got windmills?

JUST A MOTION AWAY

2012-01-27T14:54:00.003-10:00

JUST A MOTION AWAY: Our high school Economics class had us bored to tears. For a red diaper baby in the midst of the late 60's "revolution" it held little relevance. But we do remember one thing- the way Mr. Voorhies would ask questions of our equally narcoleptic classmates and, when no one raised their hands, he would rub his thumb across his other four fingers, indicating the inevitable answer to every question in economics... money.

Perhaps it has stuck with us because every time we see the Hawai`i State Legislature, or any legislative body in the country for that matter, propose some inane and out-of-touch piece of legislation- many times either in opposition to pervasive public opinion or presenting a version of the ideal that is so watered-down you can actually hear it gurgling as it goes down for the third time- we leap to the conclusion that the answer as to "why" can be summed up with Mr. Voorhies' gesture.

So when we heard that rather than ban those one-time-use, white, plastic grocery bags like Kaua`i and Maui have done, the bill streaking through the legislature aims to simply put a 10 cent fee on them- to go to 25 cents if it doesn't decrease the use significantly.

At first blush we assume it was, as usual, the "money in the system" from both the supermarkets and plastic bag makers that was the proverbial fly in the ointment.

But the reality is that the reason why the corporate media is framing any controversy over the bill as whether in fact to institute a fee and if so how much it should be, is that our own people have sold us down the river once again.

Rather than look at how incredibly beautiful the roadsides, beaches and, everything else looks on Kaua`i and Maui now that everything isn't draped in white plastic and advocate for a total ban statewide, according to Civil Beat:

Sierra Club director Robert Harris told the House Committee on Energy and Environmental Protection Thursday that a fee — which would be charged to consumers at the checkout counter — has worked to reduce plastic bag use in other areas.

Harris was among those testifying on House Bill 2260. Environmental groups, including The Nature Conservancy and Surfrider Foundation, as well as government department heads and even major supermarkets, testified in support of the bill.

The important part that tells you something is wrong is that last part- it wasn't just the environmental group but "even major supermarkets, testified in support of the bill."

Now we get the "strange bedfellows" aspect of politics. Many times we have to question our own sanity when we find ourselves agreeing on some issue with various and sundry fascists, war mongers and general all-around creeps and cretins.

But that isn't the case here.

Way too often, especially in "the Aloha State," those who put themselves out as allies in the fight to stop despoilment in the name of progress in the islands abandon the fight to enact effective legislation in favor of compromising our environment before the fight even begins.

The thought process, as we've been told in similar circumstances in the past, is that the good fight isn't worth fighting this time. We've been admonished by the leadership of the above listed groups that certain battles aren't worth fighting and scoring political points for the organization on "this one" is more important than staking out the "perfect" so that the final "good" will be just a little better when all is said and done.

The way politics is supposed to work is that you stake out your perfect position and either win over the other side or find a happy medium. But lately- whether it's the Hawai`i environmental groups or the national Democratic Party, the position taken going into negotiations is already compromised to the extent that the final measure is inevitably horrific.

It isn't the money itself in many of these situations. Rather it's the acknowledging- and therefore condoning- of the fear from legislators over the use of that money to challenge them at election time that creates the defeatist attitude of progressive organizations these days.

Yes- getting all money out of politics is the ultimate solution to our broken political system. But if we give up before we begin, we're giving that money exponentially more power than it already has.

POLITICAL THEATER ON RYE... WITH MUSTARD PLEASE

2012-01-26T13:09:00.003-10:00

POLITICAL THEATER ON RYE... WITH MUSTARD PLEASE: What with all the fun and games of the Iseri-Bynum circus of the absurd, the status and functionality of the Victim-Witness Program (VWP), the meat of the recent political sandwich, hasn't really received much press.

As we reported two weeks ago (January 12) according to a scathing letter to the Kaua`i County Council by Erin Wilson, a terminated Victim-Witness Counselor at the Office of the Prosecuting Attorney (OPA, the program is now dysfunctional due to the requirement that all communications with outside agencies and the world in general be channeled through Prosecutor Shaylene Iseri-Carvalho, the lack of communications between those performing VWP services and many other issues such as the 17 new faces at the OPA since Iseri came into office.

According to the agenda for last Thursday's council meeting, Council Vice Chair JoAnn Yukimura asked Iseri to come before the council to discuss "the status of the Victim-Witness Program and OPA." And when Councilmember Tim Bynum recused himself due to Iseri's prosecution of him for alleged zoning violations at his home- as we detailed yesterday- Yukimura took over the questioning that, according to Bynum, had been suspended in 2009 when then Chair Kaipo Asing stopped it.

But not before Iseri, trying to direct the show, dragged up her whole department to blow smoke up everyone's butts after demanding that Wilson be questioned, spurring Chair Jay Furfaro to remind her that he was the one running the show.

Instead Yukimura asked for current VWP employee Dianne Gauspohl-White to come up to tesfy. She pretty much backed up most of Wilson's complaints although saying she could only speak from her perspective.

At first Yukimura's questioning elicited mostly red-faced rage, bluster and misdirection on Iseri's part, complaining how she and her staff had to take valuable time to present information they had supposedly already presented.

But after Iseri's right hand man First Deputy Prosecutor Jake DelaPlane- who continually throughout the session pulled her butt out of the sling she had created through her own belligerence- did a PowerPoint presentation with lots of numbers and statistics but almost nothing on the VWP, the questioning of Iseri by Yukimura began, mostly based on Wilson's allegations.

Things were going along swimmingly (not) with Iseri parrying Yukimura's questions with non-responsive "answers" and continual reminders that she had already presented the requested material, when Yukimura finally asked the right questions and hit a jackpot of an answer.

"The Victim Witness Program no longer exists" Iseri told a stunned council.

Seems that Iseri has instituted a program called "vertical prosecution." Formerly deputy prosecutors were assigned to individual courts, not to individual cases. That meant that many times an attorney got the case for the first time when he showed up to court after a case had, for example, been moved from district to circuit court or from the court of one judge to another.

"Vertical prosecution" (VP) is a system where each case is assigned to one attorney who takes it from beginning to end, usually sorted by subject matter- drugs, violent crime, domestic, white collar crime etc.- supposedly creating attorneys with expertise in a certain area.

It actually sounds like a good and long overdue practice.

Under VP each individual attorney has a "team" assigned to him or her- a law clerk, and now, a Victim-Witness (VW) counselor.

And in Iseri's office that apparently has come to mean that there's no cross communication anymore between the various VW employees.

According to White and Wilson, VW employees are now tasked by the attorney who almost exclusively assigns them tasks like calling specific victims and witnesses to let them know about court dates, changes in case status and those kinds of things.

Apparently the actual "counseling" part has fallen through the cracks and not only that but the only victims and witnesses contacted by the counselors are those the attorney on the team tells them to call- and then only to communicate matters regarding the case status.

It used to be that VW employees met every month, traveled to conferences and did a lot of evaluation of whether and how services were being delivered to VWs. But that is a thing of the past with VP where counselors are now "team members" whose actions are dictated by either the attorneys in charge of the team or Iseri herself.

Whereas vertical integration is growing in popularity in the offices of prosecutors and district attorneys across the country- and, according to Councilmember and Iseri ally Mel Rapozo, is by far the most popular management scheme- robust victim witness counseling can wind up being be sacrificed.

Especially if a megalomaniacal, puerile, petty, vindictive, ego-driven prosecutor is the one running the show.

The rest of Yukimura's questioning revealed that, despite requests from the council that statistics and information be presented in an intelligible manner and one that addresses questions the council has- like how all the monies from the various VW programs from the county state and federal governments are actually spent- they are embedded in spread sheets and long narratives where there's little or no possibility of extracting the pertinent information.

It all ended up with DelaPlane- who had taken over much of the question-answering after Iseri's patented self-righteous, rage-filled and spittle-spewing attacks on the questions and questioner became self-defeating- promising to put the statistics in meaningful formats for the new budget... and, importantly, to provide the evaluation forms that victims and witnesses have filled out for those entities providing the grants, which had never been provided to the council previous to the request.

We can expect a repeat performance during the budget hearings starting in March when the OPA presents its budget. But more importantly we just may get some of the issues aired during this year's election campaign where current Deputy County Attorney for the Kaua`i Police Department (KPD), Justin Kollar, is challenging Iseri for the Prosecutor's job.

Iseri won her first and only term as prosecutor in 2008 running unopposed, leaving her position on the county council after four years there.

Although the community has suffered in all this, personally we can't be too distressed with the Bynum matter, the victim witness program questions and other brewing debacles promise that this summer will be anything but a dull one in this space.

So thank you Shay- you're a columnist's dream. So much so that we're torn between supporting Justin for the sake of the community or you for being the gift that keeps on giving.

BUT WAS IT BASMATI OR LOCAL-KINE STICKY?

2012-01-25T13:23:00.004-10:00

BUT WAS IT BASMATI OR LOCAL-KINE STICKY?: Only on Kauai could we have a scandal that revolves around whether having a rice-cooker in the wrong room constitutes a zoning violation.

That's because "Rice-cooker-gate" is a direct result of what happens when a dysfunctional planning department and an ego-maniacal prosecutor collude to "bring down" a councilmember.

The matter- into which we've been delving for the past year or so- has finally spilled over into the local newspaper with an article yesterday that scratched the surface of the prosecution of Councilmember Tim Bynum by Prosecuting Attorney Shaylene Iseri-Carvalho, after the release of various documents and a back and forth between Iseri and Bynum on the matter.

Despite Iseri's denial of any ill-feeling between the two, the feud between her and Bynum goes back to their days together on the council when she and Councilmember Mel Rapozo were allies and sided with then-Chair Kaipo Asing in the infamous days when Bynum and Asing butted heads with all of them over Asing's paternalistic leadership of the council involving issues of process, staffing, introduction of measures and other issues.

Iseri was then elected prosecuting attorney in 2008.

According to a complaint form we've obtained dated 3/26/10 Bynum was alleged to have an "illegal dwelling multi family" unit at his home which is on agriculturally zoned land.

The problem is that, under "Complainer/Requester" the form notes "*wants to remain anonymous!" (the asterisk and exclamation marks are written on the form)

The complaint has two initializations, one for "inspector" and another for "assigned by" but who they actually are is not readily apparent. However what is known is that, according to Bynum's press release that followed an email from Iseri to current Council Chair Jay Furfaro sent just before last Wednesday's council meeting where Iseri appeared on a budgetary matter related to the Victim Witness program:

Apparently, sometime prior to April 2010 a trespasser entered onto my property, looked into my windows and observed a rice cooker and a refrigerator in the family room.

That someone is apparently Planning Inspector Sheilah Miyake who was CCed in a series of memos between Iseri and then Planning Director Ian Costa and has been identified by numerous reliable sources close to the investigation as being the "trespasser."

On April 7, 2010, Iseri wrote to Costa:

We received information to corroborate an anonymous complaint dated March 2.6, 2010 that was sent to the Planning Department and our office, that Councilmember Tim Bynum was renting out his house, or a portion thereof. Can you let me know if renting out a portion of his residence is ill~gal given his land status, and what ordinance/statute would he be violating by doing so? Please advise.

Costa wrote back, CCing Miyake, saying

Sorry for delay Shaylene.

The CZO really doesn't prohibit renting portions of structures. Even the issue of "lock-outs" is not addressed.

The CZO does not dictate where locks are permitted and not permitted (thank goodness!). The issue would be whether the area, in question creates a "multi-family" dwelling. What was permitted is a "single-family" dwelling based on "one kitchen". If a second kitchen (area used for the preparation of food) is present, then a violation would exist for an illegal "multi-family" dwelling unit.

I understand Sheila has been assisting and monitoring .......let me know if we can be of further assistance.

Despite Iseri's previous contention that actions on the complaint was initiated by the planning department alone, her memo indicates that now she says the complaint was sent to both planning and the prosecutor's office. She also seems to say that she and Miyake worked together to get the "rice cooker" information that was arguably obtained illegally via Miyake's trespassing.

In a comment on our November 5, 2010 report on Bynum's denial of allgations, Iseri wrote"

Mr. Parx,

Your statements are completely erroneous. I was never involved in the investigation of Tim Bynum's violations. The entire investigation was conducted by the Planning Department.

The memo seems to indicate that it was Iseri who initiated the action in conjunction with Miyake and without Director Costa's prior involvement. It also shows that Costa essentially confirms what people have been told at planning previous to this incident- that a "second kitchen" is what makes it illegal. And, as everyone is told, it is a stove that constituted what a "kitchen" was.

But Iseri wasn't to be stopped by the prior definition of a kitchen by planning. Apparently when Miyake told her she saw a "rice cooker" on the counter when she sneaked onto Bynum's property without his permission- or even asking- Iseri saw her opening and decided that, despite what planning had said ever since the CZO was established in the early 70's, now any device- presumably even a toaster or coffee maker- is a "kitchen."

The most hilarious part of all this is Iseri's continuing contention that there is no feud or even animosity between her and Bynum. Anyone who ever watched those council sessions where she butted heads with Bynum would have no doubt she despises Bynum.

So as to who made the complaint? Well we can't say for sure but for some reason former Chair Kaipo Asing has taken an unusual interest in Bynum's cases, showing up to Bynum's court dates and last week's council meeting where, if Bynum had not recused himself, sparks between Iseri and Bynum would surely have flown.

Was it Asing? Was it Iseri's ally Mel Rapozo whose animosity toward Bynum is thinly, if at all, disguised? Some seem to think the latter is the case but so far Rapozo's name hasn't come up in any documents.

The answer is apparently another question- does it really matter which of them it was? To think that there was no collusion in the matter would strain credulity.

Another question is what will happen when these people are put under oath. We understand that new Planning Director Mike Dahilig is privy to the whole story and even if the others were thinking of perjuring themselves, his testimony would surely be straightforward, the thinking being that Dahilig, a former deputy county attorney, isn't going to lie under oath for anyone.

A final question is why Iseri's office is even prosecuting the case and why she hasn't recused herself and her office by letting the state attorney general's office take it over. It would seem, given the history between Iseri and Bynum, recusal would be a no brainer.

Also, Iseri's email was stamped with a big "Confidential" across the top and the original did not contain any redactions. But under the Sunshine law she has no apparent right to say an email to the council is confidential. All emails to councilmembers are considered public documents.

We'll leave it there for today. Below are the full texts of Iseri's letter asking for Bynum's recusal last Wednesday and Bynum's "press release" that followed this weekend. It should be noted that there may be misprints in Iseri's email. First of all, names of those involved are redacted and second we had to use optical character recognition software to get it in "text" form. There may be redactions that are not noted so the sentences may seem disjointed. But you'll get the gist of it.

----#---

Iseri's letter to Council Chair Jay Furfaro CCed to all councilmembers except Bynum.

January 19, 2011

TO: Council Chair Jay Furfaro

FR: Prosecuting Attorney Shaylene Iseri-Carvalho

RE: Conflict Notice Regarding Councilmember Timothy Bynum

This communication serves as a notice to the Council regarding a conflict of interest between Councilmember Timothy Bynum and the Office of the Prosecuting Attorney. This conflict arises from several incidents involving Councilmember Bynum and employees in our office, as well as the pending criminal case filed by our Office against Councilmember Bynum in November 2011.

1. Bynum's Inappropriate Confrontation Of Deputy Prosecuting (redacted)

On September 28, 2011, Councilmember Timothy Bynum attended a court proceeding with his son, David Bynum, at the 5th Judicial Circuit Courthouse in Lihu`e. After the hearing, Mr. Bynum stood outside the courtroom door in the public hallway and confronted Deputy Prosecuting Attorney (redacted) regarding David's case. As (redacted) exited the courtroom, Mr. Bynum stated directly to (redacted) "Do you think justice was done? This was because [expletive] Shaylene doesn't like me and is out to get me." (Redacted) was standing nearby and also witnessed the confrontation.

According to the Kaua`i County Charter section 3.07(D)

The council may, upon an affirmative vote of at least two-thirds of its entire membership, suspend without pay for not more than one month any member for disorderly or contemptuous behavior in its presence. The presiding officer or the council by a majority vote may expel any other person who is guilty of disorderly, contemptuous or improper conduct at any meeting.

While this section deals with disorderly and contemptuous conduct that occurs in the presence of the Council, it is also instructive as to the appropriate conduct expected from Councilmembers in their dealings with county employees as well as the general public.

Additionally, Section 3.18 of the Kaua`i County Charter states:

Except for the purpose of investigative inquiries under Section 3.17, the council or its members, in dealing with county employees, or with county officers who are subjected to the direction and supervision of the mayor, shall deal solely through the mayor. and neither the council nor its members shall give orders to any such employee or officer either publicly or privately. Any willful violation of the provisions of this section by a member of the council shall be sufficient grounds for an action for his removal from office.

Clearly, Councilmember Bynum did not handle this situation appropriately. If Mr. Bynum had questions or concerns about the case, the appropriate course of action would have been to communicate those to the elected Department Head, which is me, rather than confronting one of our Deputies, who, in fact, was not assigned to handling the case. This confrontation clearly illustrates the undue bias Mr. Bynum harbors toward both me personally, as well as the Office of the Prosecuting Attorney. As such, Mr. Bynum must recuse himself from any matter before the Council involving the Office of the Prosecuting Attorney.

2. Bynum's inappropriate confrontation of (redacted)

Before coming to work at the OPA (redacted) was employed by (redacted) as (redacted). She applied to the OPA as a (redacted) and was offered the job in (redacted) . After accepting the position (redacted), who had turned in her 2 week notice (redacted) was confronted by Councilmember Bynum in her office. Bynum stated that he was concerned because it was well known that he and Shaylene did not 'get along' and adamantly believed that the only reason Shaylene hired her was to 'get back at him.' These statements and allegations continued for a prolonged period, leaving (redacted) to feel uncomfortable and offended.

Councilmember Bynum's inappropriate confrontation with (redacted) regarding her employment at the OPA demonstrates Mr. Bynum's continued undue bias toward me and my office. This bias and proclivity to engage in inappropriate conduct with OPA employees further establishes the need to have Mr. Bynum precluded from participating in any matters relating to the operations of the OPA.

