What is also predictable is that this latest debacle is just the first of many. All you Jeremy Harris supporters from the previous decade or so are reaping what you have sown for your feel-good, “we get free movies at Sunset” projects. Well, are you trotting down to Waikiki to smell the stink now? It has the same source.

In a certain sense it is easy to feel some sympathy for Mayor Mufi Hannemann in this situation. As state Senator Sam Slom said in passing, this is a situation that Mufi inherited from the Harris administration yet, Mufi has to deal with it. It is the result of literally decades of neglect, as well as the Harris administration raiding the sewage fund for upwards of $100 million, rather than spending it where it was intended to be spent.

The Waikiki facelift and vision teams’ projects was money that could have been far better spent, as we are finding out now. What is going to be the greater long-term economic consequence, a few trees and medians or millions of gallons of sewage that will make the prime draw the state has, Waikiki, unusable for who knows how long?

This sewage spill may not have a great negative effect but another one will. If Waikiki gets the reputation of the sewage capital of the world we can expect tourists to go elsewhere. And before real work can be done on the system there will be another spill. There simply isn’t time. The billion dollars that is needed to fix the system cannot be spent in a day (well maybe, we are talking about government) but the whole system needs to be revamped as soon as possible.

We all know this to be true.

So what is the point here? The point is that we have a large number of pressing problems that need to be dealt with as soon as possible. So why would we take on more when we can’t properly maintain what we have now? In this regard we have to follow what Mayor Hannemann repeated as a campaign slogan many times: “Do we need it? Can we afford it? Can we maintain it?” It is that last question that is the most important one.

As everyone who has to drive here knows, the roads are not being properly maintained. The sewers are not being properly maintained. Taxes have been raised wherever and whenever possible to fund core services. Yet this is not enough. The city administration wants to take on more. Is this really wise?

Before we take on more projects, we need to fix the problems we know we currently have. The stench in the Ala Wai Canal is a classic example of just such a problem. We should not keep repeating the same mistakes over and over. Mr. Mayor, you need to follow your own advice, if we can’t maintain it, we shouldn’t build it.

The goose that lays the golden eggs for Hawaii is our beaches. Kill this goose, or even damage it, and the economic repercussions would be dramatic. How quickly could Hawaii move from the lowest unemployment rate in the nation to the highest? This is a small state, not long. Without jobs it would be an empty, air-conditioned train ride from Ewa to downtown Honolulu. We need to get our priorities straight first. We don’t have to keep repeating the same mistakes again and again.

Don Newman, senior policy analyst for the Grassroot Institute of Hawaii. He can be reached at: mailto:newmand001@hawaii.rr.com