Imagine an evil state official who wants to make trouble for some people he's been dealing with, while simultaneously obstructing a campaign promise of the governor and reinforcing the citizenry's worst suspicions about bureaucrat.
He smiles when he hits upon the action to take: tell the organizers of the
popular Haleiwa Farmers' Market they can no longer operate at the same old stand because the land they use is still on the books as a state right-of-way, even though it hasn't been a road for years.
MWAHhahahahahahaha!
The weird thing about this action, which has actually been taken in real
life, by the state Department of Transportation, is that I have no doubt the officials who took it are confident they are doing the right thing, and that anyone who has the temerity to object simply doesn't understand.
In the movies and on TV, evil actions are always taken by people who know they are evil and relish it, but in real life most evil acts are undertaken by people who never kick their dog and have relatives who love them and are convinced what they are doing is not evil because they're not bad people.
For three years the Haleiwa Farmers Market operated rent-free on land the state DOT didn't need because it moved the road when the Haleiwa Bypass was built. The ladies who organized it, operating on their own, not under the imprimatur of the Hawaii Farm Bureau Federation, made it possible for North Shore farmers to sell their goods during the middle of the recession - and not only farmers, but others selling baked good and crafts.
They created a farmer's market, and a craft fair, and a tourist attraction, and an economic engine, at a time when the North Shore needed all of those things. They did it with the state's help, since the state didn't charge rent for the land, which even now DOT mentions at every opportunity, understanding at some level that this is a creditable act.
About a year ago, someone in the state DOT decided it was necessary to
renegotiate this. The timing is a little fishy, since Gov. Abercrombie
campaigned in part on a promise of nurturing and developing the local food supply, and this farmers' market was helping with that goal. So I don't think he had anything to do with this: why work against a popular goal that you genuinely support? In fact, Abercrombie, Mufi Hannemann and Duke Aiona all supported local farmers.
The official DOT explanation is that it's illegal to sell by the side of the
road "on a state right-of-way" and someone thought there might one day be a problem cracking down on shrimp trucks if the high-powered legal help that owners of shrimp trucks are so famous for should say, "well, you let them do it, those farmers' market people!"
Of course, the state only intermittently says boo to the shrimp trucks, and then usually only to plead with them to get a GET license and pay taxes from time to time, but let that pass.
To the average citizen not employed by government, the logical solution to this would be to change the legal status of the land where the farmers' market operates, since it is not a roadway, no matter what the paperwork says, and hasn't been since - I think since John Waihee was governor. Can it really have been that long? How long does it take to change the paperwork to reflect the fact that a right-of-way isn't in fact a right-of-way any more?
Jim George, the managing editor of Pacific Business News, who had always regarded farmers' markets in general and the Haleiwa Farmers' Market in particular as part of what's good about Hawaii, wrote a commentary using the phrase "a taste of state bureaucracy," but his criticism of the situation was quite civil compared to the cynicism expressed in some of the posted reader reactions. One said he had been to the market and never realized he was "playing in the street." Another hailed whoever did that as an "overpaid chairweight."
One thing that concerns me is that I have heard from three different people who work in the state DOT who, while giving me not-for-attribution defenses of the action taken against the farmers' market, have brought up side issues that should not play a role in the matter at all. All three said the organizers make good money from the market. What a curious irrelevant thing for three different people to bring up.
I doubt if it's true: people who don't operate their own businesses seem always to believe that people who do are growing rich without working for it, but my experience with small business owners and entrepreneurs is that they work practically around the clock. Even so, in the unlikely event that the slam on the organizers were true, why would anyone bother to bring it up? Is this a case of hammering down the nail that sticks up?
My problem with it - and my problem with the state's action regardless of motivation - is that dozens of vendors including farmers stand to be injured by what the state is doing, so even if a justification could be found to go after the organizers, the cost of doing something that spiteful is too high.
Taking the most benign possible view of this - let's assume for the sake of argument that no side issues are involved, there is no hidden agenda, the officials insisting on eviction have the highest motivation - we are left with this: why is the state government, which expects private sector people to wait months, sometimes years, for the state to do things that look like they could be done in a few days, expecting the farmers' market organizers to find new quarters immediately? Does the state DOT really want to be held to this same standard when it comes to, say, fixing potholes?