3. Bynum's Pending Criminal Case

On November 9, 2011, the OPA filed a criminal complaint in the District Court of the Fifth Circuit against Timothy Bynum, alleging 4 counts of violations of the Kaua`i County Code. Each Count is a misdemeanor offense, punishable by up to one year in jail and a $2,000.000 fine for each. This means that if convicted, Bynum could face up to 4 total years imprisonment and $8,000.00 in fines. There have already been two motion hearings on the case, in which Mr. Bynum has been represented by a private attorney. At each hearing, First Deputy Prosecutor Jake Delaplane represented the State and made all arguments on behalf of the State. Councilmember Bynum's criminal case clearly establishes a conflict with the OPA. He has a clear financial interest in the operations of the OPA, as he would directly benefit if the OPA's operations were negatively impacted by any action of the Council. By virtue of being a criminal defendant, he has a vested interest in ensuring that the OPA not operate at peak efficiency. In accordance with Article )0( of the Kaua`i County Charter, this financial interest clearly prohibits Bynum from participating in any matter relating to the OPA that comes before the Council. Further, because Councilmember Bynum is represented by an attorney in his criminal case, our office is prohibited from having direct contact with Bynum without his attorney present; as such contact would violate Bynum's 6th Amendment Right to Counsel and could result in dismissal of his case. Bynum's paranoid belief that the actions taken by our office were calculated personal attacks against him is without any merit and is completely baseless. The criminal case against his son was investigated by the Kaua`i Police Department and referred to our office for prosecution. The case initiated against Councilmember Bynum was investigated by the Planning Department and referred to our office for criminal prosecution. The contact with (redacted) was solely initiated by Councilmember Bynum. Her decision to apply to the OPA and our decision to hire her was purely based on (redacted) exceptional experience and qualifications.

For the above stated reasons, Councilmember Bynum has a clear conflict of interest with the Office of the Prosecuting Attorney and should not be allowed to participate in any Council proceedings involving the OPA. It is our hope that the Council will address this situation in a timely and appropriate manner. Feel free to contact me with any questions regarding this matter.

SHAYLENE ISERI-CARVALHO
PROSECUTING ATTORNEY

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Bynum's Press Release

I was elected to legislate for the county and to provide oversight of various government agencies and offices. Among these is the Office of the Prosecuting Attorney (OPA).

However, the OPA has recently filed criminal zoning violations against me and I must now defend those in Court. Since I was charged, the County Prosecutor has now cited those same charges as a basis for having me recused from all legislative oversight over her office. Out of an over abundance of caution I agreed to recuse myself from the January 19th meeting.

Likewise, I believe that it would be appropriate for the Kauai Prosecuting Attorney to be recused from prosecuting my case and allow the Attorney General's office to properly evaluate this case. I believe that this would be the best assurance of a fair proceeding and a fair process that is certain to be governed by the rule of law.

The Prosecuting Attorney states in a Jan 19 letter that her criminal prosecution is not personal, and was a routine matter “investigated by the Planning Department and referred to our office for criminal prosecution.” What I have learned is that as early as April 2010, the Prosecuting Attorney asked the Planning Director in an email for a legal basis on which to prosecute me. I am attaching a copy of emails between the Prosecuting Attorney and then-Planning Department Head Ian Costa. These e-mails establish that the Prosecuting Attorney was involved in the matter before Planning even investigated the “anonymous complaint” and that this was not just a routine Planning Department investigation.

In her email, the Prosecutor refers to an "anonymous" complaint. Apparently, sometime prior to April 2010 a trespasser entered onto my property, looked into my windows and observed a rice cooker and a refrigerator in the family room.

I hope that through the court-process I will be able to ascertain the identity of this trespasser and learn how this person was able to anonymously commence a criminal investigation - especially when I have previously been assured by the Planning Department that my house was properly permitted. I also hope to find out who, if anyone in government authorized sending someone to peer into the windows of my family home. I believe that the trespasser should be prosecuted, but thus far his or her identity appears to have been protected. The documents provided to my defense attorney so far only state that he or she "wishes to remain anonymous".

Finally, just minutes prior to the January 19, 2012 Special Council Meeting, the Prosecuting Attorney sent a letter marked confidential demanding my recusal. The letter was sent to all Council Members except for me. I was allowed to read the letter in the presence of the County Attorneys but I was not given a copy.

I am now informed that the Prosecuting Attorney intends to release to the public this letter she stamped “confidential.” The letter misrepresents conversations I had with two individuals I have long respected and have had a cordial professional relationship with for years.

The intended subject matter of the January 19 Council Meeting was a valid examination of concerns raised by a number of citizens regarding the Victim Witness program, the reported backlog of cases, finance issues and the high turnover / vacancies of Deputies. Council member Joann Yukimura instigated the request. Anyone who follows the Council knows that this type of oversight agenda item is common and a legitimate Council responsibility.

Additional information regarding the alleged zoning violation:

In 2005, at times there were 4 generations of my family (7 people total) living in my home (my father, myself and my wife, my son, my daughter, our grandson and his mother). We decided to do an addition to our home. We wanted to create a living space that was integrated. We constructed two bedrooms, a bathroom and family room. The addition also included a ramp because my elderly father was increasingly having difficulty negotiating the steps to the front door much less the stairs to the second story where the existing bedrooms were located.

When the drawings were done I took them to the County Planning department and the Building division for informal review. I was told everything was fine as long as no stove was installed. Subsequently we submitted the plans to the County for formal review and approval. The plans were approved after being circulated to and approved by various departments including the Planning department.

We hired a contractor and built according to the plans. The County sent inspectors during construction including a final inspection after which we were issued a certificate of occupancy. The addition is exactly as it was when “final inspection” occurred; nothing has been added or deleted. No installed cooking facilities have ever existed in the addition. Our home has one kitchen; every person that has ever resided in our home has used the one kitchen.

DISINFECTANT APLENTY

2012-01-20T13:26:00.002-10:00

DISINFECTANT APLENTY: The subject of open meetings and records- and of course the related Sunshine Laws- has always been near and dear to us. Nothing gets our blood boiling more than attempts by councilmembers across the state who try to claim it prevents them from doing their job, especially when they misrepresent restrictions on interactions with each other, even after the Office of Information Practices (OIP) tells them where "the line" is.

The typical complaint goes something like "I can't even go to dinner and talk to a fellow councilmember about the weather without violating the Sunshine Law." The fact is that there are "permitted interactions." They include allowing two members to talk about anything unrestricted as well as other bright lines of what can and can't be discussed unless it is done in a properly agendaed meeting.

But the main thing is- to perhaps oversimplify- that you can't talk about a matter of public policy that is- or is likely to be- before the body. And you can't use serial communications to avoid the ban.

So it irked us a little to see fellow champion of open governance journalist-blogger Ian Lind's comment on a proposed clarification of the law proposed by OIP.

After discussing the permitted interactions rules he wrote:

The result has been what I consider some absurd results, including the notion that circulating draft bills for signatures prior to introduction would somehow violate the law, despite the fact that it has nothing at all to do with whether the bill will become law or not.

Wow. As it turns out, a case we filed against Kaua`i County Council Chair Jay Furfaro for just such an infraction- apparently circulating a proposed bill to all other councilmembers at the time and even asking for "support" for it- was recently addressed by OIP and the only fact that prevented it from being an "unpermitted interaction" is that, according to then County Clerk Peter Nakamura, the cover letter and draft bill were never actually sent to other councilmembers, only addressed to them.

Otherwise, OIP said, it would have violated the sunshine law.

And that's as it should be. If you want to talk about the content of a bill, do it in public. It has nothing to do with the actual passing of the bill but rather the deliberations which eventually yield those pesky details that the bill will contain. It's called "deliberating toward a decision" and it includes all stages of public policy making from the drafting through the discussion and finally to the passage.

So how do you talk to your fellow councilmembers about proposed legislation? The answer may be contained in a notice for a "workshop" the Kaua`i Council has scheduled for next Tuesday January 24 at 9 a.m. at the Kaua’i Civil Defense Agency- Emergency Operating Center, 3990 Ka’ana Street, Suite 100

According to the notice:

A facilitated workshop is scheduled to set goals that the Kaua’i County Council would like to see achieved in the next few years and to discuss issues pertaining thereto that could include:

So far, so good. Sounds like they are finally "getting it" and want to let the public in at the planning stage rather than springing matters on us as a "done deal."

But then, to our astonishment, the agenda list 41, count 'em 41, subjects they intend to discuss, each subject so broad that each individual item could spur hours of discussion. We've listed them at the end of this post.

That also means that if the public wanted to testify on each one, assuming they'd be given the usual six minutes to speak on each, just one person could sit there for just over fours hours... although, because all 41 are listed under one agenda item they might decide to give only one six minute time allotment for all of them. That of course would leave about nine seconds a subject.

We did ask OIP for a down and dirty opinion of the sufficiency of the agenda and were told that it looked okay, although they did not address the public testimony aspects.

But the upshot is that rather than complain that they are prevented from discussing proposed legislation, this format- not with 41 subjects but with let's say with just one or two- is the way it's supposed to work. You put it on an agenda for discussion and have that discussion in public, not behind closed doors.

That's the irksome part of all this. What those who would allow these kinds of things to be done in private are saying is that, because it is a little more hassle to put a subject on the agenda and discuss it in public, we should chuck the whole concept of discussing public policy in open session and allow pols to collude behind closed doors.

The message we should be sending officeholders is this: although you apparently think that the council is your own little private fiefdom where you are a god of lawmaking unto yourself, you are, in fact, in the line of work of deciding public policy with the key word being "public." If you want to make decisions by yourself, go into the private sector and then you can make all the decision about selling your widgets as privately as you want to.

But if you want to hold public office you'd better get used to discussing public policy with that pesky public listening to the deliberations that go into your decision making.

Is that asking too much? Apparently yes.

----------

The following is the list of subjects to be discussed at the workshop:

1. Drug abuse prevention and treatment and interdiction of illegal drugs
2. Traffic congestion relief/multimodal integrated transportation system
3. Open space acquisition! preservation, including coastal and Mauka lands and access
thereto
4. Tourism, including sustainable tourism
5. Economic development
6. Island-wide information technology & management systems
7. County information technology & management systems
8. Agriculture & biotechnology
9. Solid waste management, Materials Recovery Facility (MRF), recycling programs, and recycling facilities
10. Military
11. Voter registration
12. 2012 State Legislative issues, including Transient Accommodations Tax (TAT)
13. Real property tax system
14. Town planning
15. Affordable housing
16. County budget; Operating and Capital Improvement Projects (CIP)
17. Containment of sprawl and protection of open spaces and vistas
18. Subdivisions, grading and drainage
19. Small businesses
20. Sustainability and sustainable communities
21. Park planning, development and maintenance
22. Planning issues; General Plan Update, Development Plans, Comprehensive Zoning Ordinance, Special Management Areas
23. Community outreach
24. Energy self-sufficiency, renewable energy, and renewable energy projects
25. County infrastructure
26. Preservation of “places of the heart”
27. Bikeways
28. Underground utilities
29. County as a model—”Walking the Talk”
30. County efficiency and cost control
31. Elderly programs & outreach
32. Youth programs & outreach
33. Timeshare
34. Bed & Breakfast and Transient Vacation Rentals regulations
35. Wastewater systems
36. Water systems
37. Public safety issues; police, fire and civil defense
38. Risk management
39. Public transportation
40. Intra-governmental relations
41. County Human Resource Management

FORE

2012-01-19T13:15:00.001-10:00

FORE: Back in the days of rampant resort development on Kaua`i- as if they ever ended- many of us thought that, in an attempt to keep it simple for voters, we should ask only one question of council candidates that year: "Do you play golf?"

In the 80's and early 90's it seemed like every resort- from the Hyatt at Maha`ulepu to Chris Hemmeter's Westin- depended on having a golf course to make them "viable"- or at least that's what they tried to tell the council and planning commission.

But at the time, before there were a gazillion golf courses on the island all "designed" by the top names in golf, there was what is still called "the jewel" of the county's Parks and Recreation system: the Wailua Golf Course.

It was once named one of the top municipal golf courses in the country and was not just meticulously maintained- all by one old guy with a green thumb, infinite energy and love of golf and golfers- but it broke even, paying for itself through round and cart fees and the proceeds from the "19th hole" concession.

So the council, in it's infinite wisdom, decided that since it was self-supporting it should be funded using what's called an "enterprise fund"- a separate account, set up in perpetuity for an operation that's supposed be self-supporting.

The problem is that the old maintenance guy retired and the irrigation system rusted out and the council started throwing money into things like a new drip irrigation system (that never did work right) and outside consultants.

But they never did get the same results and now the "self-supporting" golf course costs around an extra half-a-million dollars each year- subsidized from the general fund- in order to operate.

Over the past few years the council has tried everything from raising fees for each round to lowering the fees to get more people to play more rounds, especially tourists. When they tried "adjusting" the fees for local youth and seniors it caused enough of an outcry that any further thought of actually making local people pay to play golf was permanently back-burnered.

The only place to look for revenue ended up being that "19th hole"- the restaurant, bar and "pro shop."

So last spring the council was thrilled when local attorney and former Prosecutor Mike Soong and his friend, bail bondsman Darrell Horner, opened the incredibly tone-deafly-named Jailhouse Pub & Grill- so monikered because it sits across from the Kaua`i County Correctional Center.

Councilmembers proclaimed this to be just the thing that was going to save the golf course- or at least somehow save the "enterprise fund" aspect of it and maybe put a dent in the half-million dollars of taxpayer money being pumped into the "enterprise fund" every year.

Oh, why?.. didn't you hear? The Jailhouse Pub & Grill is now "officially closed" according to their phone message. The sign is gone and the door is locked. Pau already.

According to an article in the local newspaper just last May:

Late last year, Mike Soong learned the county was seeking bids to fill the space for its former bar “Par for the Course.” By February they were awarded the contract and a 7-year-lease.

Seems they didn't even make it seven months.

This whole fiasco just further shines a light on the absurd conundrum that is the Wailua Golf Course. If the county doesn't charge enough per round they will not be able to get it to break even. And if they raise the price to where it will pay for itself people, especially the tourists who pay the higher fees, will say to themselves "for that kind of money I'd rather go to one of the resort golf courses" which are meticulously maintained by the resorts- and which the resorts subsidize as they would any "essential" amenity.

The "clubhouse" was never designed to- and never will- pay for the difference between what the county can charge for a round of golf and what it costs to keep the place "well maintained," a condition that any golfer will tell you, is anything but the case these days despite millions in capital improvements and outside groundskeeping consultants. That "investment" in this "jewel" has only add to the increasing negative balance of the "enterprise fund" at a rate that makes ever catching-up impossible.

We're not sure whether it was the name or what but the quick opening and closing of the Jailhouse Pub and Grill indicates that the council's last best hope for the golf course "breaking even" was a pipe dream to begin with.

It's certainly time to, if nothing else, give up on the enterprise fund and get real with the taxpayers. Right now a handful of golfers are running the show proving that nothing really ever changes at the county building.

Maybe people don't mind throwing that half-million bucks at a run-down facility that only serves a small fraction of a population that is desperate for more recreational facilites and in severe need of money for maintaince to keep the existing ones clean and operating.

But the council needs to at least start being honest enough to ask.

IT'S NEWS TO ME

2012-01-18T13:39:00.003-10:00

IT'S NEWS TO ME: It only took a decade or so, which anywhere else might be seen as a snail's pace. But here on Kaua`i when it "only" takes a dozen to get the government follow the law your first thought is that it's miraculous that they complied at all.

When a long list of nominees for various boards and commissions were scheduled for interviews a week ago Tuesday we had little hope of seeing them on television. After all, it took over five year of complaining on our part to even get the Office of Information Practices (OIP) to tell the council to end the practice of holding the interviews in secret executive sessions and then another few years for the paternalistic then-Council Chair, Kaipo Asing, to actually comply.

But it took still a few more years before the council allowed the interviews to be video-recorded claiming they didn't have the money to do so- even though they paid to caption and televise up to an hour a week of those "grip and grin" certificates and awards that they present to auntie and uncle every time they sneeze and to every sports team that came in anywhere but last in Honolulu... especially around election time.

Now, after some dribs and drabs of individual interviews interspersed with council meetings over the last year or so, the yearly appointments- and more importantly reappointments- of a slew of board and commission members was actually televised last week.

And guess what? It actually produced news of sorts, although you wouldn't know it from perusing the local newspaper, probably because you had to actually be paying attention to both the interviews and the way government works around here to find it.

The biggest news came from outspoken Planning Commissioner Jay Kimura who has ascended to chair this year. Kimura is the one who, when you watch the planning commission meetings, is continually shaking his head in disbelief over the fact that transient vacation rentals (TVRs) can be put on agricultural lands in the first place, denouncing the way the permits for all types of TVRs are approved willy-nilly regardless of compliance with the law and generally kvetching about the lack of enforcement of TVR regulations for both existing permit holders and those for who have been rejected but continue to operate.

The news is that anyone who was wondering at the time exactly what happened in executive session when former Planning Director Ian Costa left his post under investigation by the FBI can wonder no more whether he resigned or was actually fired by the planning commission.

Mayor Bernard Carvalho Jr. was certainly circumspect about the circumstances, probably because he has since "hired" Costa- or at least told his former campaign manager Director of the Department of Parks and Recreation Lenny Rapozo to hire Costa- as a deputy director under Rapozo.

During Kimura's questioning Councilmember Tim Bynum directly asked Kimura "during your tenure the planning director changed. That was a decision of the board, correct?"

Kimura simply answered "Yes."

Bynum continued the questioning as to whether Kimura was happy with the new Director, former Deputy County Attorney Mike Dahilig, to which Kimura replied that he would "rather keep my opinion to myself," even though his disgust with Dahilig's lack of enforcement and lax attitude toward TVR permitting in general hasn't been very well disguised at planning commission meetings.

But now we do know that Costa was fired- as if there was really any doubt until now in the minds of any but the most rabid of Carvalho sycophants. Oh- that and, according to Rapozo, the "fact" that state attorney general is "going over the approved 'TVRs on ag land' permits"... whatever that means.

Another bit of major news is that Board and Commission Director John Isobe has "retired" and been replaced by former state House Representative from 1992-1993, Paula Ishii Morikami (D-12th District) who is apparently now the latest politically-connected apparatchik to join the Carvalho administration.

Isobe's "retirement" has yet to be formally announced but it came up during the interview with former District Court Judge Calvin Morishige who has been nominated to be on the Kaua`i Board of Ethics.

One bit of news of sorts that Morishige made was to say, in response to questions from Councilmember Mel Rapozo, that his opinion was that county attorneys who advise boards and commissions actually do just that and only that- advise them.

"Their opinion is only their opinion- the decision is up to the board," he told the council.

Now anywhere else in the world this would not be news. But under the Carvalho administration, County Attorney Al Castillo’s opinions are to be followed blindly by all. And if they are not, board and commission members have been threatened with the withholding of county representation should they be sued for their official actions, according to a lengthy discourse on the subject by Rapozo.

This has been especially true with the Ethics Board where commissioners have actually battled deputy county attorneys to get them to change their written opinion rather than make a ruling that would treat their advise as, well, advice as opposed to a dictum.

There was probably more news but it was really hard to stay awake through all the fawning and phoney praise for both the nominees and Carvalho for his wonderful choices... alternating with the occasional grinning through gritted teeth by both councilmembers and appointees, holding back what they really wanted to say.

It kind of makes you wonder what "news" might have come up behind closed doors for all those years where they didn't have to watch what they were saying. But then again current councilmembers are new at this "conducting the public’s' business in public" stuff, especially when it comes to having to interact with those who have seen the corruption of the Carvalho administration up close and personal and then allowing them to discuss it on TV.

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(Sorry for any flubs today- our editor's computer is down.)

