In 2004, as an elected official who needed help in sorting out the issues related to genetically engineered food and who believed that the community also needed a better process for adopting sound public policy, I asked the Hawai'i Institute for Public Affairs to assist me in convening a facilitated roundtable discussion on GE food. With the support of Sen. Les Ihara, we brought together stakeholders from various interest groups, including representatives of GMO-free Kaua'i, organic farmers, biotech companies growing seed corn on Kaua'i, the Department of Agriculture, and the University of Hawai'i College of Tropical Agriculture and Human Resources (CTAHR).

After three sessions (funded in part by the Pew Foundation), there was unanimous agreement on one thing: The existing process for vetting and making public policy decisions on the issue of GE foods was flawed and unsatisfactory.

The recent experience at the state Legislature with Senate Bill 958 proposing a 10-year moratorium on GE research of taro seems to validate this conclusion. Is there a better way?

The group convened by HIPA thought so. We designed an 18-month facilitated process to bring together stakeholders representing all interest groups to engage with the issues — and with each other — in a venue that would allow all viewpoints to be heard and examined in a calm, safe and respectful way. Our goal was to develop a common database and cultivate relationships that would break down stereotypes and allow for deep listening and creative responses.

Underlying it all was a belief that under the right conditions, people of good will and common purpose would be able to come together with their diverse and even diametrically opposed beliefs. Using their varied skills, perspectives, and commitment to aloha, they would be able to co-create solutions beyond the conventional imagination that would meet the needs of all involved.

Our process was to begin with a workshop entitled, "Biotech 101" where, together and with the help of scientific experts approved by all sides, we would discuss the basic scientific principles involved and the ground rules for evaluating relevant scientific information. Next, we would identify all the issues to be addressed. One by one, in a safe, well-facilitated venue, these issues would be addressed by the group. At the end, relying on all participants to exercise good will and creative collaboration, we hoped either for a 100 percent agreement, or at least a narrowing of the conflicts and a majority agreement on the main issues. We estimated the cost of such a process to be about $250,000 and sought a core of "neutral" money to fund it.

Sadly, we were not able to raise that money, and the process has remained unused and untested.

I share this experience in the hopes of generating conversation and thinking about how we in Hawai'i resolve our most-contested public issues. Someone asked me recently what the biggest obstacles were to a good future in this state. To me, one of the biggest is our inability to solve our big, complex and conflicted public issues in an inclusive, rational, civil, creative — and, yes, loving — manner. After all, if aloha means anything, it means that.

The legislative-public hearing format is severely limited in its ability to come to a rational, well-vetted, factually and public interest-based decisions on hotly contested issues. With its lack of research capacity and funding, its compressed decision-making schedule and its vulnerability to special interests, the best the legislative process can do when the community is deeply divided (and I include the counties here) is to reflect the division and dysfunction of the community.

Perhaps it is time to find a new and more effective way of bringing the community together around difficult issues. The Legislature could facilitate this by funding well-designed community conflict resolution processes and by specifying that the input of those who do not participate in or honor the process (for example, those who show up only at decision-making and not during discussions and fact-finding) will not be considered during the legislative process. Community funders could also help by giving priority funding to this new way for the community to resolve issues.

If we could find a way to "live aloha" in this arena of community, what a better place this would be.

JoAnn A. Yukimura is a Kaua'i County Council member and former mayor of Kaua'i. She wrote this commentary for The Advertiser.