Class notes: Frank Streed
Frank Streed (BFA ’74, MURP ’80) was honored with the Dinell Outstanding Urban and Regional Planning Alumni Award for 2018.
Streed met rigorous criteria for this award. He has exceptional accomplishments in planning with major community impacts. He is dedicated to social justice, furthering the public interest and broadbased participation in planning. He has demonstrated commitment to balancing the physical and social aspects of planning and shown personal leadership in planning, particularly in mentoring planners with less experience. Streed also has a high degree of personal integrity and professional ethics.
Streed graduated with a master’s degree in urban and regional planning in1980, easily meeting the requirement that the awardee graduated 10 or more years prior to November 1 of the year in which the award is made.
Streed’s planning career is a bit different from the typical Master in Urban & Regional Planning (MURP) graduate. He devoted his planning skills to serving legislators in the Honolulu City Council and Hawai‘i State Legislature for more than 30 years. After retiring at the end of 2014, he volunteered as co-chair of the Age-Friendly Honolulu Implementation Committee, again employing his planning talents in supporting and benefitting his community.
Streed has noted that as a senior advisor to four members of the City Council over time he “…supervised a staff of five and was responsible for legislative and public policy review of all matters affecting the operations of city government, with particular emphasis on land use planning, transportation services, public safety, environmental services, and budget and fiscal operations.”
The law makes a significant difference in how plans are designed and implemented. Two ordinances authored by Frank Streed make this point clear. In the mid 1980s John Goody, a former Dinell Outstanding Department of Urban & Regional Planning alumni awardee, and Tom Dinell, FAICP, drafted a Complete Streets ordinance for consideration by the City Council. They thought they had done a pretty good job. Then Streed took a hand at revising the draft. He did a masterful job, producing a brilliant ordinance, which outdid the original draft a thousand times over and which formed the basis for the City and County Administration’s implementation of Complete Streets in Honolulu.
Streed retired. Then, as co-chair of the Age-Friendly City Implementation Committee, Streed pulled together multiple efforts of committee members into another masterful ordinance, laying the basis for all the city departments to participate in committing the “…to encourage and advance the development of programs, services, facilities, and projects that are planned, designed, operated, and maintained to best accommodate users of all ages and abilities, especially the elderly.” [Bill 54 (2018) CD2]
Streed has clearly met the criteria for being the recipient of The Dinell Outstanding Urban and Regional Planning Alumni Award for 2018. Streed continues in service to planning and to our community, both as a staff member and as a volunteer. He has served the profession and the people with aplomb.
Article contributed by Tom Dinell, FAICP, November 2018