PAVLOV’S PRIDE:

PAVLOV’S PRIDE: Our post on Monday regarding the infuriating way Councilperson Jay Furfaro protects the Minotaur’s labyrinth though the use of pompous paternalism and obfuscation- preferring to see it as stewardship- drew a few emails affirming that the observation is not ours alone with one lamenting the fact that, instead of listening he gets huffy and acts “hurt” when people have the temerity to point this out to him.

Another contained an illustrative story from “nitpicker” Glenn Mickens that stood out and, with his permission, we are highlighting it here today.

For me, Jay is probably the most knowledgeable person on the council BUT as you said his "pompous, paternalistic, know it all persona" AND his sway with the political wind attitude keeps him from being a fine people's representative.

When the Olohena Bridge was being debated in the chambers---the contractor needed a money bill for $500 thousand to go ahead with the project--at 4:30AM a few years ago Jay voted to give them the money bill!!! Jay was the one to bring up the fact that the Acrow people could build the same bridge for well under $1 million whereas Unlimited got $4.8 million for building it. I picked up on this issue and got together with the Acrow people and confirmed that they could and would build this bridge for the well under $1 million dollar price. PLUS Acrow could put the bridge in place in one to two days whereas Unlimited took 3 months to build theirs and had traffic detoured for miles while construction was being done!!!

When Jay told me that he "had" to vote for the money bill I told him it would shoot down any chance for Acrow to build it but he just walked away. Obviously the political wind (or other ulterior motive???) influenced his decision and this was just another example of Jays make up. And, at vote time on that morning it was a 3 to 3 vote for the money bill and the "great" Jo Ann voted to give them the money bill and the deal was done. Even the Mayor was there till 4:30 (making sure that his buddies got what they wanted) and I lived in his back pocket telling him he was doing the wrong thing.

Maybe you remember this whole incident, Andy, but I had the entire Wailua Homesteads neighborhood fighting against this Unlimited bridge---a small bridge over a "ditch" (so designated on the map) that cost the tax payers $4.8 million dollars and not under $1 million that Acrow would have built it for.

And, Andy, the Kilauea bridge was built for a cost of over $12 million whereas I personally asked the Acrow people (when they were on Island) for an estimate and they said for under a million dollars!!!! Talk about rip offs. And remember that these Acrow bridges are built around the world and we have 4 of them on Kauai (Federal, State and County approved) plus the bridge across the Wailua River will be Acrow so you tell me what is going on???

---------

And to give true meaning to Veteran’s Day we present one veteran’s thoughts... all you have to do is just substitute Afghanistan for Viet Nam and Taliban for Viet Cong to show nothing ever changes...



And for all you FISHionados we’ve also found bit of old Bizerkley: