Down at the diner this morning, somebody asked a question you'd think somebody in Honolulu would've asked by now. Where'd the money go?

The somebody was Hawaii State Rep. Elle Cochran, a Democrat, whose district covers West Maui and Lahaina. On Sunday, One America News aired her questioning where billions in promised wildfire recovery money have gone, while families and small businesses keep waiting and the lots sit empty.

Now, I want to be fair. Hawaii is run by Democrats top to bottom. The governor, the legislature, both U.S. senators. So when a Democrat stands up in Lahaina and asks where the Democratic recovery money went, that's not a partisan attack. That's a family asking who ate the casserole.

Let's lay out the plate. The August 2023 fire destroyed more than 2,200 homes in Lahaina, according to Honolulu Magazine. FEMA said it was on track to put about $3 billion into Maui recovery in the first year alone. Donors around the world chipped in at least another billion through nonprofits and fundraisers. In a State of the State address, Gov. Josh Green announced more than $2 billion in federal disaster relief and $800 million in state funds.

That's a lot of zeroes for a town that, more than three years later, is still mostly zeroes.

Cochran told the Washington Examiner, "I feel like the money that already came to us to rebuild could've been spent wiser." She also said "the No. 1 error made here was the first amount of FEMA money went to temporary shelters and not permanent housing."

So they built temporary. FEMA's Kilohana site, for example, put up 167 shelter units. Temporary housing is fine. Everybody needs a roof. But temporary is supposed to be the bridge. In Lahaina they built the bridge, painted it, held a ribbon-cutting, and forgot the other side of the river.

Cochran also told the Examiner the island loses about $40 million a year in taxes and revenue for every year the rebuild drags without a clear plan. Forty million a year. You could hire a man whose whole job is answering the phone at the permit office.

The Homeland Security inspector general has an audit open on how FEMA, the state and Maui County managed and oversaw the money. An audit, for those of you who've never been through one, is when the government asks the government what the government did, and the government gets back to the government in about eighteen months.

Here's what gets me. Back home, if the church raised money to fix Earl's roof after the storm, and a year later Earl's still under a tarp, somebody stands up at the potluck and asks the treasurer a question. Nobody calls it divisive. Nobody says "we're grateful for the conversation." They say, Doris, where's the roof money.

Lahaina doesn't need another task force, another commission, another glossy report full of hotel occupancy charts. It needs a list. How much came in. How much went out. Who got it. What got built. One sheet of paper, both sides if you must.

The families waiting on those empty lots aren't asking for much. They want to go home. And the one person in a one-party state brave enough to ask why they can't is a member of the party.

Somebody pass Doris the microphone.

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The Demorat is a satire publication. This article is parody and commentary based on real news reports; jokes, exaggerations and fictional elements are not factual claims. Quotes attributed to real people are drawn from published reporting.

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