GOO-GOO-GA-JOOB

2012-01-13T16:17:00.006-10:00

GOO-GOO-GA-JOOB: Apparently all is not well on the SS Minnow.

Seems the Skipper's "little buddy" went temporarily insane and deviated from the script prompting a dressing down for daring to do so on Wednesday's "episode."

It was just before lunch when the Skipper, played by Kaua`i County Council Chair Jay Furfaro, had another of his patented, blowhard, conniption fits of pomposity chiding Gilligan, played by local newspaper government reporter Leo Azambuja, for daring to write something that wasn't pre-approved by Furfaro.

Never known for his knowledge of- or adherence to- the Sunshine Law, Furfaro has continued the tradition of his predecessor, Kaipo Asing, in abusing the law to stifle discussion he doesn't like by arbitrarily and capriciously deciding that such discussions are not "sticking to the agenda item," as the law requires.

The fact that the law is supposed to be liberally construed towards openness never comes into the discussion.

So in typical fashion, Furfaro decided on Wednesday that, despite the fact that it wasn't on the agenda, he was going to discuss the appointment of long-time council "fixer," Rick Watanabe, to the position of County Clerk. And since it wasn't on the agenda he announced he was using what he calls "personal privilege"- a term invented some years ago that loosely translates to "illegal but I'm going to do it anyway" - to talk about it anyway.

Saying "I'd like to congratulate ourselves," he described a supposedly "wide search" that yielded more than 20 candidates in what he and other councilmembers praised as a process that was "historic" for its "openness," despite the fact that none of the names of the 20- nor the 5 finalists- has been or is planned on being released, making the process, for all intents and purposes, the same as always- a backroom deal discussed exclusively in closed-door executive session.

But the real howler was when, saying he had prepared a "press release" regarding the appointment, he actually chided Azambuja for having the nerve to include information that wasn't in his press release in the article in the paper announcing Watanabe's appointment.

Calling it an "editorial" Furfaro lit into "the media" saying "you should print the press release as such," and presumably no other unapproved information along with it.

Azumbuja had the nerve to point out that, before the appointment was announced, Watanabe had said he wasn't interested in the job.

Oh- and he want into a long explanation of the various salaries involved including not just Watanabe's now as County Clerk but the salary cut taken by former County Clerk Peter Nakamura who according to the article is now making $29,420 less in his new job as a "senior planner" in the planning department after he was apparently fired by the council following a series of public allegations of misconduct, a harassment lawsuit and a string of executive sessions to discuss his "job performance."

For the record Nakamura says he chose to take the new job at an almost $30,000 pay cut. Councilmembers have essentially refused to discuss the end of Nakamura's tenure saying it was a "personnel matter" and to do so would violate Nakamura's privacy.

Furfaro insisted that Watanabe had "changed his mind" about the clerk job saying "heck, even (Republican candidate for President Mitt) Romney changes his mind," chiding the media by saying he is always available for press inquires.

Furfaro has consistently refused to answer our email queries for the past three-and-a-half years.

But, being so presumptuous and pompous as to think that the press is there to be his own personal megaphone aside, the Sunshine Law violation is not just blatant but the apparent irony of Furfaro's violation in cutting off councilmembers for speaking "off agenda"- as we described above- and then claiming some kind of personal privilege to do the same, is lost on only one person- Furfaro.

In a followup to yesterdays PNN's news coverage of charges of mismanagement by and maltreatment of employees of Prosecutor Shaylene Iseri-Carvalho, we mentioned an Office of Information Practices (OIP) ruling that, a year and a half after the incident, ruled that then Chair Kaipo Asing was wrong to have cut off Councilmember Tim Bynum when he questioned Iseri in May of 2009.

We have since been directed to OIP Memo 11-7 which says that:

To the extent that Requester’s line of questioning wouhttp://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gifld have related to whether other sources of funds existed for the VOCA program so that the grant monies did not need to be used for that program, we believe that the line of questioning would have been reasonably related to the agenda item and thus would not have violated the Sunshine Law... (B)ased upon our review of the May 6 meeting minutes we believe that the nexus that Requester subsequently drew between the agenda item and his line of questioning was sufficient under the Sunshine Law to have allowed questioning reasonably related to whether other sources of funds precluded the need to apply the grant monies to the VOCA program.

We point this out because it is archetypical of the type of thing that Furfaro- despite his protestations to the contrary- has continued to allow and even use himself to stifle discussion.

Although the extent of his abuse of the provision in the Sunshine Law that says that discussions must pertain to an agenda item hasn't risen to the heights used by Asing during his notorious 2009-10 feud with Bynum over process and rules, since becoming chair upon the electoral ouster of Asing, Furfaro has, over and over, allowed Councilmember Mel Rapozo- who, along with his political ally Iseri, is a political enemy of Bynum's- to interrupt Bynum and try to stop whatever Bynum is saying that Rapozo doesn't want said in public... especially criticism of Iseri.

It all comes down to something that, on Kaua`i, has been ignored and even apparently intentionally flouted ever since council meetings have been televised when it's convenient in order to prevent certain potentially embarrassing information from reaching the public.

The Declaration of Policy and Intent- the very first paragraph of the Sunshine Law, HRS Chapter 92-1 says, in part,

The formation and conduct of public policy - the discussions, deliberations, decisions, and action of governmental agencies - shall be conducted as openly as possible. To implement this policy the legislature declares that:

(1) It is the intent of this part to protect the people's right to know;
(2) The provisions requiring open meetings shall be liberally construed; and
(3) The provisions providing for exceptions to the open meeting requirements shall be strictly construed against closed meetings.

If we had our druthers that statement would be made into a poster and hung on the wall in the council chambers. Or perhaps tattooed on each councilmembers forehead so that they would see it every time they looked at each other.

But rather, every councilmember has at times bemoaned the existence of the Sunshine Law, especially the part that prevents more than two of them them from discussing public policy behind closed doors.

There's a reason for that provision. It's there so that members of the public are privy to discussions that lead to the laws that govern our lives.

We have yet to hear a good explanation for why we should allow this to be done in "back rooms"- smoke-filled or not- other than that it would be "easier" and that people would be more likely to speak up if they know no one is watching.

Exactly.

Listen up elected and appointed government officials. Maybe you didn't get the memo. This is not your own private little fiefdom. It is government and you are determining public policy and people deserve to hear ALL of the thoughts and reasoning that go into your decision-making so that they can determine whether you are the one they want representing them when passing the legislation that rules their lives.

They want to know that your reasons indicate you are serving for the greater good- not for your uncle's wallet. And we want to know you can articulate how you reached your decision. As your math teach used to say: show your work.

If it is "politically embarrassing" or something you'd rather people didn't hear you say, perhaps you shouldn't say it.

It's the height of hypocrisy to cut off councilmembers for speaking "off agenda" with some obviously convoluted, strict interpretation of what the agenda item is and then claim you have "personal privilege" to talk about anything you damn well please between agenda items.

When it comes to convincing our seven stranded castaways of all this, well, let's just say it's an uphill climb.

(PNN) PROSECUTOR ISERI UNDER FIRE FOR MISMANAGEMENT AND MALTREATMENT OF EMPLOYEES OF VICTIM WITNESS PROGRAM

2012-01-12T12:15:00.006-10:00

(PNN) PROSECUTOR ISERI UNDER FIRE FOR MISMANAGEMENT AND MALTREATMENT OF EMPLOYEES OF VICTIM WITNESS PROGRAM; LETTER TO COUNCIL FROM LAID-OFF COUNSELOR CHARGES PROGRAM IS INEFFECTIVE, IN DISARRAY

(PNN) 17.

That's the answer usually given by former and current employees at the Office of the Prosecuting Attorney (OPA) to many of the questions as to why there are so many charges of mismanagement and ill-treatment of employees in Prosecutor Shaylene Iseri-Carvalho's office.

That's because 17 is the number of "Deputy Attorneys who had been hired and either terminated or left on their own accord from OPA" according to a scathing letter to the Kaua`i County Council by Erin Wilson, a former Victim Witness Counselor at the OPA.

Wilson's letter- which is published here in full (below at the end of this article)- was submitted as testimony on a communication at yesterday's (January 11, 2012) council meeting. The communication asked for Iseri to come before the council to discuss "the status of the Victim Witness Program and Office of the Prosecuting Attorney."

The matter was deferred for two weeks until January 25 however because Iseri submitted a letter saying she was "sick," according to Council Chair Jay Furfaro.

The issues Iseri will discuss in two weeks, according to the agenda, include:

1) Case backlog caused by furloughs.
2) Funding - how utilized and whether sufficient to address concerns.
3) Levels of staffing and level of service for the Victim Witness program.
4) Caseload open, closed and pending

The issue dates back to May 6, 2009 according to Councilmember Tim Bynum when Iseri was summoned to appear before the council to answer the same questions but never did because, Bynum said the minutes of that meeting show, he was cut off from his line of questioning by then Council Chair Kaipo Asing.

Asing claimed Bynum's questioning of Iseri was a Sunshine (open meetings) Law violation because it was off the subject of the agenda. However according to Bynum, more than a year later the Office of Information Practices (OIP), which oversees the Sunshine Law, ruled his line of questioning did not violate the law.

Bynum famously feuded with Asing over many matters of council process and rules during Asing's tenure and is currently involved in a well-known, long-standing feud with Iseri dating back to her days on the council with Bynum.

Until yesterday the latest chapter in the conflict has been what Bynum claims is his malicious, first-of-its-kind prosecution by Iseri for a permitting violation, apparently spurred by Bynum having had a rice cooker in a family room of his home which, Iseri claims, is a zoning violation because technically, with the presence of a sink, it created a unpermitted separate living unit.

Wilson spoke of the number "17" by saying:

After asking many employees at OPA why the delay on the above referenced case and others I had been assigned to, I was consistently referred to one number...17. This number was significant because there had been 17 Deputy Attorneys who had been hired and either terminated or left on their own accord from OPA. 17 was a significant number because the prosecutor’s office is a relatively small office to begin with. 17 was a significant number because all of these 17 former employees had left the office since the current OPA Leadership was elected into office. Most importantly, 17 was a significant number because it answered some of my questions about why a large backlog of cases had either sat for long periods of time without victims being contacted, defendants being indicted, or passed on from deputy to deputy through the revolving door at OPA.

Some of the allegations in Wilson's letter are that:

- NOTHING could be done without the direct approval and oversight of the elected prosecutor. In fact, office staff received an email from the Prosecutor’s Office leadership, stating that staff was not to send emails to any outside agencies unless discussed with the OPA leadership prior to sending. Furthermore, OPA Leadership asked to be cc’ed on all other emails to outside agencies.

- The process by which OPA would receive completed investigations and then assigned to the appropriate Deputy and Victim Witness Counselor was ambiguous. The time frame with which the assignment would take place was even more vague and varied week to week. Sometimes cases would be reviewed by the Prosecutor and assigned to a Deputy Attorney and Victim Witness Counselor right away. Other times, as I found out with my caseload, would take months upon months before even being assigned to a Deputy or Counselor for any action to be taken.

- In a letter to County Council dated January 19, 2011 regarding furloughs, the Elected Prosecutor, Shaylene Iseri-Carvalho, states that as a result of furloughs,

'OPA, the sole agency to file the criminal documents with the court and/or prepare for hearings, wasn’t able to accomplish its duties in a number of cases because there was insufficient staff to prepare them in an expedited and timely manner.'

I beg to differ. I would suggest instead, it is the constant revolving door of employees that has caused a tremendous backlog of cases at OPA. Even the office letterhead is constantly changing and currently reflects that about half of the Deputies that were listed on the above referenced letter, dated January 19th, 2011, have left OPA within the past year. All, I would suggest, to the detriment of Kauaiian families and community.

- The elected prosecutor demoted the former Victim Witness Director, Diana Gausepohl-White and effectively eliminated the Director position altogether. What did this mean for the Victim Witness program? It meant that our Victim Witness program no longer had a leader in Victim Witness services to provide oversight of day to day operations and management of the program. It also resulted in drastic changes in the scope of services that Victim Witness Counselors were allowed to offer... After the Victim Witness Director position was eliminated, these components of our comprehensive program diminished or ceased to exist.

- The current OPA Leadership also promotes the perception that Victim Witness Counselors have little importance within the office and are perceived as such by many of the attorneys, clerks, and other staff at OPA.

- I am no longer employed with the Prosecutor’s Office as I was informed on November 9th that I was being laid off and my position as Victim Witness Counselor was being eliminated from the office due to “lack of work”. This “lack of work” described in the letter that OPA gave me is in stark contrast to the much needed Victim Witness Counselor that the elected prosecutor requested monies for, in her letter (just a few months ago) to County Council dated June 13th, 2011. Despite this “lack of work” the office has hired several people including a Receptionist, a Process Server, two (2) Law Clerks, and a Law Office Assistant position which was created for the previous Secretary--all since my last day of employment, November 23rd, 2011. Furthermore, OPA has done nothing to preserve my employment despite that the County of Kauai Employee Handbook (page 17) Layoff Policy states that they will give 90 days’ notice prior to instilling a Reduction in Workforce or Layoff. I am certain that the victims who call OPA on a daily basis requesting an update on their case status or the victims of the most recent surge of crime on Kauai, could have used the services I provided as a Victim Witness Counselor.

At yesterday's meeting, while Bynum was trying to give the history of the issues being aired before the council and the Asing/Sunshine Law/OIP matter, Councilperson Mel Rapozo, famously an extremely close ally and employee of Iseri's, tried to stop Bynum from speaking by claiming the statement he was making violated the Sunshine Law, interrupting Bynum twice and appealing to Furfaro to stop Bynum.

After getting huffy at the notion that he was being accused of ducking the issue- even though Bynum said no such thing- Furfaro allowed Bynum to finish his statement.

Rapozo serves summonses for Iseri's office despite a ban on councilmembers doing more than $500 worth of work for the county. He and Iseri have thus far successfully circumvented the provision by breaking the contracts up into parcels of less than $500 each and also have claimed that Rapozo is the only one on the island who can do the work based on the fact that no one else bid on it.

Part of the intent of the law is to make sure that councilmembers cannot use their power to intimidate others from bidding on a contract upon which the councilmember is bidding.

Council Vice Chair JoAnn Yukimura- who sent the communication to the council requesting Iseri's presence- referred to Wilson's letter and asked that staff contact former Victim Witness Director, Diana Gausepohl-White and request that she be present to testify at the January 25 meeting.

Iseri is up for reelection this year and will face current Deputy County Attorney with the Kaua`i Police Department, Justin Kollar.

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Erin Wilson's letter to the Kaua`i County Council

Date: January 10, 2012

To: Jay Furfaro, Chair
Joann Yukimura, Vice Chair
Tim Bynum
Dicky Chang
KipuKai Kuali’i
Mel Rapozo
Nadine Nakamura

From: Erin Wilson, Former Victim Witness Counselor at OPA
Re: Council Meeting Agenda Item C 2012-08

First of all let me say thank you for your time and providing an opportunity for public comment on the Office of the Prosecuting Attorney (OPA) and Victim Witness Program (VWP) at your meeting today. I believe my circumstance is unique to any other and I appreciate the opportunity to share some of my experiences with you in hopes that you will consider what I have to say as an opportunity to improve services at OPA and the Victim Witness Program.

I am a single mom who moved to Kauai in August 2011 from Colorado with my 6 year old son because I was offered a position as a Victim Witness Counselor at the Office of the Prosecuting Attorney. This was in my mind, a dream job, where I could use my passion for helping others, advocating for victims of crime. Within a few days of working, I was assigned to work on the most serious of crimes including murder, negligent homicide, assault, robbery, theft, etc. In this position, my responsibilities included making contact with victims to find out how they were coping, finding out what their needs are, helping victims apply for Crime Victim Compensation, finding local resources, getting victims registered for SAVIN (a victim notification system), and let victims know about other civil remedies. Most importantly, my job was to listen to our victims.

I quickly learned at OPA that NOTHING could be done without the direct approval and oversight of the elected prosecutor. In fact, office staff received an email from the Prosecutor’s Office leadership, stating that staff was not to send emails to any outside agencies unless discussed with the OPA leadership prior to sending. Furthermore, OPA Leadership asked to be cc’ed on all other emails to outside agencies. I was very surprised by this as I had not worked in such an environment where communication with related agencies (agencies we interface with) was restricted in such a manner.

The process by which OPA would receive completed investigations and then assigned to the appropriate Deputy and Victim Witness Counselor was ambiguous. The time frame with which the assignment would take place was even more vague and varied week to week. Sometimes cases would be reviewed by the Prosecutor and assigned to a Deputy Attorney and Victim Witness Counselor right away. Other times, as I found out with my caseload, would take months upon months before even being assigned to a Deputy or Counselor for any action to be taken.

In one case that was assigned to me, there were several victims of a violent crime. Prior to making initial contact with the victims, I reviewed the police reports so as to be fully prepared when I contacted the victims and their families, being fully aware of what happened. What I was unable to prepare for was the anger and frustration these families felt when I met with them the first time in our office and learned that after 17 months, I was the first person to contact them from the Prosecutor's Office. In those 17 months, none of the victims or their families had been contacted by anyone at the Prosecutor’s office to offer condolences (there had been a death resulting from the crime) or inform the families about their rights to Victim Witness services, Crime Victim Compensation, or any other related community services that they were entitled to. It was not that the Deputies or Victim Witness Counselors were not working hard on their caseloads, but rather, the victims’ receipt of services could have occurred much earlier in this case and many others, had the case(s) been assigned by OPA Leadership in a timelier manner. Many of the cases I came across had sat waiting for screening and prosecution or declination for long periods of time. Cases had sat for so long that in some situations, the statute of limitations had run out on certain counts of crimes and the defendants could no longer be charged, leaving victims helpless.

After asking many employees at OPA why the delay on the above referenced case and others I had been assigned to, I was consistently referred to one number...17. This number was significant because there had been 17 Deputy Attorneys who had been hired and either terminated or left on their own accord from OPA. 17 was a significant number because the prosecutor’s office is a relatively small office to begin with. 17 was a significant number because all of these 17 former employees had left the office since the current OPA Leadership was elected into office. Most importantly, 17 was a significant number because it answered some of my questions about why a large backlog of cases had either sat for long periods of time without victims being contacted, defendants being indicted, or passed on from deputy to deputy through the revolving door at OPA.

In a letter to County Council dated January 19, 2011 regarding furloughs, the Elected Prosecutor, Shaylene Iseri-Carvalho, states that as a result of furloughs,

“OPA, the sole agency to file the criminal documents with the court and/or prepare for hearings, wasn’t able to accomplish its duties in a number of cases because there was insufficient staff to prepare them in an expedited and timely manner.”

I beg to differ. I would suggest instead, it is the constant revolving door of employees that has caused a tremendous backlog of cases at OPA. Even the office letterhead is constantly changing and currently reflects that about half of the Deputies that were listed on the above referenced letter, dated January 19th, 2011, have left OPA within the past year. All, I would suggest, to the detriment of Kauaiian families and community.

