Paradise, the Lessons Continued
The need for organizing communities in the face of corporate priorities that kill
(No. 26, a ±06 minute read)
Where do we go from here?
Returning today to Paradise, California and my November visit once more is a worthwhile framework for considering the importance of an organized community in planning for future contingencies, especially in our age of political capture by corporate interests.
My story ran about a month ago in Places Journal and certainly the news cycle has long moved on from the fifth anniversary of the Camp Fire. Our lives are busy, this is the nature of things. And there is so much of consequence happening in the world, we have a national election cycle ramping up — there are many, many worthy places to spend our attention.
Here, in Hawai‘i, of course, one of the many things competing for public attention is the continuing aftermath of last August’s fires on Maui. There is now a death toll of 101, and a hotly contested assessment that pole 7A (a Hawaiian Electric Co. maintenance responsibility) was the likely cause of the fire that laid waste to old Lāhainā. Hotly contested, by HECO, of course, in the face of two independent investigations that found the pole, at the origin site of the Lāhainā fire, snapped by high winds with its structural integrity badly compromised by a very hungry termite colony.
Ultimately high-profile news stories affect very few readers directly, they are not part of broad daily experience — we do not live in hot war zones in the U.S., we are not ourselves likely to be recovering from either of our nation’s most deadly wildfire incidents. We all do face choices ahead at the polls in November. That’s real for everyone, whether we like it or not. But, the big history book stuff, it fades behind work and family responsibilities, ordinary life ups and downs, and, quite honestly, fatigue from all the tough news out there.
But maybe that’s a problem. Maybe these fire recoveries, at least, should concern more of us, follow us to the polls.
In response to our tragic wake-up call in Hawai‘i we have come to understand the widespread danger throughout our archipelago that wildfire presents. And we have come to understand also the widespread lack of planning historically. Late last week lawmakers in the state House advanced a bill that would allow HECO to bill rate-payers to finance a wildfire prevention program (as yet undefined, so far as I know, but presumably it involves pulling power poles infested with termintes). So long after Paradise it seems a little late to be organizing such a thing, after Lāhainā — maybe the amends of a culprit?
On the day of the hearing to push this bill forward, public testimony was entered into the record — with the exception of over 1,100 letters in opposition written by Maui residents. Finance Committee Chair Kyle Yamashita was quoted in Civil Beat saying hand-delivery caused their testimony to be ineligible, “You have to insert it online…that’s the process we’ve been following for the past several years.”
Three weeks ago I wrote here in Uncertainty Today, “official business can no longer be done officiously,” and quoted Paradise’s Recovery and Economic Development Director, Colette Curtis telling me that ordinary government protocols no longer fly after an event like the Camp Fire. “We realized very quickly, you can’t do that right after a disaster, after trauma.” People need to be met where they are after such monumental tragedy and people on Maui are still in the thick of it.
And certainly Maui residents are those here with the experiential and moral authority that needs heeding. It’s important to realize that a great number of us in Hawai‘i live in places that could become the next Lāhainā, and great many throughout the U.S. reside in what might be the next Paradise, or the next Texas Panhandle. Paradise and Lāhainā did not stand on unique ground, were not receivers of idiosyncratic consequences.
I offer two sums: $248,056,000 and $243,028,000; HECO’s profits in 2021 and 2022. The return on average common equity shares in those years was 10.4% and 10.5% — a damned good return on investment.1 And 2023, the fire. Hat in hand, HECO is asking for an additional 5% of utility customers’ ordinary monthly bills to be paid to finance a wildfire prevention program. Our HECO bill averages over $200 a month; in a two-person home, without air conditioning, where clothes are mostly line-dried, and with a Nissan Leaf charged, on average, 2–3 times per month.
Now I offer a quote from my Places Journal piece:
Housed in a 1904 rail terminal, the Paradise Depot Museum was the first stop on my recent visit, and conversation with docents Donna and Phoebe quickly turned to Maui. “It’s gonna take a long time,” Donna said gravely, her compassion palpable. She then led me to the C-hook, the actual hook, that failed at 6:15 am on PG&E’s steel transmission tower No. 27-222, installed in 1909, causing a 115,000-volt line to arc and spark the blaze. We spoke of San Bruno and PG&E’s consistent, well-attested choice to prioritize profit over infrastructural maintenance, public safety, or good corporate governance. “We can’t stop the corporations doing what they’re going to do,” said Donna — depressing, unassailable American civic wisdom.
Donna’s right, and her sagacity puts us all on that failed hook — for stacking coin in corporate coffers and voting for those who enable those coffers to be lined. According to the website opensecrets.org Kyle Yamashita’s donors back to 2017 constitute the usual big local corporations, developers, realty associations, banks, unions, defense contractors, and remarkably, not HECO.2 (Unless it is folded into the substantial yearly donation line item which comprises “Organizations unavailable for these records.”)
And, the thing is, HECO doesn’t need to be there for Yamashita to say to Maui folks, “Thems the rules.” Maui Land and Pineapple, Bayer, Mansanto, Bank of Hawai‘i, Alexander & Baldwin, and other big players in land and power here are well enough represented among his donors that he knows who is owed what. And the sad thing is that many of these corporate donations amount to less than $1,000 a year. The price of entry to local politics is low — corporations are going to do what the corporations do — and the return on investment is high.
So where does Paradise fit in all of this? Well, many in the town aren’t going to like this but, essentially, it fits as the contrast of a sort of Robin Hood-type socialism to corporate capture; PG&E, after being found liable for the fire, is substantially funding the town’s recovery and that corporate wealth redistribution is being aided by politicians who understand that business as usual can’t possibly play here. Not after that fire. Politicians are putting the town of Paradise ahead of corporate interests. It is both a bad look not to, and the moral thing to do.
But, if Paradise and Lāhainā teach us anything, why can’t it be that the moral thing to do is, in fact, preparing for these sorts of events ahead of time? Maybe not allowing corporate profits to trump community needs for preparedness? Especially when the community is creating those corporate profits. HECO can’t say it saw no precedent for Lāhainā in the recent historical record.
Sure, Paradise is getting a lot of big money help to recover, I know that, the mayor acknowledged that to me, as did Curtis. But, its recovery with this money is community driven. That is, the community is telling those who call the financial shots what they need and as best as is possible, financially prudent, and technologically viable, those needs are being met.
The community in Paradise is organized. The community in Lāhainā is becoming organized. The lesson that we outside of these two places might best learn from them is to become organized ourselves, before disaster strikes, and against corporations that would prefer to pay shareholders rather than protect their customers who create their profits — the community members publicly regulated utilities are supposed to serve.