Frustration on MolokaiMonday 11-17-08The Molokai DispatchMolokai /Lanai OHA Trustee Colette Machado won the 2008 statewide election against challenger Waipa Purdy.Here is a deeper look at the whole story. On January 31, 2007 an extraordinary event consisting of thirteen hundred Molokai citizens participated in an election for the seats on the Molokai Enterprise Community, or EC. To get a sense of how extraordinary, some twelve hundred Molokai citizens participated in this year’s state election.Colette Machado lost her seat in this 2007 EC election by a huge margin garnering only 29% of the votes. A short time later, she was “appointed” back onto the EC board where she sits as an officer today.In the November 4, 2008 general election, Colette lost to Waipa Purdy in Maui County, and, as happened in January of 2007, got trounced on the island of Molokai, receiving only 26% of the votes in her own precinct.The citizen voice of Molokai was as loud as you can get in trying to pick their leader, but the process drowned out their voices. Something is wrong with this picture, and the process needs fixing. Molokai has only two resident publicly elected officials, OHA trustee and our county councilperson, but neither are elected solely by Molokai voters.This is a true life story of frustration in trying to believe and participate in the system from the taxation without representation island of Molokai.
mahalo nui bradah for the mana`o. All our OHA members are good people, however sometimes we get so caught up with politics and money that we forget the very essence of who we are as a people. we do not compromise and we do not give up. OHA is set up for simple reason of taking care of ka po`e kanaka...Office of HAWAIIAN Affairs. when we start trading our values and traditions for money and personal agendas and not listening to the voices of there OWN people then that is a`ole pono.
we are all climbing the same mountain, just taking different paths. we only hope that when we reach the top we have not lost everything that our kupuna has fought to protect all these generations.
mahalo nui for the mana`o. keep up your posting as well. i enjoy reading them!!
malama ku pono!
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we are all climbing the same mountain, just taking different paths. we only hope that when we reach the top we have not lost everything that our kupuna has fought to protect all these generations.
mahalo nui for the mana`o. keep up your posting as well. i enjoy reading them!!
malama ku pono!