There was another significant factor that limited the scope of Victim Witness Services at OPA. The elected prosecutor demoted the former Victim Witness Director, Diana Gausepohl-White and effectively eliminated the Director position altogether. What did this mean for the Victim Witness program? It meant that our Victim Witness program no longer had a leader in Victim Witness services to provide oversight of day to day operations and management of the program. It also resulted in drastic changes in the scope of services that Victim Witness Counselors were allowed to offer. For example, before the Director position was eliminated, the VWP offered services such as Outreach programs, crime scene support upon request, alliances with multiple community agencies. After the Victim Witness Director position was eliminated, these components of our comprehensive program diminished or ceased to exist. Another downfall to eliminating the Director position was the inability to maintain relationships with agencies that the VWP interfaces with on Kauai, in the state of Hawaii (ex. Victim Witness Coordinator meetings) as well as nationwide organizations such as National Organization for Victim Advocacy (NOVA). These former relationships made our Victim Witness program at the Prosecutor’s Office stand out among others in the Pacific region.

Losing the Victim Witness Director at OPA, we also lost accountability for an equitable distribution of workloads among the Counselors. For example, each Counselor is assigned to certain types of cases such as Property, Crimes Against Persons, Firearms, etc. without regard to the intensity of the case or the needs of the victims and witnesses. The current OPA Leadership also promotes the perception that Victim Witness Counselors have little importance within the office and are perceived as such by many of the attorneys, clerks, and other staff at OPA. For example, in one conversation I had with a Deputy Attorney at OPA, two Victim Witness Counselors were referred to as “worthless.” In a separate conversation I had with a Prosecutor, it was stated that ‘Victim Witness Counselors were not needed because deputy attorney’s already make contact with their victims, without the help of a Counselor.’ Based on my experience working at OPA, I disagree. Furthermore, the notion that the Deputy Prosecuting Attorneys have the same job responsibilities as a Victim Witness Counselor, is misleading.

Other responsibilities of the Victim Witness Director that also took a backseat included the onboarding of new Counselors, ongoing training of new skills, knowledge of trends in the field, and ensuring that advocates took turns attending national conferences.
I am no longer employed with the Prosecutor’s Office as I was informed on November 9th that I was being laid off and my position as Victim Witness Counselor was being eliminated from the office due to “lack of work”. This “lack of work” described in the letter that OPA gave me is in stark contrast to the much needed Victim Witness Counselor that the elected prosecutor requested monies for, in her letter (just a few months ago) to County Council dated June 13th, 2011. Despite this “lack of work” the office has hired several people including a Receptionist, a Process Server, two (2) Law Clerks, and a Law Office Assistant position which was created for the previous Secretary--all since my last day of employment, November 23rd, 2011. Furthermore, OPA has done nothing to preserve my employment despite that the County of Kauai Employee Handbook (page 17) Layoff Policy states that they will give 90 days’ notice prior to instilling a Reduction in Workforce or Layoff. I am certain that the victims who call OPA on a daily basis requesting an update on their case status or the victims of the most recent surge of crime on Kauai, could have used the services I provided as a Victim Witness Counselor.

I request of you today, to re-evaluate the Victim Witness Program and consider that victims are not being served in this community in the full scope that they should be served, due to the changes and restraints that the elected prosecutor is putting on the Counselor’s abilities to communicate with local agencies and organizations, conduct outreach to victims, and serving victims in a timely manner through the prosecution of crimes. I believe that the County of Kauai has excellent resources to support the victims of our community. My hope is that my words will be a starting point for restoring the full scope of the Victim Witness Program back to its intended purpose for our victims, community, and ohana.

Sincerely,

Erin Wilson

SILENT BUT DEADLY

2012-01-10T14:53:00.001-10:00

SILENT BUT DEADLY: We're old enough to remember when there were still "water closets"- those big boxes installed way up on the wall above toilet bowls that, when you pulled the chain, released a torrent of water so noisy that everyone in the restaurant had to pause conversation until the sound of the flash flood had subsided.

When the W/Cs were removed, their replacements were still loud but at least they weren't conversation halters. And now of course we have the ultra-silent modern toilets that barely make a sound.

But for the most silent flush of all, you had to attend last Wednesday's Economic Development Committee meeting of the Kaua`i County Council.

For those who are new to these pages, it was all part of the latest "Gush and Flush" as we've come to call them- sessions where councilmembers fall all over themselves to throw money at Kaua`i Visitor's Bureau and associated events, first gushing over what a great job Director Sue Kanoho is doing and then promising to flush another hundred grand or so down into the cesspool of tourism promotion.

No matter what the economy has done to our "biggest industry" in recent years- biggest only if you count all the money that never sees the shores of Kaua`i- it's always a wonder to behold what a great job Kanoho has done with the money the council appropriated, even though there has never been a verified connection between each flush and the council's subsequent gush.

Two years ago Kanoho told the council how "down is the new up" followed by "flat is the new up" last year. And of course with occupancy up and numbers of direct flights to Kaua`i increasing, Kanoho and her county overseer, Economic Development Chief George Costa, were all too ready to breath in the wondrous air of success even though they, as always, couldn't show any correlation between whatever the figures are and the taxpayer money spent on promotion.

And, as they are wont to do, the council couldn't contain themselves at the election-year-news that their foresight in appropriating the money was rewarded with such rousingly successful promotions.

The council of course knows someone is watching occasionally so this time they conveniently failed to post the agenda on-line until the Monday before the meeting so that not only wasn't the agenda item in the local newspaper but those who get the agenda via an emailed link didn't get it until Tuesday. That meant that nitpickers Glenn Mickens and Ken Taylor, who have been trying to publicly point out all of this for years, didn't even know there was a meeting much less the subject of it.

There was one attempt to counterbalance the obscene self-congratulatory proceedings by Gusher-In-Chief, Councilperson JoAnn Yukimura, who asked for proof that increases in occupancy were somehow correlated with the million dollars in "stimulus money" the council threw at KTA over the last couple-a few-years or so.

And, as if Yukimura didn't know the answer, Kanoho was all too happy to inform her that those numbers were "proprietary."

"So I shouldn't be happy to see high occupancies because they aren't real?" asked Yukimura.

Kanoho hemmed and hawed and was about to launch into one of her patented ebullient doubletalk explanations when Yukimura baled her out to let her know that she was only questioning the occupancy numbers because they had to be accurate or any semblance of validity for purposes of the newly-enforceable general plan- due for update this or next year- would be a joke.

Well, at least she seems to have a firm grasp of the obvious.

Usually one gush and flush is enough for one day but since they had gone to all the trouble of making sure no one knew what was on the agenda, they also revisited the cash they have been throwing at The Kaua`i Marathon for many years... money that, we were apparently assured at the last meeting, wouldn’t be forthcoming anymore.

Anyone expecting what was said six months ago by councilmembers to be repeated again without someone sitting there at the testimony table and reminding them of it was sorely disappointed. Apparently, the $120,000 that was off again, on again, off again is now on again, pending approval at budget time when the appropriation won't stand out like a sore thumb among all the rest of the cash thrown at the county's woes.

Actually- and we're somewhat guilty of burying the lede here- there was a bit of news from the meeting from Councilmember Mel Rapozo who somehow got to bring up the subject of the Wailua Golf Course. Unbelievably enough, in the year 2012, they don't take credit cards.

Yet increasing the number of rounds played by tourists has been the focus of the council and administration for a decade as the amount of taxpayer money the county has had to use to subsidize the supposedly self-sustaining golf course has grown almost every year in that time to around a half-million bucks in this year's budget.

Rapozo pointed out how many, himself included, use ONLY credit cards when they travel and don't ever use ATMs because they doesn't trust them.

Kanoho then announced that the county had finally, at great expense, gotten an ATM machine at the course. But that doesn't help people who want to book a round from the mainland and it really doesn't help those without a debit card because the amount charged for a "cash advance" on credit cards can be exorbitant.

Kanoho at first claimed that they now take credit cards only to be told by Rapozo that staff had called that very morning to verify that credit cards were still not welcome at the golf course.

The way the gush and flush works best is when no one bothers to challenge it. Only then does the modern silent toilet work to cover-up the stench of the way we throw money at tourism without any indication it does thing-one to bring more visitors here... assuming indiscriminate urging of Kaua`i visitation is what we want in the first place rather than cultivating a niche in a directed, precise- and of course verifiable- manner.

There's a well known hoax that claims that the flush commode was invented by a man named Crapper. But those who think that's the biggest lie in potty history have never been to an economic development session of the Kaua`i County Council.

YOU CAN'T GET THERE FROM HERE

2012-01-05T12:28:00.003-10:00

YOU CAN'T GET THERE FROM HERE: "Math is hard" as the talking Barbie told us a decade or so ago to maker Mattel’s chagrin after the backlash by those concerned that the message that it sent to young girls was that it's okay to throw their math homework under the bus if they found it a little difficult- that and the fact that it's expected they would find it too arduous because, well, they are "only girls."

But when it comes to not following the law because it is "too hard" it's not usually an excuse for non-compliance. The defendant who claims it was tough not to kill his next-door neighbor because "he needed killin'" doesn't usually stand much of a chance in court.

But then those who think difficulty in following the law makes flouting it a bad idea have probably never been to Hawai`i where, more often than not, even the judges find degree of difficulty an excuse for being lenient.

So it was that, baffling to almost everyone, the Hawai`i state Reapportionment Commission came back with a plan last year that said that, despite the fact the Article IV Sect 4 of the Hawai`i State Constitution explicitly banned the use of non-residents in setting the boundaries of state legislative districts, they would include them because to exclude them was just way too hard.

When the Hawai`i Supreme Court ruled unanimously yesterday that the commission needed to redraw the districts with the constitution in mind it was indeed stunning when, according to the pay-walled Honolulu Star Advertiser "former state Judge Victoria Marks, the commission's chairwoman, said the panel will come up with a new plan, but said it is unclear how many non-permanent residents will be excluded."

Uh Virginia, apparently the number is... um, carry the seven... er, divide by negative eleven...ALL OF THEM.

But the quote that followed was, if possible more "in your face, Supreme Court." The article says that:

(Marks) said if the commission follows two proposals eliminating about 73,000 and 80,000 non-permanent residents, it could come up with a new plan quickly.

But if the commission cannot adopt those numbers or must consider the figure of 120,000 non-permanent residents the challengers request, it would be like "starting completely anew" and could pose problems meeting deadlines for this year's election.

Stunning indeed. Not only has the former judge decided that it would take a supreme court ruling to get her to follow the law but that she still apparently will be taking on the disgraced Barbie persona by trying to finagle non-compliance with a "math is hard" excuse.

For those who have failed to follow the issue, it's not a differentiation without a difference. O`ahu has enough military and students to give them an extra senate district that, if the constitution were to be respected, would otherwise go to the Big Island.

The deadline for commission action is February 1 when, by law, pols are supposed to be able to "pull papers" for office... assuming there is a list of offices for which they may run.

Sometime you've got to wonder. Unless you've lived in the islands long enough to just throw up your hands and decide that wondering itself is just too damn hard.

YOU DON'T HAVE TO GO HOME BUT YOU CAN'T STAY HERE

2012-01-04T13:35:00.001-10:00

YOU DON'T HAVE TO GO HOME BUT YOU CAN'T STAY HERE: We could say we've been lazy. We could say we've been spending mornings writing other things. We could say that there's no politics going on with everyone away on vacation.

Anything to avoid one of our least favorite of journalistic foibles- reporting that "nothing happened" yesterday.

It's usually best expressed by the TV reporter doing a "remote" from the scene of the big traffic accident and telling the anchor that "nothing's going on right now" sweeping her arm, pointing out all the "nothing" behind her.

"But you should have seen it a few hours ago." Yes- we should have. But you're not showing us that. You're standing there showing us a big bunch of "nothing" because, well, it's TV and everyone else does it.

Then there's the cub reporter who comes back to the editor and with a lede of "Nothing happened at the council meeting today."

"Nothing?" the editor asks, before eliciting the fact that indeed "something" happened- the story behind why nothing "happened."

But our award today goes to our favorite whipping boys and girls at the local newspaper, this time in the personage of Sports Editor Tyson Alger who, even though arguably not a true "news" reporter, could be expected to have some idea of the journalistic precept of reporting the news in an active way... even if the story itself is nothing to write home about.

Of course we can't expect Renée Haines, the new editor at the local paper, to start actually reading the copy that goes into her publication. It's apparently too much of a tradition to allow unfiltered- and unedited- copy to appear in the paper's pages.
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And so it was that when Alger was assigned this week's "Talk Story"- the local version of the "man on the street/question of the week" piece of pap/filler he decided that satisfactory answers to "Did you make a new years resolution?" include "no."

As a matter of fact, all four of them were essentially "no," the answers reading:
“I forgot to do one this year.”
“Nope.”
“I didn’t this year because I never keep them.”
“I haven’t done one because I’ve been busy traveling.”

We especially like the last one as if somehow resolutions made while traveling are exempt from taking effect when you return.

It appears that it's just the ultimate form of laziness... either that or Tyson was obviously pissed at getting the assignment and so instead of either pushing his subjects- or finding people who DID make a resolution- he came back with a report that "nothing happened."

So don't complain that we've neglected this space in favor of trying to work on a long-form tome some mornings; after four years (this month) at this we could always tell the same story again or get back up on an all-too-familiar soapbox that even those who agree with us are weary of.

Just be glad we didn't just say that nothing happened... or at least we found a cute way to say it.

TOMBSTONE BLUES

2011-12-29T12:13:00.002-10:00

TOMBSTONE BLUES: We're screwed. And we're only going to get screweder.

With Gary Hooser's decision earlier this year to abandon a run for congress in the 2nd Hawai`i District it looks like we are going to get stuck the most revoltin' of developments- Mufi Hannemann living the Life of Riley, having a virtual "lock" on next November's election.

We didn't need to be reminded that with today's news that the Hawaii Teamsters & Allied Workers Union Local 996 has endorsed him, the carpetbagging creep moves one step closer to election. He's already the poster boy for all that's wrong with so-called American democracy's campaign finance system- one that produces winners by virtue of an overflowing war chest that scares off the good guys like Hooser from even entering the race.

Oh sure, there are some good candidates challenging the Moofster in the Democratic Primary- we'd vote for patients' rights advocate Rafael del Castillo in a hot second. Or maybe even Hilo attorney Bob Marx... although by virtue of the singular fact that Marx is not Hannemann.

But the only candidate with two shots of beating Mufi- slim and none to be specific- is Honolulu City Councilwoman Tulsi Gabbard, a bigoted piece of crap like her father who plays down her homophobia and plays up her supposed environmental credentials so as to woo unsuspecting progressives.

The fact is that Hooser came within whisker of deciding to take on Hannemann but, at the last moment, decided there was no way he could raise the kind of money it would take to beat him is a case study in all that's wrong with American elections in the 21st century.

Yeah, it will be soooo self-satisfying to vote for Castillo... just like voting for presidential candidate Dr. Jill Stein who is seeking the Green Party nod. In both cases, come next November, we'll be able proudly have the distinctly unsatisfying privilege of saying "well don't blame me- I didn't for for him/her."

This is where we usually offer some kind of pie-in-the-sky solution- like supporting the "Move to Amend (MTA)" group that seeks to reverse the perverse Citizens United, US Supreme Court (SCOTUS) ruling which invented "corporate personhood (CP)" by making money a form of speech. The problem is that not only are few aware of MTA- although they will be becoming more and more aware of it this summer as hundreds of millions of anonymous, "independent (yeah, right) expenditure" dollars flow into the presidential race- but ending CP still wouldn't take money completely out of elections. Full public financing of all elections would but, although some say it is possible under existing SCOTUS rulings (Buckley v Valeo), it might take a constitutional amendment to do it like any CP countering measure would.

But people- even progressives- seem to be more interested in half-assed movements that blame the individual senators and congresspersons rather than the corporate monolith that perverts the system that elects them. We especially like the one to cut congressional pay and benefits as if making sure that millionaires and billionaires were the only ones who could afford to be in congress would somehow reverse the trend toward making "independently wealthy" a requirement to serve in office.

Yesterday we came across a blog post by Robert Reich former Secretary of Labor under President Bill Clinton and currently Chancellor's Professor of Public Policy at the University of California at Berkeley entitled "The Defining Issue: Not Government’s Size, but Who It’s For."

In it he details "how the surge of cynicism now engulfing America isn’t about government’s size. The cynicism comes from a growing perception that government isn’t working for average people. It’s for big business, Wall Street, and the very rich instead."

Yet even the most progressive of progressives seems to get their jollies by climbing on the tea-bagger "government: bad" bandwagon. Though, like voting for Castillo or Stein, it can be really satisfying- and for pundits all too easy- to ridicule the very nature of government based on what passes for democracy in America today, unless and until all of us focus on the obscenity of the legalize bribery that passes for a democratic electoral system, we'll be stuck with the stream of gags that substitute for a functional system of representative republican democracy.

Place the final joke here yourself... we're not in the mood today.

THE SUBJECT SURE WASN'T ROSES

2011-12-27T11:16:00.002-10:00

THE SUBJECT SURE WASN'T ROSES: You won't find a "label" saying "education" at the bottom of any of our columns. As a matter of fact we can't remember it ever being a subject of discussion.

And that's no accident.

We've usually got something to say about everything- learned or devoid of prior inquiry, solicited or unwelcome. But even though we've watched two generations of our own progeny wend their way through the Hawai`i Public School system our opinion regarding how to improve it has been limited to three words... "triple teachers' salaries."

What can you say after that? Assuming that all that;s said about a better educated citizenry and the correlation with productivity, it stands to reason it should easily pay for itself... and more

Not that the ridiculously low wages we pay teachers now is a total deterrent to many who are talented enough to make that treble sum elsewhere. There are an unexplainable slew that are nonetheless dedicated to the thankless, "hardest job you'll ever love" because, well, it's the job they love. But let's not forget that the same low wage has got to be an encouragement to at least a small few who somehow got through college yet would be lucky get a new paper hat each year with their W2.

There ones we're aiming at are those who would become teachers if only they got paid commensurate with their talents. The trick is to properly dispatch the "do you want fries with that" crowd and replace them with professionals by paying teachers like doctors and lawyers, not burger-flippers

Anyway, as usual we digress before we begin.

What caught our attention and convinced us to break our unwritten "don't talk about education" rule is not even just the recent news that the state of Hawai`i has somehow potentially blown the previously promised $75 million through the federal "Race to the Top" program- the only state so designated for reversal. It's that yesterday an article (paywall protected) by Honolulu Star-Advertiser education writer Mary Vorsino zeroed in on why we stand to blow the grant.

After the usual mealy-mouthed mish-mosh of unconvincing reasons why "tings wen' huli" since last year's acceptance into the program, Vorsino "revealed" what anyone who has followed the politics of state education for the last year sensed the day the feds said "not so fast there, Neil."

