Governor’s Gripes on Broadband Bill Don’t Reflect Community Collaboration
By Cynthia Thomet
Gov. Linda Lingle expressed her disappointment that innovative plans were prevented from becoming reality “with no explanation and behind closed doors.” The broadband bills, calling for wider information highways but saddled with greater potential for more restrictions on community access to information and resources, did not pass the Legislature-and thank goodness. Imagine a wider highway with increased tolls, more policing, and perhaps even more prohibitions on individual access-that’s not what building communities is about.
Legislators got it right on the broadband bill this time around. They noticed a bill that had originally been crafted “behind closed doors” and said, “enough already!”
Perhaps, if Lingle would consider listening to her constituents, she would see that community producers, concerned citizens, opinion leaders and inquisitive legislators engaged in healthy debate over this and other bills this season. They set a “positive example of collaboration” from the ground up.
Rather than expect her subjects to blindly heed the closed-door decisions she believes is best for the people she’s “humbled to serve” she may want to listen during her final months as Governor.
She has repeated again and again, her unwillingness to “negotiate in the media” when it comes to labor unions, but any discerning ear will notice that she never “goes public” unless she can control the delivery. Thankfully, community access TV, like ‘Olelo and Akaku, offers alternatives for community members to be informed. But this session’s broadband bill could have destroyed community access as we know it, and State lawmakers decided not to act hastily.
As a supporter of integrated technologies-one that protects community television (PEG access) and builds on digital innovations-I am confident that the Legislature chose the wiser path of holding off on the sausage-making process for another session. Let’s not rush the process of developing effective and important communications legislation.
Visit www.akaku.org for more information about this year’s legislative session regarding Broadband Bills HB984/SB1680 or click here to read Gov. Lingle’s web address.
Akaku: Maui Community Television (Akaku) empowers the community's voice through access to media. Akaku is a 501(c)3 nonprofit corporation that airs content created by the community for the community. Community members on Maui, Moloka'i, and Lana'i are encouraged to submit programming to the station, create their own television shows and have their voices heard by fellow community members.