Big Mac Democracy

Here in American Samoa, nearly every village has their own beach. In order for an outsider to use a village beach, one must simply ask permission from a villager. Most of the time you would be granted use of the beach. Sometimes you may be charged a nominal fee ($2) and other times you may be flat out denied, for instance on sundays or if there is some event going on in the village, or, I suppose, if they simply don't like you, which is rare. This is the case for nearly every beach on the island except those that are not associated with a village, which there are a few, but these usually require a lengthy hike. Some of these are usually worth the hike though. There is one beach on the island that stands out from these standards though. Utulei Beach. Utulei Beach is within the outer Pago Pago harbor area and has a large, nearly 5-acre park attached to it. It is quite a nice spot, with Samoan beach fale's (open air huts, pronounced fah-lay, see photo below) scattered around the park for picnicking, BBQ pits, public restrooms, and magnificent views of the harbor and surrounding mountains. The Yacht Club is at the far end of the beach park, and there are a number of small sailboats and outrigger canoes that are launched from this spot. This park is directly across the street from my office at the Executive Office Building and we often eat lunch under a fale while taking in the view. It is not uncommon to be joined by sea turtles swimming in the near shore waters. It's a great spot and in the shade of the fale with a nice breeze, its pretty cool as well.

A few decades ago the local Department of Parks and Recreation signed a contract with the Federal National Park Service to keep the area as a park in perpetuity. Over the years the American Samoa Department of Parks and Recreation has received federal funds for park improvements. About a year ago, the Governor of American Samoa signed a lease with McDonald's to put a new restaurant in Utulei Beach Park. What!?! Since then, the Governor has been seen on TV promoting the plan and questioning why some think its a bad idea. Also, the local Parks and Recreation Director has openly supported the project and has signed an agreement with McDonald's for other park improvements.

There is an existing McDonald's on the island. It is located in Tafuna, a large village on the western side of the island. The Tafuna Plain is the largest area of flat land on the island and supports numerous businesses and residential homes. I've been told that the Tafuna McDonald's was the highest grossing McDonald's in the world in 2004. I don't have numbers to verify that, but I will tell you that it is considered rude for a person to return to their village with only enough McD's for themselves. It is not uncommon for someone to order 25 Big Macs or more and take them back for the entire village to eat. A new McD's on Utulei Beach would make it easier for residents on the eastern side of the island to get their Big Mac fix...or so the argument goes.

My office, and the other 7 offices that make up the Project Notification and Review System Board (PNRS, the local land use permit review board), has been reviewing the permit application and working with them to prepare an environmental document. I can't comment too much at this point as the project is still pending, but let's just say I haven't been very impressed with their efforts to date. However, public participation is happening as earlier this week a public hearing was held and that was quite an entertaining event.

The few days leading up to the public hearing saw protestors on the beach sporting signs and yelling catchy chants. This is the first time I've seen actual protests on this island. I've lived on this tiny island since January 2005 and in my time here my program has held a few public hearings. Usually about 4 people show up to these public hearings and they are fairly worthless. However, for the McDonald's public hearing over 300 people showed up. Viewpoints from both sides of the debate were emotionally portrayed and we sat and listened to personal accounts of Utulei Beach history for over 6 hours!! At this point, the saga and debate is on-going. We hope to have the PNRS Board vote on the project in the next couple of months. Will be interesting to see what happens! I'll keep you posted.

Lastly...palagi (pronounced pa-lahng-ee) literally means sky bursters, but realistically means white person or non-samoan. See if you can find the palagis in this picture of the 2005 American Samoa National Baseball Team, there are two, appropriately nicknamed Palagi #1 and Palagi #2.