(I)t's not yet clear whether the state will be able to show movement in one of the biggest areas of concern for federal officials: a continuing labor dispute with the teachers union that has stalled several major projects, including efforts to reach a collective bargaining agreement on improved teacher evaluations...

The U.S. Department of Education review, set for late next month, could make or break Hawaii's grant, whose "high-risk" status reflects federal worries about whether the state is capable of meeting its ambitious Race to the Top promises.
For those who have been in a cave since last summer, the teachers' union- along with most of the other state employee groups- were negotiating for new contracts as they had always done- in fits and stops and threats and other bizarre posturing on both their part and the part of the governor... in this case the newly-elected former educator and liberal lion, former Congressman Neil Abercrombie.

But rather than dicker around as even ultra-conservative Republican Governor Linda Lingle and her predecessors had done, Abercrombie gave the teachers the finger and unilaterally imposed salary and benefit cuts calling it his "best and final offer," telling the teachers to strike if they didn't like it.

The screwiest part was that, within a few cents either way, it was probably what the teachers would have settled for anyway, especially if and when other state workers had accepted the 5% pay cut with a slight raise of the employee contribution to their health care coverage- exactly what Abercrombie had been pushing since the legislative session ended and had already gotten out of the UH teachers and would soon get from the Hawai`i Government Employees Association (HGEA).

Of course the second screwiest was the fact that the $75 million the state stands to lose if the "Race to the Top" money goes south is that, within a few bucks, it's the same amount that the state stands to save on that "best and final offer" to the teachers.

And, if he had settled it rather than impose it, the whole debacle would be over now, not stalled before the labor board where it is being dragged out, ad infinitum, costing a big pile o' cash for lawyers and other legal logistics on both sides.

What the heck Abercrombie was thinking is anyone's guess. It's not the first, nor will it be the last, in a string of seemingly-endless, insanely-tone-deaf decisions he's made since taking office. Apparently he's unable to understand that he can't get away with the same "because I said so" nonsense that just went unnoticed in congress where, as 1 of 435, he didn't have the sole power to enforce his words. Now that he does, as 1 of 1, he stands to be responsible for what he says and does and is uncomfortable with all that power.

And he'd better learn that lesson fast. He's starting to make Lingle look sane.

GROUNDING THE BERLIN AIR LIFT

2011-12-23T13:44:00.003-10:00

GROUNDING THE BERLIN AIR LIFT: The weather guy on CNN this morning couldn't help but point to a map with a slew of airplanes headed for Hawai`i and comment on the fleeing hoi polloi, escaping snow-shoveling, followed by that messy march through the slushy, mushy muck which inevitably winds up inside their boots.

But little do they know that this year is the first time in decades that there is no White Christmas here on Kaua`i.

Those with short memories have probably forgotten the great Kaua`i white out that, until last January 11, covered every conceivable area- our sidewalks and oceans and rooftops, from Ha`ena to Kekaha. Sames went for Maui. And a couple of Christmases from now it will, with a little luck, be all over on the Big Island- and maybe even Honolulu- where white is still the decorative, if not festive, color of everything in sight.

For those still confused January 11, 2011 is when Kaua`i and Maui stopped trimming the trees- and everything else- with those hideous white plastic grocery bags.

Have you noticed? In one short year the island has gone from looking like the proverbial polar bear in a snowstorm to a place that is no longer an pervasive eye sore.

The news today is that, if Hawai`i Island Mayor Billy Kanoi signs the bill passed by an un-vetoproof majority of their council (5-3 and it takes six to override) there will just be one island to go: Honolulu. And, as Civil Beat reported this morning, Councilmember Ernie Martin says he will introduce a bill to get rid of their blight too.

But those in Honolulu who want to stop seeing red when all they can see is white are going to have to gear up for a battle royal, as the whining and sniveling crowd- the ones that don't think they can live without their precious plastic bags- joins up with the chemical industry to try to continue polluting their visual field... not to mention choking and filling the guts of ocean and wild life everywhere and expanding the great Pacific Garbage Patch- all so they don't have to pay for trash can liners or go buy a waterproof bag to put their wet bathing suits into.

The truth is that, amazingly enough, Kaua`i has gotten used to the idea of bringing reusable cloth bags to the store... although it would be nice if places like Safeway took after some of the local stores like Ishihara's and, while you're fumbling for your cash or card, actually ask you if you want a paper bag before automatically stuffing your crap into one.

Actually, we have lined our smaller rubbish cans around the house with plastic bags left over from the days of yore. But guess what? By not throwing anything wet or sloppy into them and walking a few feet to the big 13-gallon kitchen can when we have gooky, yuchy trash, we are still using the same bags that were in them last January since we just dump the contents into the kitchen can when they're full.

We still have a huge supply of plastic grocery bags in a closet somewhere- so much so that we're actually thinking of who we can give them away to some selfish, lazy, asshole who can't be bothered with a little extra effort so the island doesn't looking like a demented Christo and Jeanne-Claude exhibit with bags flying through the air like autonomous kites until they wind up draped on powerlines, trees and anything else that gets in their way.
We on Kaua`i are going to have to lend our support and testimony for the O`ahu battle, telling our stories about how we were not happy about losing the our precious plastic but now, when we look around and don't have to see those nasty things, we realize it's worth the effort to get a few reusable cloth bags.

Now that that's done, how about that Styrofoam crap?- do we really need it? We'll bet anything that if you give it up and use the cardboard ones for a year you won't even notice it when that year is over.

----

We're still taking a semi-hiatus here, working on a long form project and other things.

ROUND AND ROUND SHE GOES

2011-12-16T14:11:00.004-10:00

ROUND AND ROUND SHE GOES: When we wrote our "how-to" instruction manual for how one breaks into the county's old boy network a week ago- using the case of former KIUC Board Member, now County Energy Coordinator, Ben Sullivan as an example- we might have made it seem like the system was an invention of current Mayor Bernard Carvalho, Jr.

Hardly.

The "flack catcher" model has been the prime modus operandi of up-and-comers for decades, with administrations going back to statehood and before, picking the best and the brightest of those willing to stick their neck out, draw a dotted line and place it on the chopping block, somehow surviving to populate many if not most of the county's appointed positions.

The only difference is that Carvalho has established the ability to "take one for the team" as the only pre-requisite for a job in his administration.

But when Joan Conrow broke the story on Tuesday about the absurd plans of Grove Farm to tear down the most affordable of all housing, the old sugar-cane-era "Koloa Camp", to build "affordable housing,"- here defined as almost half-a-million-dollar homes that people need to make around $75,000 to get a mortgage for- we realized that we touched only on those entering the county's revolving door system.

We were reminded that the spokesperson for Grove Farm is VP Mike Tresler whose rise to the plantation-era company- now owned by AOL founder Steve Case, cousin of senate candidate Ed Case- is a prime example of what one can accomplish on the back end if one is inclined to fall on swords on a regular basis.

You can read Conrow's coverage at her Kaua`i Eclectic blog and her account of last night's meeting with Koloa residents at the web site of "For Kaua`i" for all the gory details- except for this "what the 'f' was he thinking?" quote from Tresler, obtained by Vanessa Van Voorhis of the local newspaper:

“(The eviction is) a tenant-landlord issue. That’s a private issue … They’re trying to make it a public issue and we’ll push back and just say it’s nobody’s business. We’re required to give that notice, so we’re going to give them that notice. … have we applied for any permits or anything yet? No. Are we in the whole planning stages of it? Yes, we are.”

Tresler- who, perhaps because of the publication of the ill-advised quote, was not at the meeting because, Conrow says, he allegedly had a flight to Honolulu last night- didn't just stumble upon his high paying job as a Grove Farm's chief henchman.

Tresler earned it as Director of Finance for the county and his role in putting the final nail in the coffin of the police career of former Kaua`i Police Department (KPD) Chief KC Lum by, when all else had failed, canceling his contract with the county on orders from... well, let's just say from above because, although Mayor Brian Baptiste was in charge at the time, anyone paying attention knew that forces behind the effort to slander and fire Lum was former Council Chair Kaipo Asing and current Councilmember Mel Rapozo.

We've detailed the stories of both Lum and Tresler in these pages before, describing details of secret investigations and pseudo trials as well as the covering up of secret documents, including the one written by the administrative judge in Lum's hearing containing exculpatory language actually clearing Lum. When the document was leaked and a member of the public tried to submit it to the council as part of his testimony, Asing actually refused to allow council services to take possession of the report.

But none of that was legally enough to fire Lum. The only way to do that, according to the county charter, was apparently by getting the Director of Finance to cancel Lum's contract.

Tresler, a sycophant of Baptiste, whose loud rants in the county building halls attempting to intimidate those who had publicly charged Baptiste with a variety of unethical and politically unsound actions was legendary among the "nitpickers,"- the council regulars who "got" what was going on as Lum, along with the Chair and Vice Chair of the Police Commission, got the shaft.

Well, as if you couldn't guess, canceling Lum's contract was one of Tresler's last actions as Finance Director and it wasn't more than a twinkling of an eye before he landed his cushy VP job with Grove Farm.

Has Tresler gone too far getting caught in a callous sounding quote? If you think so, you haven't been paying attention. A raise and a promotion seem more like it. Or did you forget that this is Kaua`i?

----

Look for light posting next week- we need a break.

AND THE EXTRA POINT IS GOOD

2011-12-14T13:53:00.003-10:00

AND THE EXTRA POINT IS GOOD: As we approach four years and a thousand posts at this location, most of those who peruse our pages regularly recognize- perhaps with a "there he goes again" eye-rolling now and then- what, to be kind, might be called pet peeves and perennial postulates...

One such "kick" is a result of the fact that, when it comes to Kaua`i Island Utilities Coop (KIUC), the self-drawn target on KIUC's collective butt seems to be subject to re-detailing every time the board meets.

And because they seem to have chronic foot-in-mouth disease and a penchant for opaque operations, they've become easy targets even when their actions are fairly innocuous, as has been the case with the so-called controversy over "smart meters."

Even after going on a quest debunking the health scare- and questioning the so-called "privacy concerns," especially those of Facebook users (a nominee for the the "picture in the dictionary" under "irony"), it's been hard to get those concerned about the energy future of Kaua`i under KIUC on track.

Our long-standing gripe in KIUC's case has been a simple concept that most agree with when they hear it: that the problem with the "coop" is that they still have a business model that says "well sell electricity to our customers," rather than seeing their "job" as facilitating the generation and distribution of power in a manner that empowers the individual "consumers," especially though home generation, at the lowest possible cost and in a manner that's fair to all... cost notwithstanding.

As with many of our repeated rants, we're no closer to actualization than we were the first time we said it than now after the 100th.

But yesterday, after a conversation with founder and facilitator of the "p2pKauai" Facebook group Jonathan Jay, we realized one big problem with this proposed change of philosophy is the lack of- or actually a dispute over- the definition in this context of "consumer."

That's because KIUC is organized as a "coop" and so it is comprised of "members." That's a concept that works well with things like credit unions and organic food distributions where anyone can join based on their desire to participate.

But it is the wrong model for a public utility, where every single person on the island is forced to be a "user."

And especially one on an island with a limited, "closed" system.

Jay told us that even though he lives "off the grid" and doesn't use KIUC's services at home, he is forced to use it every time he goes to the store.

And like a majority of users on the island, he has no voice in the energy decisions being made for him at KIUC. With a population of around 70,000 and the number of "members"- defined as someone who has an electric meter and pays a bill- at around 7,000- only one of 10 have a say in their energy future.

KIUC- to be fair, like other electricity coops- never got around to changing the business model left over from when our system was owned by a for-profit company. Instead they latched onto a common model used across the country, mostly in rural locales.

But changing the business model alone won't really make for a participatory organization where people feel they have a "buy-in" to decisions made in their name.

For that, KIUC needs to move off the current model of serving its "members" and begin serving "users."

That's even more important due to the unique nature of the "closed system" we are forced into by virtue of being an island. There are no far flung places to integrate into our "grid" so where and by whom power is generated, distributed and used becomes much more personal. If we want everyone care about decisions on things like conservation and generation issues we need to empower all the users- everyone on the island- not just the few who directly pay a bill to KIUC.

Recently at a KIUC Board of Directors meeting, according to Jay, a "member" questioned the board's policy of only allowing members to speak at meetings. Amazingly the board decided that it will now let any member of the public speak on agenda items at meetings. Of course non-agenda items are still forbidden from discussion so, for all intents and purposes, it is virtually impossible to get the board to engage in a public discussion of concerns- even those of members, much less all users.

It's time for KUIC to take a good look at the philosophies behind their process and let that decision to empower "users" at meetings be a precedent for an attitude adjustment.

ON AGAIN, OFF AGAIN

2011-12-12T12:40:00.002-10:00

ON AGAIN, OFF AGAIN: We've been merciless with our local newspaper, especially since the departure of "Big Mike" Levine who is making quite the name for himself covering the Honolulu City Council for the online news source Civil Beat with the same rabid no-holds-barred coverage he provided for the Kaua`i community.

But what made the era remarkable- especially considering the seemingly determined efforts of the owners and publishers to dumb down the content and bend over for the Chamber of Commerce crowd- was Levine's tag-team partner Editor Nathan Eagle who, despite the orders from above, managed to shine even with a usually semi-literate, untalented group of underlings.

And now it's Eagle's turn to exit as we've learned with a one-way ticket to South America where he plans to both work and play, "hopefully more of the latter."

Eagle, whose last day will be Wednesday, has no idea who his replacement will be but we fear the worst given that the search for a new editor has been ongoing without success.

The facts that the salaries are traditionally of the starvation variety at the paper and that the job has been advertised locally don't instill much hope that anything resembling professionalism will be a trait of Eagle's replacement.

For the uninitiated, there is a "circuit" where many new J-school grads jump on board, travel the country, spend a couple-o-few years working, first at small papers and then gradually larger ones, trying to make their mark and move up the ladder while honing their skills. Many do it because they need the experience- others because they like the lifestyle.

And separate from the chaff, some of the highest quality semolina has come from that job mill.

The thing is that a Hawai`i assignment usually attracts those who will work for less, and many times that is reflected in their work. The Anthony Sommers, Dennis Wilkens, and the Levines and Eagles of the world are the exception rather than the rule. They generally arrive sans family or attachments and, although they sometimes intend to stay a while, they usually eventually depart for bigger and better things, disgusted with the way they've been treated both financially and as to the freedom to report what they actually see without a filter imposed from above.

The Andy Gross episode of a few years back is typical. The then fairly newly-hired Gross started nosing around the sale and operation of the then newly-created electrical "co-op" and eventually had his copy squelched by then weekend-Editor Paul Curtis, a former close associate of Gregg Gardiner, the "founder" of KIUC. With Gardiner at the helm and Curtis writing the copy at the notorious "The Kaua`i Times" they worked to, among other ventures, overturn the Nukoli`i vote, support the Hanalei boaters and champion various other efforts that took a crap on the people of Kaua`i.

So don't expect much when the new editor is named, especially with Publisher and CofC Board Member Randy Kozerski in charge. Kozerski fired the last business editor for perceived disregard of Chamber news and then hired the next one with instructions to pump up the CofC with more and more "positive" coverage.

So get ready to meet the news boss. We can only hope they're the same as the old boss.

IT'S BEN DOVER TIME

2011-12-08T13:28:00.005-10:00

IT'S BEN DOVER TIME: Our "extra" post yesterday- a news item on Ben Sullivan's hiring by the county to be the new Energy Coordinator- was confirmed in a county press release today.

But apparently others weren't as caught off guard as we were. We heard from quite a few readers saying that they were Casablanca-style "shocked-shocked" that Sullivan parlayed his short stints as founder and head of Apollo Kaua`i and election to the Kaua`i Island Utilities Coop (KIUC) Board of Directors into a well-paid job in the administration of Mayor Bernard Carvalho, Jr.

But looking back on Sullivan's rise from FOB malahini to appointment to Carvalho's crony-filled staff shouldn't come as a surprise to anyone who watches the administration's hiring practices and has interacted with Sullivan since his election to the KIUC board.

We began getting them soon after Sullivan's election- emails, comments and phone calls increasingly expressing disillusionment and dissatisfaction with Sullivan's apparent unwavering shift from perceived dissident to KIUC defender of the realm.

It came to a head with his support for the whole FERC-FFP deal followed by the propaganda- some say misinformation- driven vote that allowed the co-op to go ahead with federal involvement in hydropower projects rather than rejecting FERC in favor of strictly state oversight... especially given the potential for federal "trumping" of the more environmentally-protective local regulations and approval process.

But that alone wouldn't be enough to be a "good fit" for the yes-men and women that kow-tow to Carvalho, in an administration where "never is heard a discouraging word" from appointees... or at least not if they expect to serve in their "at-the-pleasure-of" positions for long.

Sullivan didn't just support board decisions as is required under KIUC rules- he firecely defended them. Board Rule 27 mandates lock-step public adherence to board-determined positions and policies and requires all public statements by board members to be cleared by either the chair or (get this) the CEO. The latter creates a potentially unethical if not illegal situation whereby employees of the not-for-profit are directing members of the board.

He has seemingly relished engaging members of the public in support of those positions and dove in head-first in a rare-for-Kaua`i trait of personal engagement with dissidents... of which there are many when it comes to the electricity coop.

And that is what has made Sullivan a perfect fit for the Carvalho administration. It seems to matter not that he is an architect by education and, although his non-profit work has dealt with electrical power issues, one would think that a highly paid, highly skilled position like this would be filled by someone with training and/or experience in the field... although that hasn't stopped most of Carvalho's appointees from landing jobs with a notable lack of credentials.

Sullivan has proved his worth to Carvalho simply through his ability to stick to the guns of his higher-ups, as evidenced by his stick-to-it-ive-ness in taking on all comers in defending the KIUC realm.

It matters not that he is a relative newcomer to the island or that he is a not "local"- usually a negative for patronage hires under Carvalho. It matters only that he is ready, willing and able to act as a human shield for arrows directed at his boss.

We like Ben. He's the nicest of guys and actually we're sure he actually believes in what he says and what he does. It's likely he will bristle at this analysis of why he got his "dream job."

But given the history of the hiring practices since Carvalho took office just over three years ago, it's hard to come to any other conclusion.

(PNN) SULLIVAN NAMED KAUA`I ENERGY COORDINATOR; WILL RESIGN KIUC POST

2011-12-07T16:55:00.001-10:00

SULLIVAN NAMED KAUA`I ENERGY COORDINATOR; WILL RESIGN KIUC POST

(PNN) Kaua`i Island Utilities Coop (KIUC) Board Member Ben Sullivan is resigning to take the newly created Energy Coordinator job with the County of Kaua`i, according to a Facebook post by Sullivan.

He will begin working on December 19 to carry out the recently completed Kauai Energy Sustainability Plan.

"I am excited about the new position," Sullivan wrote in the post. "I will be working within the Office of Economic Development, with one of my major responsibilities being planning & implementation of energy efficiency & conservation programs for the County. Will be working on PUC issues, advocating on County energy issues to the State leg., working with the Council, and a lot of other cool stuff (helping integrate electric vehicles, etc.) I will also be pursuing grants for County energy projects and working with the team on strategy and implementation of (The Kauai Energy Sustainability Plan) KESP. Dream job, I'm jazzed up about it."

