HUSH MY DARLIN’, DON’T FEAR MY DARLIN’, THE NAGO SLEEPS TONITE

HUSH MY DARLIN’, DON’T FEAR MY DARLIN’, THE NAGO SLEEPS TONITE: Deep in the bowels of the labyrinth, the minotaur sleeps fitfully, his horns impeding what should be a placid slumber with his minions at the gates assuring that nothing is revealed.

But Kaua`i isn’t the only place the most basic and important information and documents are missing from on-line perusal due to the use the same unfathomable excuse for their absence.

A few weeks back we were working on evaluating the plethora of candidates for office on Kaua`i so for a full list we went to check the same handy-dandy pdf that we’d used up until the July filing deadline to track who was running.

But while the names and addresses of most races were there, those elections to fill the offices of those who resigned to run for another office- as in the case of Kaua`i the State Senate 16th district which Gary Hooser had vacated to run for lieutenant governor- were missing.

So surely the State Office of Elections main page must have the list. Surely you jest- and it’s Scott Nago who’s in charge, not Shirley.

Let’s see Home? no we’re there. Administrative Rules? Phew, there was enough pilikila over them last elections. Factsheets? nope nothing there. Calendar? Information? Contact Us? Nope, uh-uh, nothing.

Well let’s move down. Voter Information? No- that would be too obvious. Voting in Hawaii Factsheet? 2010 Polling Places Factsheet? A Guide to Voting in Hawai (sic)? Nada, zippo, bupkis.

Ah 2010 Election Contest and Incumbents Factsheet That’s gotta be it.

But noooooo. Although they seemingly had the time and personnel to assure that they listed all races up for grabs along with the names of the appropirate incumbents (or lack threreof)- the ones who apropriated (or actually didn’t appropriate enough of) the money for running the office- it was apparently too much work to list their opponents.

Well we headscratchingly went off, google in hand, in search of the candidates from other sources.

We continued to act like we had ukus until we read this little item in a letter to the editor of the local newspaper:

Support League of Women Voters

It is good to see The Garden Island promoting voter education (Sept. 5, A1 and A6).

In addition to reading your local newspaper, candidate information for the Sept. 18 primary election can be found at http://www.lwv-hawaii.com/candidates.htm

When the State Office of Elections which formerly posted this information on its website but discontinued the service citing budgetary constraints, the League of Women Voters in Hawai`i volunteered their website and time.

To continue receiving voter information, please support the LWV in Hawai`i as well as your local news.

Carol Bain, 2007 LWV Kaua`i County president, Puhi

Budgetary constraints? How much does it cost to plop the list- the one from which they prepared the ballots- onto a web page... especially considering they went to the trouble to list the races and incumbents.

Yes, the governor and the legislature cut the OOE’s budget to the bone causing them to close and consolidate dozens of polling places. But you’d think the list of who is running wouldn’t be left to LWV to post on-line

Once again the state is taking it’s cue from Kaua`i where the council has claimed it’s way too much work to simply plop public documents onto the county web site as they are made public- especially since they have this expensive, super-duper “copy machine” that has all the bells and whistles including a button that will place public documents on line.

We had plenty to say about the last Elections Chief Kevin “King” Cronin, the Wisconsin attorney who seemingly botched every decision he made with his “rules?- we don’t need no stinkin’ rules” attitude until he suddenly moved on leaving Nago, the new elections chief, with a huge mess on his seemingly incapable hands.

But the job is apparently too much for Nago too if this is the type of excuse for not doing the very basics of the job properly is going to be the norm for the rest of the election season.

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Correction: We goofed when we said that, unless there is a tie, the mayoral election will be over Saturday. We forgot about the charter amendment that changed out preliminary nonpartisan elections from a “50% plus one” to a “top two system”. Thanks to Horace Stoessel for the reminder. What that means in English is that the race for Mayor WILL go on to November. We regret the error.

Also in our news article on alleged Westside serial killer Wally Wilson, based on early information obtained at deadline we said that Nola Rebecca “Becky” Thompson was murdered. Thus far, according to county authorities, the cause of death has not been determined We regret any error.