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Honolulu Lite Charles Memminger |
Djou unafraid to
djoust with windmillsThank goodness we finally have a fearless big thinker on the Honolulu City Council. With Council members engaged in enormous cuts to city services in order to meet massive budget shortfalls, up steps Charles "Don Quixote" Djou, who proposes that the City Council be expanded from its current nine members to 21.
Some small thinkers consider Djou mad, like Don Quixote, who would run headlong into windmills on his horse and chase sheep around pastures believing them to be the enemy. Make no mistake, Quixote was not insane; sheep are the enemy. And the sooner we all wake up to that, the better the world will be.
Charles Djou, as far as I know, does not chase sheep or run headlong into large wind-powered alternative energy devices. But by boldly going where few politicians would go -- at least those hoping to continue a career in politics -- Djou's plan to expand government threefold is breathtaking.
It takes a true visionary, one unafraid of being regarded as something of a nut case, to go against the current shortsighted trend of cutting government and streamlining services. Anyone can hack budgets and cut staff, but it takes a magnificent maniac, a lordly loony, a noble knucklehead to suggest inflating the bureaucracy to unheard-of numbers.
Who cares that Council meetings currently drag on for days with only nine members jabbering at each other? Think how entertaining it would be to watch 21 Council members do battle. Imagine four or five Rene Manshos, eight or nine Andy Mirikitanis and a half-dozen Henry Felixes duking it out over everything from speed bumps to smoking bans. And why stop at only 21 Council members? A Council made up of 100 or 200 representatives, each with intimate knowledge of the several square feet of land comprising their districts would surely be better than nine measly members overseeing an entire island. At the very least, by expanding the size of the Council, the city's employment problem would be eased.
Djou's bold plan should be considered by other segments of government where the meek shrink from massive growth. I see a state school board with thousands of members. Forget two teachers to each classroom, how about one school board member to each student?
And the state Legislature is clearly understaffed. While some government minimalists say we could get by with a single-chamber unicameral Legislature, I say why not try a tricameral, octacameral or even decacameral Legislature? Who knows how well a Legislature with 10 houses, each with, say, 400 or 500 senators, would work. Nobody's ever tried it before.
Charles Djou is a knight who sees the light. It is not a windmill he vainly charges, but a small-minded populace that doesn't realize that size really does matter.
Charles Memminger, winner of National Society of Newspaper Columnists awards, appears Mondays, Wednesdays, Fridays and Sundays. E-mail cmemminger@starbulletin.com