She has always had twice as many volts in her battery as her uncle and travels nationwide to rally support for preservation.
In a speech here last month she said Hawaii's restoration of Ewa Town and Hawaii Theatre are just great. She has seen a great many theater restorations nationwide and says ours is one of the very best - not the biggest or the smallest, but a gem. She praises the vision, energy and dedication that have gone into it.
A key to preservation in all areas is the National Register of Historic Places, maintained by the Interior Department. A register listing comes only after expert review. It does not save a site from demolition, but it does mean that federal agencies must stop, look and listen before they disturb the site. It also is a basis for allowing tax credits for restoration.
A National Register listing also has carry-over significance in state, local and private planning.
Hawaii's state historic preservation administrator, Don Hibbard, says about 30,000 potential historic sites have been inventoried but only about 400 have been formally registered by the Hawaii Historic Places Review Board. Some 250 of these are also on the national register. State preservation falls under the Department of Land and Natural Resources.
Longsworth says national preservation funding is taking hits from the present Congress but surviving.
The Advisory Council on Historic Preservation, which helps assess the impact of development on historic sites, buildings and neighborhood areas, survived elimination in the House budget only through a last minute floor amendment from a self-styled socialist congressman from Vermont. The council, however, has taken a 13 percent cut to $2.5 million.
Other cuts hit programs for state historic preservation (down 5 percent to $29.4 million), the Main Street program of the congressional-chartered National Trust for Historic Preservation (down 50 percent to $3.5 million), Indian tribes allocations (down 5 percent to $1.9 million) and historically black colleges (down 13 percent to $2.5 million).
Federal tax credits for commercial historic preservation have survived at 20 percent since 1976. Longsworth estimates they have stimulated $25 billion worth of preservation activity.
Near her office on Connecticut Avenue in Washington, she can point to historic facades that have been preserved while modern office structures have been put in place behind them. They are much more attractive than some of the modern replacements nearby.
PRESERVATIONISTS argue that preservation is good business. The values in saving our connections with the past may be intangible and hard to measure.
But there is data to show that property values appreciate in restored neighborhoods, that half of all tourists are drawn to historic sites and then tend to stay longer and spend more in their vicinity. Other figures show that the tax credit incentives stimulate economic activity to more than repay in business activity and taxes what is given away initially.
Preservation Action will cap its 1996 fund-raising efforts with an auction on the floor of the Chicago Board of Trade on an October evening. Some of the most popular auction items always have been travel vacations in Hawaii.