According to KIUC's by-laws, their board will appoint a replacement to complete Sullivan's term.

According to the website of the Kauai Planning & Action Alliance (KPAA), which helped develop the KESP, it "was developed for the County of Kauai by SENTECH Hawaii LLC with assistance from Maurice Kaya LLC and Kauai Planning & Action Alliance (and) integrates stakeholder and public input with objective energy analysis to create an implementable energy plan intended to offer guidance for Kauai to utilize local, sustainable, renewable energy. "

Sullivan will be working under the head of the Office of Economic Development George Costa in the administration of Mayor Bernard Carvalho, Jr.

ANOTHER CLICK IN THE WALL

2011-12-07T12:12:00.003-10:00

ANOTHER CLICK IN THE WALL: The fact that "Photography Is Not A Crime" when taking pictures of police in the performance of their duties- with certain caveats- has been a subject that has piqued our interest many times in this space, most recently when it hit home with the case of blogger Damon Tucker who was arrested and apparently beaten- allegedly by Big Island police.

The charges of obstructing a government operation against Tucker were dropped- without prejudice, meaning they can be brought again- and Tucker has said he is planning on a lawsuit although he hasn't done so... yet.

But his case may be bolstered due to an appellate ruling by a federal, three-judge panel in the First Circuit which has denied limited immunity to cops who arrested one Simon Glik based, the court ruled, on his First and Fourth Amendment rights.

In refusing to grant immunity to the officers the panel ruled that:

Glik was exercising clearly-established First Amendment rights in filming the officers in a public space, and that his clearly-established Fourth Amendment rights were violated by his arrest without probable cause...

(A) citizen’s right to film government officials, including law enforcement officers, in the discharge of their duties in a public space is a basic, vital, and well-established liberty safeguarded by the First Amendment.

The story goes that:

As he was walking past the Boston Common on the evening of October 1, 2007, Simon Glik caught sight of three police officers — the individual defendants here — arresting a young man. Glik heard another bystander say something to the effect of, “You are hurting him, stop.” Concerned that the officers were employing excessive force to effect the arrest, Glik stopped roughly ten feet away and began recording video footage of the arrest on his cell phone.

After placing the suspect in handcuffs, one of the officers turned to Glik and said, “I think you have taken enough pictures.” Glik replied, “I am recording this. I saw you punch him.” An officer then approached Glik and asked if Glik’s cell phone recorded audio. When Glik affirmed that he was recording audio, the officer placed him in handcuffs, arresting him for, inter alia, unlawful audio recording in violation of Massachusetts's (sic) wiretap statute. Glik was taken to the South Boston police station. In the course of booking, the police confiscated Glik’s cell phone and a computer flash drive and held them as evidence.

But, importantly, due to other rulings the judges ruled that, because Glik was openly recording the events he was not in violation of the "wiretapping" laws that many police across the nation have tried to use as "probable cause" and therefore a defense and a reason to arrest those taking picture of police.

As to the actual First Amendment rights, the court was unequivocal- a significant ruling in that it is apparently the highest appellate ruling in this kind of case. They wrote:

The First Amendment issue here is, as the parties frame it, fairly narrow: is there a constitutionally protected right to videotape police carrying out their duties in public? Basic First Amendment principles, along with case law from this and other circuits, answer that question unambiguously in the affirmative.

It is firmly established that the First Amendment’s aegis extends further than the text’s proscription on laws “abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press,” and encompasses a range of conduct related to the gathering and dissemination of information. As the Supreme Court has observed, “the First Amendment goes beyond protection of the press and the self-expression of individuals to prohibit government from limiting the stock of information from which members of the public may draw.” First Nat’l Bank v. Bellotti, 435 U.S. 765, 783 (1978); see also Stanley v. Georgia, 394 U.S. 557, 564 (1969) (“It is . . . well established that the Constitution protects the right to receive information and ideas.”). An important corollary to this interest in protecting the stock of public information is that “[t]here is an undoubted right to gather news ‘from any source by means within the law.’” Houchinsv. KQED, Inc., 438 U.S. 1, 11 (1978) (quoting Branzburg v.Hayes, 408 U.S. 665, 681-82 (1972)).

The filming of government officials engaged in their duties in a public place, including police officers performing their responsibilities, fits comfortably within these principles. Gathering information about government officials in a form that can readily be disseminated to others serves a cardinal First Amendment interest in protecting and promoting “the free discussion of governmental affairs.”

Similarly the court threw out Fourth Amendment claims because of the open nature of the recording and therefore the lack of probable cause. Massachusetts law- as is true in most states- says that, to be considered wiretapping, the recording must be made secretly.

Also significant was the fact that the court said it doesn't matter if the person taking the pictures is a reporter or journalist, as was an issue in "blogger" Tucker's case as well as many on the mainland.

They said that:

It is of no significance that the present case... involves a private individual, and not a reporter, gathering information about public officials. The First Amendment right to gather news is, as the Court has often noted, not one that inures solely to the benefit of the news media; rather, the public’s right of access to information is coextensive with that of the press...

(C)hanges in technology and society have made the lines between private citizen and journalist exceedingly difficult to draw. The proliferation of electronic devices with video-recording capability means that many of our images of current events come from bystanders with a ready cell phone or digital camera rather than a traditional film crew, and news stories are now just as likely to be broken by a blogger at her computer as a reporter at a major newspaper. Such developments make clear why the news-gathering protections of the First Amendment cannot turn on professional credentials or status.

This. of course, is not the end of it, just a small victory in only one circuit and just by a three-judge panel, not an "en banc" (the full appellate court) ruling.

But it is significant for the sweeping nature of the words that can and no doubt will be used by other circuits when dealing with the issue of whether private citizens are entitled to photograph- which of course includes taking video- police in a public place as long as they are not impeding the actions of the police.

I IN MY KERCHIEF AND MA IN HER CAP

2011-12-05T13:02:00.002-10:00

I IN MY KERCHIEF AND MA IN HER CAP: We admit it. Listening to fiscal and financial discussions- actually anything that falls under the subject of "the economy"- is, for us, like taking a handful of Ambien.

So when we sat down to watch the Kaua`i County Council discuss "Resolution 2011-77... establishing the County of Kaua'i reserve fund and reserve fund policy"- as they did last Wednesday- we carefully ensconced ourselves with a nice blankie and set the recliner on stupor.

The issue isn't new and, although some councilmembers obviously disagree, it comes down to a negative semantic that has caused embarrassment to councils past.

For decades the term "unexpended surplus" has been used on Kaua`i for the amount that was "leftover" when the budget was completed. And that has been an open can of worms slithering around on the council table for just as long, as people ask why there is one since, in theory, the council is supposed to adjust the real property tax rate based on how much it budgets.

In practice, some of it is "appropriated" throughout the fiscal year, as needed, through "money bills" and the rest is left over for the next year's budget.

Enter stage right, Mr. Fiscal Conservative, current Council Chair Jay Furfaro, a former hotel manager who has made it his mission to reform this practice by changing the name from "surplus" to "reserve fund."

Now we've given Furfaro plenty of guff for his habitual bombastic oratory that often baffles the assembled with its pomposity and buffoonery. But although we really wouldn’t know because unless it's the theory of surplus value, we're pretty much unable to comprehend complex money matters, when it comes to fiscal affairs Furfaro sure seems to be able to tell his assets from a hole in the ground.

It seems that surpluses are "out" these days and those who recommend fiscal policy on a national basis prescribe "reserve funds"- specifically in amounts of 20 to 25% of the jurisdiction's budget.

Furfaro has talked about this for years so the resolution in question was, in his eyes, a first step in establishing the correct way to look at the fact that the county will still be collecting more than it spends- or at least the councilmembers will have an explanation for the public that doesn't push the "hey- that's my money you're spending" button as hard.

Now, enter stage left, Councilmember Tim Bynum, the "progressive" responsible for things like the plastic bag ban and the exit- by falling off the stage- of former Chair Kaipo Asing after Bynum challenged Asing's secretive, paternalistic policies in the name of open and good governance.

But Bynum found himself in an unaccustomed slot this year as Chair of the Finance Committee after complaining all last year that Mayor Bernard Carvalho's county-employee "furlough" program was actually a political stunt designed to make the legislature think the county was being fiscally conservative enough to deserve our fair share of the transient accommodations tax (TAT)... or at least that was our take on the effort at the time.

So Bynum, seeing the opportunity to make sure that these kinds of shenanigans were a thing of the past became a Republican For A Day.

As a spreadsheet of sorts was posted on the wall-mounted screen, Bynum read off the "surpluses" going back to 2001... $12 million... $14 million... $17 million... $18 million... until he got to last year, reading off- with the proper emphasis and outrage- $68 MILLION.

Noting that this was quite obviously more than the 20-25% recommended for a reserve fund, Bynum pulled out an amendment to Furfaro's resolution that would set a policy for what to do, not only if the fund dipped below 20% but what to do if it got up above 30%.

And, in true populist anti-tax Norquistian Republican form he stated that if it were to go above 30% his "first priority personally would be to reduce the amount that we're taking from the people who live here to give a tax refund or rebate or lower taxes.

"Give it back," he demanded, "It's not our money. It belongs to the people of Kaua`i."

Bynum went on and the only thing missing from his spiel was the actual use of the phrase "tax and spend."

Meanwhile Furfaro looked like he was going to have a conniption fit waiting for Bynum to finish. And when his turn came he managed to crystallize his thoughts in one booming sentence.

"THIS COUNTY OWES 170 MILLION DOLLARS."

The meaning was clear, although Furfaro made it clearer. We've already spent that $170 million- or at least have committed to spending it very soon. The county recently refinanced its old bonds and took out new ones for all sorts of "capital improvement projects" from sewers to levees to bridges and roads... 81 of them to be specific.

And if anything was going to happen with the (don't-call-it-a) surplus over and above the recommended "reserve," Furfaro said it should be used to pay for what we already spent by paying down our debt faster than the current $4.7 million a year.

In other words, now that we've collected the "tax" it's time to "spend" it.

The issue of whether to set a policy in the current resolution- which is actually non-binding and is only to set up the policy of creating the reserve fund that will later need to be codified in an ordinance- or whether to include the policy for what to do if the fund is over or under the Goldilocks range of 20-25%, the paradigm shift of the two councilmembers acted on us like half a dozen cups of espresso, the idea of a nap now only a dream.

While we don't particularly "get" this high finance stuff, we think the means of production should be in the hands of the proletariat- or whatever the 21st century equivalent is. But we usually "get" the politics.

Except in this case we've got Furfaro, the ultra conservative- at least for Kaua`i where conservatism usually goes to die- attempting to spend the "extra" already collected taxes while our classic liberal wants to give it back.

It was a good thing that Carvalho's weekly "Together We Can" snooze-fest was coming up next or we'd never have gotten any sleep.

METERING MR. SMARTY PANTS

2011-12-01T11:52:00.004-10:00

METERING MR. SMARTY PANTS: We've spent a goodly part of the last decade predictably disappointed after Kaua`i was able to purchase its electric utility under the rubric of a "co-op."

Despite efforts to ensure things like democracy and open governance, right off the bat we could see the handwriting on the wall- the lack of adherence to those tenets has been all we thought it wouldn't be.

Kaua`i Island Utilities Co-op's (KIUC) opaqueness and manipulation of recent ballot issues has left most "members" disillusioned if not downright pissed off. And who can blame them.

That has also made every single thing they do subject to not just legitimate scrutiny but every wacko conspiracy theory that is even remotely related to providing the public with electricity.

So enter the latest paranoia-based plot to supposedly do us harm- "smart meters."

According to Wikipedia:

A smart meter is usually an electrical meter that records consumption of electric energy in intervals of an hour or less and communicates that information at least daily back to the utility for monitoring and billing purposes. Smart meters enable two-way communication between the meter and the central system.

Some have questioned the safety of smart meters because they "communicate" using electromagnetic signals. That is true- they use much the same low-level radio frequency (RF) signals and pulsed signal structure as wi-fi, modern cordless phones, garage door openers, baby monitors and similar devices.

But because any electromagnetic force (EMF) is defined as "radiation" there is concern among those who aren't privy to the science behind low, as opposed to high, level RF.

For an excellent detailed discussion on the subject of the health effects of smart meters we turned to an article by Bob Spofford the Energy Chair of Sustainable San Rafael, an independent, Marin County, CA, umbrella non-profit "dedicated to advocacy and community education (of) residents and business people organized around the idea that we can-and must-do more in our own community to fight global warming and encourage more sustainable living."

The article was published at the web site of "Open4Energy" an independent, consumer non-profit that evaluates energy technology devices.

An EMF creates electromagnetic waves (EMW). Spofford writes that it

pours out of every star - - not just as visible light, but in a very wide range from radio frequencies (thus radio astronomy) and all the way up beyond visible light to X-rays and gamma rays. This is important, because it means that humans evolved in an environment that included a lot of electromagnetic radiation (from the sun) and that we are adapted to certain kinds of radiation hitting us and passing through us with no harm.

There are two potentially harmful types of EMF, ionizing radiation and dielectric heating which have been extensively studied since the 1930's.

Spofford describes the ionizing radiation (IR) saying that that

is where very short wavelength waves are able to knock electrons off of molecules creating ions (charged molecules.) These in turn can cause all sorts of nasty biological effects. The lowest frequency that can cause ionization is ultraviolet, which can result in sunburn and skin cancer. They go up from there through X-rays, gamma rays and the particles from radioactive decay, all of which can cause burns, radiation sickness, cancer and more.

As we all know, this is the kind of radiation that can have a cumulative effect.

The second health issue is dielectric heating (DH) which includes things like microwave ovens, cell phones and yes, smart meters.

The potential harm in DH is related to the amount of power and the proximity to the source. While there is anecdotal evidence that long term exposure to a cell phone placed right beside the brain could cause cancer, it's important to note that despite 20 years of study no one has been able to show any spike in health issues for cell phone users in legitimate, published, peer-reviewed studies.

But it's also important to note that the dielectric heating in cell phones- and smart meters- is not the kind of radiation that is cumulative and is generally, as noted, all over the place in the atmosphere. And, of course, no one is sticking their head next to their smart meter for hours on end. As a matter of fact, the signal from a smart meter is emitted in short bursts, at most a few times a day.

As Spofford notes:

The reason for the focus on cell phones is that the radio transmitter in a smart meter is quite similar to a cell phone. It operates on 900 MHz at a power of 1 watt or less. On the other hand, it is usually much, much farther away from your brain. A 1-watt cell phone 1 inch from your brain would is 1,296 times stronger than a 1 watt smart meter 3 feet away (and it’s 14,400 times stronger than one 10 feet away and 57,600 time stronger than one 20 feet away.) This is the inverse square law in action.

The thing is that if you get burned or even "fried" by DH- as happened when a worker stood right in front of an extremely powerful microwave transmitter, Spofford notes- you'll know it. But it's a one time event, unlike the ionizing radiation that radioactive materials emit.

This is a vast oversimplification of the science. If you want a whole lot more than you probably ever wanted to know- or if you've actually studied this stuff and want the full low-down- we suggest you read Spofford's essay in full.

As to the actual arguments from those who claim there might be a scientific basis for the health danger of smart meters he says:

That’s pretty much where established science leaves off and speculative theories begin. The people opposed to smart meters haven’t been arguing that the danger is recognized things like ionizing radiation or tissue heating. Rather, a lot of them express a sort of generalized fear that there’s just “too much radiation” in our environment, and the smart meter is one more log - - perhaps one log too many - - on the fire. They fear that some day we’ll discover a health problem from the cumulative affect of all this low level radiation around us.

I have several problems with this line of thinking:

1. If there is something going on, the big culprit will have to be the cell phone, since the radiation exposure there is so much higher than all the other sources. Compared to cell phones, the smart meter isn’t a “log” on the fire, it’s more like a broom straw. So we should keep looking at the cell phone research, but in 20+ years, not much to be worried about has emerged.

2. They don’t really propose a mechanism by which this unspecified damage might occur, so they can’t tell us what facts would change their mind. This makes it well-neigh impossible for the PUC or any other fact-based body to say “here’s the proof you want that these things are safe.”

3. They keep coming back to the possibility of cumulative exposure to a number of low level radiation sources, and drawing parallels to things like cigarettes, which people once were told were safe. However, cigarettes and other cumulative risks are like ionizing radiation. There are chemicals in cigarette smoke that damage cells from the first exposure, and that damage then accumulates with repeated exposure until symptoms appear. Plus, the epidemiological connection between smoking and cancer was crystal-clear as soon as people started looking at the statistics.

We’ve been working with radio waves for over 100 years, and we’ve been walking around in them since the dawn of time, and we haven’t discovered any such pernicious effect from the kind of waves coming off the smart meters.

As to the rest of the health-based arguments against smart meters:

Beyond the cumulative exposure worries, there are people advancing a bunch of ideas that are just pure speculation (to use the polite word.) Their common thread is that there is something unique about the radiation from a smart meter – because it is attached to house wiring or transmits in pulses – that makes it a much greater health threat than other devices radiating at the same frequency and power. (Fact check: computer WiFi, garage door openers and modern cordless phones all use the same frequencies and pulsed signal structure.)

These claims of unique dangers are posited in very sketchy terms by writers who seem to have little understanding of the underlying science, so I have to guess at the supposed basis for them. As best I can determine, they seem to be borrowing – and misunderstanding – little snippets from ionizing radiation, the propagation of electrical noise and the mathematics of square waves. Until I see a more complete explanation for one of these theories that makes sense in terms of known science, I have to treat them as wishful thinking. However, the proponents are quite certain that their wishful “theory” alone is grounds to reject smart meters entirely.

One more item. Many argue that the Precautionary Principle- which, according to Wikipedia, says that "if an action or policy has a suspected risk of causing harm to the public or to the environment, in the absence of scientific consensus that the action or policy is harmful, the burden of proof that it is not harmful falls on those taking the action,"- should be operative here as it is with, for instance, Genetically Modified Organisms (GMOs).

With GMOs the possible disastrous scenarios in changing the genetic material in organisms and releasing them into nature and in fact ingesting them, is well established and even proponents don't argue there are dangerous scenarios, only that they haven't found anything... yet.

But with smart meters, Spofford concludes by saying that:

My understanding of the Precautionary Principle is different. We can’t “prove” that anything is absolutely safe. That would require certainty of an absence of something, which no one can deliver. (There’s probably a long word for that in Philosophy courses.) The precautionary principle requires that if someone can advance plausible, specific reasons why a product might be harmful, we should hold back until we meet some reasonable level of proof that this isn’t the case. My interpretation of “plausible” in this context means that the feared threat, even if highly improbable, is at least consistent with known science. Otherwise, I could propose banning cotton clothing based on my personal theory that wearing cotton for 40 to 50 years makes your gut grow, your hair turn gray and your eyes go bad. (After all, there’s certainly a correlation.)

