation infrastructure is what the DOT does, so a move back to the DOT is worth considering.

There is no magic formula to make DLNR run more smoothly, but some of the needed changes are just common sense. It may be hard to slog through them, piece-by-piece, person-by-person, but reforming government is not about party platitudes. It’s about efficient and smart administration. Let’s consider this past legislative session a difficult, but necessary, first step on the road to recovery.

Brian Schatz