• Remember our coalition • Dear Mayor Remember our coalition The coverage on the discrimination in housing meeting in Saturday’s edition has what I am sure was an unintentional oversight by the newspaper in not mentioning our coalition. We worked
• Remember our coalition • Dear Mayor
Remember our coalition
The coverage on the discrimination in housing meeting in Saturday’s edition has what I am sure was an unintentional oversight by the newspaper in not mentioning our coalition. We worked for over a year to get a bill drafted, passed, a coalition formed, hold meetings, gather evidence, and garner support for a bill that would have prevented housing discrimination in advertising.
Our coalition started with two members: myself and my daughter. We combed nine months of newspaper advertisements on Kaua‘i showing blatant discrimination in housing. So blatant that many ads actually said “No HUD allowed.”
We made cold calls to people that put that in their advertisements, pretending to be different people. They made numerous statements of a clearly discriminatory nature. Many were racially motivated against local people. Many were discriminatory against women with children, the elderly, the handicapped and those on Social Security.
Some of the statements were beyond disgusting and very incendiary. We recorded the conversations by hand, and wrote out the scripts exactly as they occurred. We presented these scripts to politicians and others to explain what we had uncovered. I began to get other people that I knew in politics involved.
We held meetings, we talked on the radio about it and The Garden Island did help us out a lot in getting our fight into the paper. We had the support of the ACLU, the Legal Aid Society, OHA, shelters on O‘ahu, groups from all over Kaua‘i and the state. We had support from Congress, with Neil Abercrombie writing us a letter of support on Congressional letterhead.
We had the support of Mina Morita, who introduced the companion bill in the House; James Tokioka and Roland Sagum; three freshman Council members at the time, Lani Kawahara, Dickie Chang and Derek Kawakami; and also from incumbent Tim Bynum.
We had support from private citizens, and citizens groups.
My daughter, my neighbor who I recruited, and JoAnn Yukimura traveled to O‘ahu to fight for the bill that Gary Hooser drafted and introduced and I helped to write. I had meetings with the county Housing department.
Once I started meeting with the Housing department I started meeting major resistance to the bill. I was involved in a private meeting in council chambers at which Dickie Chang, Jay Furfaro, the head of the Board of Realtors and the Housing department attended. All were against the bill. They wanted to take out essentially the heart of the bill. My coalition would not back down. We knew that if the guts got ripped out of the bill, we wouldn’t have anything.
Other housing agencies also either did not comment on the bill or would not support it. The State of Hawai‘i Board of Realtors went against the bill. The Legislature passed it on to third reading with major changes that also ripped out the heart of the bill where it died and was not heard. The bill was defeated.
My efforts at the County Council to propose a bill for Kaua‘i went nowhere. I could not even get it on the agenda to discuss the issue. When I met in council chambers, I told everyone at that table this was a federal violation. I told them the bill was written on solid law. I told them that eventually this would all come to a head, and come back to bite them eventually. I told them that people would eventually start filing lawsuits.
Unknown to them I had made many phone calls to the federal housing agency, and lodged complaints as well. I encouraged people to phone in their complaints to legal aid. I tried to inform people with public meetings on what their rights were. I would like to state that we are extremely grateful for the courage and tenacity of legal aid on this issue and are grateful for their support of our efforts for the failed bill.
These efforts that we did should be acknowledged for their merits. Many people put their neck on the line to support what myself and many others tried to do. Others stuck their heads in the sand.
Our coalition is still very active, and it is our clear intent to have the bill reintroduced after the gubernatorial elections. We are currently staying on top of state public housing changes that we feel are extremely discriminatory. I did not attend the meeting on Friday because I have been ill. But to see that the federal representative finally told everyone what myself and our coalition had told them long before gave me a sense of accomplishment.
Now when our coalition says something perhaps people should pay a lot closer attention. And the housing agency in this state would do well to remember that our coalition is strong and still active in this fight.
I am very pleased with the tone of this meeting. Because it sheds a clear light on everything that we brought forth and fought for. I just want to thank everyone who helped myself and the supporters of our coalition. We are not done yet. We need to get this law passed in the Legislature.
Thank you for remembering us and our hard work.
Anne Punohu, Kaua‘i Fair Housing Law Coalition
Dear Mayor
I respectfully ask you to reconsider banishing responsible dog owners to using only the portion of the path from Kealia Point to Kuna Bay. As a staunch supporter, I trust that you are sincere in seeking a compromise solution. But I fear you may be allowing the loud voices of a few to drown out the polite murmur of the majority.
If the results of the survey had been (even a simple majority) opposed, I would have sadly accepted that the voice of the people had spoken. But since the results of the survey are so blatantly and overwhelmingly in favor, I fear you are on the verge of making a political mistake if you disregard them.
The Department of Parks and Recreation should have more than a bellow of rage that “this will mean more work for us!” They should have more than just your ear. They should have statistical data for you to weigh against the data compiled in favor of the bill. Please do not put a cloud of cronyism over your upcoming mayoral campaign. Please be a wise and just administrator and have the courage to shrug and tell your friends, “the people have spoken.”
Gayla McCarthy, Kekaha