So far, the claims I’ve seen that the radiation from a smart meter is somehow “special” do not pass this test.

So, my net takeaway on the health issue is, yes, there’s always the distant possibility that some solid evidence connecting cell phones and health risks will emerge even after all these years. However, even if that happened, we’d have to question whether devices like smart meters, with thousands of times less radiation exposure than phones, are a danger.

We're sure that those that are convinced that smart meters are a monstrous plot to kill us all are sincere. Some cite reasons other than health-related reasons for banning them or at least allowing people to opt out of installing them and we won't deal with them here. But none have addressed the science and instead have used innuendo and "you don't trust the government/big corporations/etc. do you?" arguments which, on Kaua`i, given the history of KIUC is an effective, if fallacious, argument.

So what's the harm in letting people do the Chicken Little routine? The problem is that while they and those they convince are busy tilting at windmills, there are real energy-related issues that demand attention like fracking, Canadian sand-oil and the proposed pipeline, and off-shore drilling... as well as peak oil.

It wastes the precious energy of the small pool of apparently dedicated activist on something for which there just isn't any "there there."

Don't be fooled by pseudo-science or ad hominem and straw man arguments. There are bigger fish to fry than smart meters and indeed, if we are ever to end our dependency on fossil fuels and integrate carbon-free alternative energy into our grids, smart meters are going to be an essential element of that effort.

A DAY LATE AND $700 MILLION SHORT

2011-11-29T12:14:00.002-10:00

A DAY LATE AND $700 MILLION SHORT: We're a little busy today so our assigned reading is Matt Taibbi's take on Federal Judge Jed Rakoff's refusal to let the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) get way with yet another "settlement," this time with Citigroup, for a ridiculously low sum ($95 million) considering the crime but, more importantly, without admitting any guilt.

Taibbi detailed the case a few weeks ago describing one more banking institution that bundled toxic mortgages into high grade securities and then bet against them making $160 million on the wager while investors- mostly institutional ones like pension funds and municipalities- lost $700 million.

Judge Rakoff essentially said "how the heck can I sign off on a deal without knowing what happened?"

Taibbi analogizes the deal by asking

What sane judge would sign off on a deal like that without knowing exactly what the facts are? Did the criminal shoot up a nightclub and paralyze someone, or did he just sell a dimebag on the street? Is 18 months a tough sentence or a slap on the wrist? And how is it legally possible for someone to deserve an 18-month sentence without being guilty of anything?

This actually could set a precedent in saying "no more" to these "no admission of guilt" settlements but don't hold your breath.

CHOKE ON IT

2011-11-28T12:16:00.005-10:00

CHOKE ON IT: If those who treat terminal illnesses with humor really want to get some belly laughs, they might do well to bring in tapes of the last two Kaua`i County Council sessions.

No, this time it wasn't the council itself that provided the guffaws but some of the Genetically Modified Organism (GMO) industry lobbyists and their poor, confused sycophants who traipsed up to testify.

One of our favorite bit of professed balderdash is that we don't need labeling because "no one has gotten sick from GMOs," which would be a neat trick since it might just make it difficult to know of something made you sick if you didn't know you were eating it.

Actually there have been very few studies of heath effects- zero independently conducted ones that we can find- with the oft quoted numbers of studies of GMOs being primarily on the growing of them and far less than 10% on any health effects.

But perhaps the most side-splitting of all absurdities is from those who tried to intimidate the council into rejecting support for a measure to ask the state legislature to initiate labeling of GMO products, as we mentioned a week or so back.

You could see the actual fear on Kauai and Hawai`i state Farm Bureau stalwart Jerry Ornellas's face as he described the scenario that he had been convinced was the future under a Hawai`i law requiring labeling. He described how soon, farmers would be sitting around, first presumably with test tubes and centrifuges to determine if their food contained GMOs and then whipping out the stickers and laundry marking pen and writing out their own labels.

People such as Scott MacFarlaine of the Chamber of Commerce and others had convinced poor "Farmer Jerry" that it would be up to him and perhaps retailers to do this, turning the issue into not one of health but one of "get the government off the backs of small business."

Even though recently states like California have started petition efforts to get their legislature to pass labeling laws and others have begun to consider introducing such legislation, the local produce defilers are apparently going to rely on a divide and conquer strategy that presumes the internet was never invented.

The council didn’t help much with this with every one of them questioning whether the state could really do this in the first place. Doesn't the FDA have jurisdiction and haven't they banned states and local jurisdictions from passing labeling laws?

Well the bad news used to be yes. Until this past July, the FDA has said they were solely responsible for any move toward labeling and when the chief lobbyist from Monsanto was appointed head of the FDA it didn't look good.

But the recent good news is that, according to Consumers International, the world federation of consumer groups,

In a striking reversal of their previous position, on Tuesday, during the annual Codex (Alimentarius) summit in Geneva, the US delegation dropped its opposition to the GM labeling guidance document, allowing it to move forward and become an official Codex text.

The new Codex agreement means that any country wishing to adopt GM food labeling will no longer face the threat of a legal challenge from the World Trade Organization (WTO). This is because national measures based on Codex guidance or standards cannot be challenged as a barrier to trade.

What that means in the US is that, as a signatory of the Codex and member of the World Trade Organization, the federal FDA can no longer ban labeling.

The article cites examples like Peru where

recent introduction of GM food labeling faced the threat of a legal challenge from the WTO. This new Codex agreement now means that this threat has gone and the consumer right to be informed has been secured.

...and in Africa where

Samuel Ochieng, President Emeritus of Consumers International and CEO of the Consumer Information Network of Kenya said:

"While the agreement falls short of the consumer movement's long-held demand for endorsement of mandatory GM food labeling, this is still a significant milestone for consumer rights. We congratulate Codex on agreeing on this guidance, which has been sought by consumers and regulators in African countries for nearly twenty years. This guidance is extremely good news for the worlds' consumers who want to know what is in the foods on their plates". (sic)

Now we don't expect all the conspiracy nutcases- who have tried to turn the Codex Alimentarius into a satanic field manual instead of an international standard for safety and efficacy of drugs and things like vitamins- to give up. You'll recognize them by their "don't take away our vitamins" mantra having been duped into not realizing that their little movement is funded and directed by the evil "Big Pharma" itself so they don't have to test their now unregulated vitamins and supplements.

But this does "solve" the mystery of what exactly happened this summer to allow the states to pass their own legislation regarding GMO labeling.

As to the Hawai`i effort, even though apparently the Kaua`i County Council will join Maui in their support for a state-wide labeling bill, since the measure is part of the Hawai`i State Association of Counties' (HSAC) legislative package, all county councils must sign off on it and, if the Honolulu committee vote is any indication, it's not going to pass there.

That means that the Hawai`i GMO labeling movement will most likely be moving on to the next phase- finding support in the legislature.

The first thing is to find two legislators- one in the house and one in the senate- to introduce the bills. And then the fun begins.

It is never too early to start soliciting support for the measure among legislators. The earlier the support the more likely the bill will get a kind ear from the leadership of the two bodies and get referrals to committees that have supportive chairs and, conversely, not get referred to those committees that have chairs who are close to the industry.

For those on Kaua`i who might have the attention of our four legislators- Senator Ron Kouchi, Representatives Derek Kawaikami, Jimmy Tokioka or Dee Morikawa- it can't hurt to try to pin them down on their public positions on GMO labeling now.

The council will be taking a final vote on Wednesday and the stronger the showing of support the more likely it is to get noticed by state legislators... in an election year. If people can't sit around all day and wait for it to come up on the agenda the council now allows people to speak right at 9 a.m. on any agenda topic. And written testimony can be submitted via email at counciltestimony@kauai.gov .

The Codex Alimentarius Commission decision means nothing if those who have thrown up their hands in frustrated despair for the past decade or so don't act, whether here in Hawai`i or in other states.

We'll miss the non-sequiturs and ridiculously convoluted scare tactics of the GMO industry but we'll always have Marx Brothers movies.

ROOM AT THE TOP

2011-11-23T12:47:00.002-10:00

ROOM AT THE TOP: When former County Clerk Peter Nakamura was fired- or, according to some, quit amidst council executive-session-protected investigations of various and sundry allegations of wrong doing- we didn't really expect to hear anything until the decision on a new clerk was a "done deal."

So when our sources at council services told us that ads were placed in both the local and Honolulu newspapers soliciting applications and that there were a significant number of applicants- even from the mainland- though it was nice to think that there might be a little public scrutiny of the list, we didn't hold out much hope.

And we haven't been disappointed in our pessimism.

The job description of the position of clerk is not just "the council's lackey" even though Nakamura's stint under former Chair Kaipo Asing might have given that impressions. He- or she (yeah- that'll happen)- is also the county's chief elections officer and has numerous other important public duties and responsibilities.

But of course the process- and the names of the applicants- has been a tightly held secret with closed-to-the-public, executive sessions the order of the day for review of those seeking the job.

But given the brouhaha over the release of the judicial appointment list and the Office of Information Practices' (OIP) original stance that the names should have been made public- with which a circuit court judge agreed before the judicial selection committee decided was the best policy on their part after all- we wondered if there might be enough of a public interest in release of the names of county clerk applicants to overcome the privacy concerns in the Uniform Information Practices Act (UIPA), HRS Chapter 92F.

Silly wabbit.

We gave a call to the attorney of the day at OIP and got an interesting if negatory answer. Staff Attorney Carlotta Amerino wrote:

This email responds to your telephone call to the Office of Information Practices (OIP) on November 17, 2011. You explained that the Kauai County Council is in the process of filling a vacant county clerk position and would be meeting on this matter on November 21. You asked whether you may know the names of all the applicants.

The Uniform Information Practices Act (Modified), Chapter 92F, Hawaii Revised Statutes (UIPA) requires generally that government records are available to the public. HRS section 92F-11. However, the UIPA does not require disclosure of records which, if disclosed, would constitute a clearly unwarranted invasion of personal privacy. HRS section 92F-13(1). Applications for government positions carry significant privacy interests under HRS section 92F-14(b)(4), which, when balanced against the public interest in disclosure, have often outweighed the public interest. See OIP Ltrs. No 90-14, 91-8, and 95-2. In Opinion 03-03, OIP found that a list of judicial nominees could be disclosed publicly, but that opinion was based in part upon the fact that judges have a great impact upon the public.

The UIPA also allows government agencies to withhold information if disclosure would cause the frustration of a legitimate government function. HRS section 92F-13(3). While OIP has not been asked to issue a formal opinion on your specific question, and has not discussed this matter with the County Council, it would not unreasonable for the Council to invoke the "frustration" exception if it feels that qualified applicants would not apply for government jobs if that fact is made public even for the unsuccessful applicants.

I hope this information is helpful.

Carlotta Amerino
Staff Attorney

Basically it's not really an answer because although the judicial selection process is cited, that process is detailed in both the Hawai`i State Constitution and in law and administrative rules whereas the county clerk simply serves "at the pleasure" of the council

That leaves what Amerino refers to as the "frustration" exception which says that things may be kept secret if revealing them would "frustrate a legitimate government function."

In the case of the judicial nominees, Governor Neil Abercrombie claimed the frustration clause in that it would have a "chilling effect" on attorneys causing many to decline to apply. But even that doesn't seem to be the case with the county attorney position any more than any other job where one might not want their current employer to know they were seeking another job. And, of course, in any event, the court struck down such an exception in the judicial selection case.

We haven't formally requested the list of applicants mostly because it would take at least a few weeks just to get an answer from the council- which we know would be "no" anyway- and then we would have to submit that refusal to the OIP for disposition and they are so "busy" and toothless these days we'd be lucky to get a "formal opinion" at all and if we did it could take months if not years.

And by then, most likely we'll have a new clerk.

It may be best to wait for the appointment and then ask for the list- we might have more of a chance then because there would be no way the release could effect the outcome due to political pressures, which Amerino suggested to us on the phone might be applicable in this situation.

It's been noted in national surveys that Hawai`i has one of the best sunshine/open records laws in the country- and one of the worst records for actually keeping meetings open and releasing records.

The minotaur thinks the labyrinth is working just the way it's been designed, thank you very much.

THERE OUGHT TO BE A LAW AGAINST YOU COMING AROUND

2011-11-21T12:06:00.003-10:00

THERE OUGHT TO BE A LAW AGAINST YOU COMING AROUND: It gets old quick.

You check in at your activist organization’s web site and there, one of those gullible ninnies has posted comments regarding the conspiracy of the week of the month of the year... chem trails, smart meters, aspartame.

One of the favorites is the contention that all the top corporate media execs and anchors get together every weekend to agree on the spin they will give the news this week. Noam Chomsky laughs off the concept saying basically that these people don't need to be told how to conspire because years of working their way to the top has given them all the required corporate perspective they need.

But last Monday morning even we were startled at how everywhere we turned, TV and print media moved on a dime from a somewhat sympathetic if confused take on the Occupy Wall Street (OWS) takeovers of city centers across the nation, to a sort of "get a job you dirty smelly hippies and stop blocking those of us with a job from getting to it" slant on the movement.

We had a feeling this didn't bode well for the integrity of the skulls of the OWS denizens and sure enough, by the next morning, as though directed by the invisible hand of totalitarian oppression, cities across the country had let loose their police to perpetrate violent, head-cracking crackdowns, throwing those in the streets out into the streets- so to speak.

But the oddest thing happened Tuesday. Reports started to trickle in that, in fact, 11 mayors across the nation had held a conference call to discuss the planned removal of those pesky whiners, according to Oakland Mayor Jean Quan- many of whom, including Quan, acted Monday night.

Although many like Portland Mayor Sam Adams denied the call was a strategy session, none denied it was the topic de jour of their confab.

We had a feeling it was only going to get worse but we had council meetings to watch and local buffoons to skewer. So Saturday, when we began to see the inklings of some kind of viral video of protesters getting pepper sprayed we paid little attention- we'd seen plenty all week already and were all too aware of the all-out effort to all-but-kill-off OWS movement.

But they kept coming... emails... Facebook postings... tweets. Until by halftime of the big Kapa`a High School football game it all got so obtrusive upon our little sports cocoon that we had to watch that which had become the object of all the 'lookie-here" finger pointing.

And it didn't take long to see that the video was- if anything was- going to be a game changer.

So much so that we posted the following to those who had inundated us with links to the quickly and virally-spinning-out-of-control YouTube clip:

This has to be one of the most bizarre things (we)'ve ever seen.

The line of seated protesters had quite obviously been trained in non-violent, passive resistance, yet the cops apparently have not. In fact the officer nonchalantly sprays the whole line of arm-linked dissidents like he's spraying a mound of termites with insecticide while dozens of fellow officers stand there looking on with acquiescence indicating that this was approved if not directed by higher-ups.

But even more distressing is the fact that this is Davis, California, known as one of the most progressive city governments in the country where one would assume that there had been communication and police training in responses to non-violent civil disobedience... (It's) unfathomable that this could happen in this location.

By the evening the clip remained the sole domain of the internet where you couldn't click a clack without finding a link to yet another shot angle or someone else virtually scratching their head in a "is this what it's come to" manner.

Yet the point is- and we do have one- that the deafening nature of the on-line attention paid was apparently inversely proportional to the national TV news coverage.

Saturday brought nothing. Sunday there were a couple of broadcast notes on a "viral video" of a UC Davis pepper spraying event and a couple of outlets even played the most egregious 10 or 15 seconds.

It wasn't until late Sunday night our time (Monday morning on the east coast) that the clip broke through and began running in rotation on CNN, Fox, MSNBC, Bloomberg and the rest.

Seems that the Monday through Friday regulars were back on the job and after some confusion by the weekend crew over whether to actually "cover" the event, the big bosses settled on a spin of "look at what went viral over the weekend" rather than "look what actually happened Friday."

Though the difference may seem like one without a differentiation, the two divergent views of the event point out how any story line that challenges the preconceived and previously broadcast notions of the corporate shills has to be presented with a "we didn't miss this but had to show it to you because so many people were watching it" caveat.

It becomes understandable sometimes how those who see conspiracies everywhere miss the simpler explanations. Because when the herd moves in unison, their eyes in their pocket and their noses on the ground, you got to figure they know something is happening here- they just don't quite know what it is.

---

A note on the performance by "Makana" for the APEC leaders. Despite notes we received that it was "neither the time or place" for a protest song, in a NY Times editorial on how bad the wealth gap is in Hawai`i- and about our horrific homelessness problems- they note that:

The divide in Hawaii between haves and have-nots is grotesque. So is the reluctance to challenge it. A Hawaiian musician, Makana, recently got a chance and blew it. He was invited to play at an APEC dinner, where he quietly sang a protest song, “We Are the Many,” for 45 minutes. Too quietly: world leaders, including President Obama, kept chatting and chewing, undisturbed.

-----

We'll be light posting this week- so much college basketball, so little time.

GATHER YE TORCHES AND PITCHFORKS WHILE YE MAY

2011-11-17T13:03:00.005-10:00

GATHER YE TORCHES AND PITCHFORKS WHILE YE MAY: Though we haven't viewed it yet, reports are that the Kaua`i County Council got quite the last minute earful at yesterday's meeting on a recommendation for a state legislative bill that would require labeling of foods containing Genetically Modified Organisms (GMO).

The Maui council-generated measure was a part of the Hawai`i State Association of Counties (HSAC) legislative package that all four counties must approve for the recommendations to be sent to the 2012 legislature for consideration and, although the package has been on the council's agenda for more than a month, it was the first discussion of the proposal.

Previously the council had concentrated only on their own recommendation for a bill to close loopholes in the solar hot water mandate for new construction which had undergone changes before being sent, along with the rest of the package, to the full council from committee a week ago, seemingly destined for final disposition yesterday.

But a last minute barrage of emails and Facebook postings by GMO-Free Kaua`i turned out the anti-GMO troops and, according to a Facebook posting by GMO-Free 's Jeri Di Pietro, the council re-referred the package back to committee to be debated next Wednesday.

But while the measure is still alive on Kaua`i, according to Big Mike Levine of Civil Beat, it may face the ax on O`ahu where the Honolulu City Council removed the measure from the package in committee on Tuesday and sent it to the full council without the bill that would require GMO products to say so on thhe labels.

The good news though is that Honolulu didn't reject it because they didn't agree with the bill but because, according to Levine, even though "Safety, Economic Development and Government Affairs Committee Chair Tulsi Gabbard said it's a matter of people knowing what they're feeding their families," she "eventually recommended that the GMO measure be removed, saying it's an important issue that needs a full airing that can't happen now under the tight timeline for the legislative package."

But even though the bill may not get the recommendation of HSAC this year, it's important that the precautionary principle be stressed next week to the council which needs an education on the issue to counter the various farm bureaus' silly contention that because "no one has gotten sick or died" (failing to add "yet") from GMOs, they're perfectly safe and therefore, for some reason, people shouldn't be told what's in their food.

According to Wikipedia, the Precautionary Principle states that "if an action or policy has a suspected risk of causing harm to the public or to the environment, in the absence of scientific consensus that the action or policy is harmful, the burden of proof that it is not harmful falls on those taking the action."

Of course the various individual island farm bureaus are populated by Pioneer and Sygenta sycophants who never seem to be able to answer the question of how people would know they were getting sick or otherwise suffering harm from GMO products if they don't know they're eating them.

If you care about the issue, either write the council at counciltestimony@kauai.gov or better still, show up next Wednesday at 9 a.m. and tell them in person.

It may be an uphill fight with big campaign cash and yelps of "jobs, jobs, jobs for the westside" from the industry, but now that the FDA has apparently permitted individual jurisdictions to pass their own labeling laws, the fight has to begin somewhere and with its corn seed folks spreading their Frankenfood pollen all over Waimea, Kaua`i is as good a place as any to start.

TIME

2011-11-15T13:52:00.003-10:00

TIME: Normally when Kaua`i Councilmember Mel Rapozo goes on a crusade it's like watching the proverbial broken clock that's right twice a day.

That's usually because of the babooze factor that addles Rapozo, making his penchant for political expediency obvious to all.

So when, according to the local newspaper, he decided to go to court to show that the word "shall" always means "must" when it appears in legislation no one expected him to be right.

For those who have missed the seemingly idiotic argument last month, the county charter specifies that that Salary Commission's resolutions setting administration salaries "shall be adopted by resolution of the commission and forwarded to the mayor and the council on or before March 15."

Although the charter doesn't say so in so many words, it's apparent that the provision is there is in order for the salaries to be set when the yearly budget process begins.

But when the commission tried to present a supplemental resolution to cut administrative salaries this past August Rapozo tried to nix the reso because, he said "shall means shall."

But County Attorney Al Castillo, always one to make sure Mayor Bernard Carvalho- at whose behest the Salary Commission submitted the resolution- gets his way, told the council that the word "shall" can mean "may" when it is used in a "directory" manner.

Now our first thought was that the whole matter was really stupid because the fact is that it's always before March 15- in this case March 15 of 2012. But we also suspected that Castillo, who shares a case of "broken clock syndrome" with Rapozo, might be pulling a fast one because with two broken clocks the odds are increased that something is going to be amiss.

Yesterday, upon the news that Rapozo was going to go to court, attorney-blogger Charley Foster sought to clarify the fact that yes indeed the word "shall" could be used in a discretionary manner, according to previous court rulings.

The problem for Castillo- who certainly has access to the same law books as Foster does- is that in order for "shall" to be used in a non-mandatory way it must meet a "three pronged test" according to the courts.

The term three (or any number really) pronged test means that the subject must meet all three conditions to be true. And apparently the passage in question doesn't meet any of them.

Citing State v. Shannon, 185 P.3d 200 (Haw. 2008), Forster noted that the Hawaii Supreme Court listed the three conditions, saying:

First, “shall” can be read in a non-mandatory sense when a statute’s purpose “confute[s] the probability of a compulsory statutory design.” [Id.] at 676, 619 P.2d at 102. Second, “shall” will not be read as mandatory when “unjust consequences” result. Id. Finally, “the word `shall’ may be held to be merely directory, when no advantage is lost, when no right is destroyed, when no benefit is sacrificed, either to the public or to the individual, by giving it that construction.

The word confute means "to prove to be false, invalid, or defective; disprove." So the first means that basically it would have to make the whole passage contradictory to interpret it as "must." That doesn't seem to be the case here because it is clear that the deadline anticipates the budget process when the salaries are to be appropriated.

So already it doesn't meet the three prong test.

The second certainly isn't true- there is no injustice in submitting the reso before March 15. It many thwart the mayor's political will but that's not part of the test here.

Finally there is certainly a "benefit sacrificed." The benefit of "salaries" is being altered so the last test isn't met either.

As happens on occasion, even though Rapozo is just playing political games here, he is baled out by an equally politically motivated Castillo who pulled the "directory" ploy out of his butt and thought Rapozo would just go away when he brought out the legal mumbo jumbo.

It's doubtful that Rapozo was aware of the three prong test and just lucked out in that, when he goes to court, he will now be armed with Foster's little side research project.

But then you never know who's gonna win out when the battle of the tiny-yet-devious brains pits two such evenly matched opponents.

INSIDE OUTSIDE USA

2011-11-14T12:18:00.003-10:00

INSIDE OUTSIDE USA: It's hard to imagine how the "Occupy Honolulu" and "APEC Sucks" folks must feel seeing the viral nature and international news coverage of Honolulu entertainer Makana's guerrilla performance of his song "We Are The Many" from the belly of the beast on Saturday night.

For those who spent yesterday in a cave (or outside at the protests) it seems that the singer was invited to play "background music" at the big finale dinner for all the world leaders- the most secure of all ultra-secure events of the week- and instead played a 45-minute version of his latest song containing the decidedly Marxist first stanza of:

Ye come here, gather ’round the stage
The time has come for us to voice our rage
Against the ones who’ve trapped us in a cage
To steal from us the value of our wage

The irony can't be lost on those who have spent months fighting for the right to scream protestations at APEC delegates and assorted mucky mucks from environs so far from the action that they might as well have been in Kailua. Or on those camped out in Honolulu's Thomas Square Park since Nov. 5 who have received scant notice in the local media and certainly none nationally, probably because there haven't been any violent police actions to clear them out as continued to occur this weekend in places like Oakland and Portland.

The fact that one lone man wearing an "Occupy With Aloha" tee shirt under his jacket and singing what many would like to say to the exploitative elite could not only get inside but garner big time media notice while those who worked for a year to pull off their protests got bupkis, is discouraging to the many to say the least.

But the reality is that Makana didn't really get his message through to those attending the event either as reports are that most were so entangled in their own little worlds they didn't even realize what his song was saying. And those who did kind of shrugged.

APEC and all these other global free trade and investment organizations symbolize all that's wrong with the way so-called developed countries arrogantly think that by throwing around their investment capital they're doing people in lesser developed countries a favor by stealing their labor and natural resources and driving them into slum ridden cites and away from their often subsistence-farming-based villages until they so become dependent on ever-expanding industrialization they can't ever find their way back.

But even though our cries from the streets go unheeded in the world's ivory towers, it's nice to see someone get in their faces every once in a while.

For those who missed them here are the words of Makana's song We Are the Many

We Are The Many Lyrics & Music by Makana Makana Music LLC © 2011

Ye come here, gather ’round the stage
The time has come for us to voice our rage
Against the ones who’ve trapped us in a cage
To steal from us the value of our wage
From underneath the vestiture of law
The lobbyists at Washington do gnaw
At liberty, the bureaucrats guffaw
And until they are purged, we won’t withdraw
We’ll occupy the streets
We’ll occupy the courts
We’ll occupy the offices of you
Till you do
The bidding of the many, not the few
Our nation was built upon the right
Of every person to improve their plight
But laws of this Republic they rewrite
And now a few own everything in sight
They own it free of liability
They own, but they are not like you and me
Their influence dictates legality
And until they are stopped we are not free
We’ll occupy the streets
We’ll occupy the courts
We’ll occupy the offices of you
Till you do
The bidding of the many, not the few
You enforce your monopolies with guns
While sacrificing our daughters and sons
But certain things belong to everyone
Your thievery has left the people none
So take heed of our notice to redress
We have little to lose, we must confess
Your empty words do leave us unimpressed
A growing number join us in protest
We occupy the streets
We occupy the courts
We occupy the offices of you
Till you do
The bidding of the many, not the few
You can’t divide us into sides
And from our gaze, you cannot hide
Denial serves to amplify
And our allegiance you can’t buy
Our government is not for sale
The banks do not deserve a bail
We will not reward those who fail
We will not move till we prevail
We’ll occupy the streets
We’ll occupy the courts
We’ll occupy the offices of you
Till you do
The bidding of the many, not the few
We are the many
You are the few

GET REAL

2011-11-10T12:18:00.002-10:00

GET REAL: Email was bad enough. But now that we broke down and signed up for Facebook, we're inundated with well-meaning people forwarding idiotically simplistic solutions to complex problems which they and whomever started the chain took about three milliseconds to think through.

The latest started as a bogus email chain letter that continues to circulate regarding what was called the "Congressional Reform Act (CRA) of 2011" proposing a constitutional amendment that would cull congressional salaries and eliminate pensions and benefits, essentially making recompense almost non-existent.

Bogus or not it became exceptionally popular with those who forwarded it.

So what's wrong with the content? Well let's start with a maxim that we're sure those who distributed the above will agree with- you get what you pay for.

But moreover take a gander at a recent study by the Center for Responsive Politics (CRP), a nonpartisan organization that keeps track of money in politics.

NPR reports that according Michael Beckel, a spokesperson for the CRP "244 current members of Congress are millionaires — that's about 46 percent and that includes 138 Republicans and 106 Democrats."

Now these guys and gals didn't exactly get rich by stashing away their salaries or even through corruption. They started out rich when they ran for office.

So why did we elect them and not, as the CRA folks called them, "citizen legislators (who) should serve their term(s), then go home and back to work (as) the Founding Fathers envisioned?"

Maybe it's because those citizen legislators can't just stop working and gallivant off to the state or national capitol and expect to not just continue to support their families but to have their jobs to be waiting for them when they get back.

Would your boss do that? Didn't think so.

And these CRA people want to make it worse.

We have two close friends who went into politics- just plain working folks who made for extraordinary office holders. But both are out of politics now, not because they were voted out of office but because essentially they were faced with giving up a job they had either trained their whole lives for and dearly loved doing- or at least one that gave them a steady income- for a "job" they had to re-secure every couple-o'-four years.

And in order to do that they had to raise bucketsful of cash and subject themselves to insults that people ordinarily wouldn't address to their worst enemy.

The people who took their places? In one case he's a longtime hack politician just coming off a get-rich stint out of office and working for a local developer. The other is a glad-handing TV personality whose main job in office is apparently to promote his show and every hotel on the island.

Yet when we suggest making service with both our local county council and state legislature full-time jobs with decent pay that's commensurate with the duties, instead we get crap like this CRA petition which is actually a measure to assure that the other 291 members of congress become part of the same rich "1%" against whom we're out in the streets protesting.

At the same time we'd bet dollars to donuts that "99%" of those who liked the CRA have never heard of another proposed constitutional amendment from the "Move to Amend" organization that would put the kibosh on "corporate personhood," as declared by the Supreme Court, which turned on full blast the already gushing corporate campaign money spigot. At the same time many have opposed programs for partial public financing of elections or even legislation- or if needed a constitutional amendment- ending all campaign contributions in favor of full public financing.

It's the penny wise and pound foolish of the world who scream about "paying for politicians to run for office"- as if they're not paying 100 times more on the back end as corporations buy and sell the pols and write the legislation- and would pay office holders poverty wages, who are the self-same ones that are perpetuating the corrupt system that has people's opinions of elected officials at all-time lows.

So do us all a favor- think it through before you hit that send or post button. We’ve got really important issues to attend to... like the Giants-49ers game this Sunday. Go G-men.

SHOCKED, SHOCKED

2011-11-09T12:08:00.002-10:00

SHOCKED, SHOCKED: There are predictable times when we news junkies just throw up our hands and go to the library for a bevy of books. It could be the coverage of anything from the trial of the century of the week or some other bleeder-leader that preempts the rest of what passes for news, both locally and nationally.

So we certainly didn't expect coverage of anything of interest when the APEC minions and sycophants marched into town, other than the obligatory protests and even then only the pictures of sign-carriers and super-sized puppets rather than an examination of why these free trade conferences are the scourge of the "developing world."

But lo an behold, some gun-toting g-man from the state department who's supposedly there to provide "protection" to dignitaries, goes out and gets into a 3 a.m. racially-charged altercation at the all-night McDonald’s in Waikiki and shoots and kills a local kid who's out on the town.

Now that would get our attention no matter what. But the mysterious circumstances regarding the charging and release of Christopher Deedy are even more bizarre than the incident itself.

Despite the "duh" headline- "Low bail, swift release suggest to some that suspect had help"- an otherwise extremely informative article by Honolulu Star-Advertiser investigative reporter par excellence Rob Perez reveals that everything from the relatively low bail and lightning fast release of Deedy, to the lack of release of any details by police, was anything but routine.

Perez asked a pack of attorneys who for the most part agreed that the quarter-million dollar bail would have been "highly unusual" even for an indigent suspect, not only for the low amount but the speed with which it was established, paid and the suspect released- all occurring hours before he was scheduled to appear before a judge for arraignment

Not only that but Deedy has apparently disappeared and could be anywhere, even back on the mainland awaiting a court appearance on Nov. 17 after the APEC conference ends.

The problem is that although many smell a rat due to apparent Washington, D.C. diplomatic intervention, what will undoubtedly not get local much less national press coverage is what it says about our judiciary in that they apparently knuckled under to pressure from above in record time- a record even for the notoriously corrupt Hawaii criminal justice system.

We can't help but wonder if Perez's article will be the beginning and end of any investigation of how a murder suspect could be processed and released in the manner Deedy was. But if the kid's gloves the with which the Honolulu media usually treats the Honolulu police, prosecutors and courts is any indication, we don't expect suspicions of something rotten in the state of Hawai`i to get much attention in the future.

Well, it's back to Carl Hiaasen and Lisa Lutz for us. Wake us when Deedy turns up.

SEEING- AND HEARING- IS BELIEVING

2011-11-08T13:01:00.002-10:00

SEEING- AND HEARING- IS BELIEVING: For some reason we seem to have become the clearinghouse for people calling to find out why the heck recent cablecasts of council meetings look like they were done by an aggregation of orangutans using the very first video cameras ever made.

"What the heck is with Ho`ike this time" they scream into the phone, regarding what most assume is yet another incompetent screwup by the Kaua`i public access TV outlet.

The video looks like a 10th generation re-dub and the audio sounds like it was recorded in a bathtub ever since the council moved back into the Historic County Building and the "automatic" system they had installed during the renovation was fired up.

And that's when it worked. Last week's meeting was pure torture to view with the sound of 120-decibel white noise accompanying the wide view of the panel, and the rest, when it was audible at all, was recorded at barely a whisper.

But after talking to Ho`ike Managing Director J Robertson this morning, we discovered what we suspected all along- for once Ho`ike isn't to blame.

And starting tomorrow if all goes well the "new" automated, voice-activated recording system will be scrapped in favor of the old human-driven cameras and recording devices with a real live director, Bill "BC" Charles, at the helm.

According to Robertson, he met with Council Chair Jay Furfaro last week and Furfaro has agreed to scrub the new installation that was initiated by former Council Chair Kaipo Asing.

Seems Asing thought that system used in courts was the cat's meow so had it ordered and installed without consulting Robertson or anyone else who understood anything about video.

"It's certainly not broadcast quality" Robertson said, understating the look of the JAVS system and explaining that the cost for decent cameras wouldn't have been very much more.

"I wish they would have worked with us," he said.

But while we had the near-impossible-to-reach Robertson on the phone, we asked another question that has been a matter of discontent for many- why the meetings can't be cablecast live like the rest of the country.

When Time Warner took over the local cable system, they finally finished constructing what is known as the "I-Net" which connects government facilities to the public access's "head end" where they send their signal from.

Roberson said it connects the Historic County Building with the administrative offices in the Round Building and surrounding offices as well as all the fire stations, the police and courts complex, all the county neighborhood centers and schools.
But he says, the reason he can't use it is because the administration has refused to let him have access to the signal from the council and planning and police commission meetings.

He says he tried for years when Erik Knutzen was the county IT chief but that Knutzen told him- as he had told us- that both former Mayor Bryan Baptiste and current Mayor Bernard Carvalho wouldn't let them have the live signal, which has been viewable live in administrative offices for many years now.

Robertson said he talked to Furfaro about using the I-Net to put live meetings on Ho`ike and that Furfaro seemed receptive to the idea of just cutting the administration out as a "middleman" and making the signal available directly from the council to Ho`ike.

So are we counting on viewable council meetings beginning tomorrow or live ones in the near future?

What are we- freakin' idiots?

No, that's a question that only someone who has never dealt with the council or Ho`ike would ask expecting a positive response. As usual we'll believe it when we see it.

AZAMBOGUS

2011-11-05T12:37:00.001-10:00

AZAMBOGUS: When it comes to the local Kaua`i newspaper it takes an awful lot to flabbergast us.

But today's article headlining, on the basis of one unidentified source, that "Radiation feared in Airport shutdown; Airport worker: HAZMAT team was looking for radiation" might just take the cake for the all time most irresponsible piece of "journalism" (note the quotes) we've ever seen.

"Reporter" (those quotes again) Leo Azambuja quotes a single "airport worker" who apparently was speculating him or her self for the story which, if true, would no doubt make national headlines.

Who the heck would "go with" a story like this, especially with an apparent denial from the county and a lack of confirmation from the state?

Now journalists do sometimes report items from single, unidentified sources, But it is, as it should be, rare and the exception to the rule and done only under certain very strict circumstances.

If the source is well known to the reporter, in a position to know and has been extremely reliable in the past there may be a way to present the story with consultation and confirmation with the source by an editor. But publication should come only if every effort has been made to either confirm or debunk the story, especially one that could cause a panic if published.

If the call is made to publish the reporter and editor should then make every effort to inform the reader as to the reason for the single anonymous sourcing and any other information on the source that can be revealed. The information as to why the source is being protected should be included making it very clear at every point in the story that the statement is unconfirmed.

This is what a modern 21st century policy would yield at the NY Times, Washington Post or Associated Press.

In this case it sounds to us like the source just doesn't want to be identified because the story is probably bogus and based on idiotic, uninformed speculation.

But the fact that there is an apparent denial changes circumstances. Actually we have no idea whether there really was a denial from County Spokesperson Mary Daubert because Azambuja's reporting on that is so ambiguous:

County spokeswoman Mary Daubert said the HAZMAT crew tested the center checkpoint for toxic and hazardous odors and substances and found none, and found no radiation.

It's said almost as an afterthought and who knows how or even if the question was posed. You would think for something this important there would be a quote and clarity as to what was said by the spokesperson who's in a position to know.

It's no wonder that no one has picked up on this story even though the Honolulu Star Advertiser and Associated Press commonly, by agreement, re-report local Kaua`i newspaper stories. No one in their right mind would pick up a story like this without any confirmation or at least more information or other sources.

The obvious thing here is that, were this to be some stupid innocuous story like 99% of what appears in the local paper no one would care. But this has the potential to cause panic and people- especially visitors- refusing to go anywhere near the screening area or even the airport itself. Who could blame them?

And all based on a report from "an airport worker" who, for all we know is a janitor or someone who has no connection with the screening process and may have no idea what it would look like if someone was indeed testing for radiation.

Sheesh.

YOU WANT IT WHEN?

2011-11-03T12:12:00.003-10:00

YOU WANT IT WHEN?: We tried- we really did.

But once again, like clockwork, our "little buddy" Leo Azambuja, apparently watched a different county council committee meeting than we did a week ago Wednesday (October 28).

Although the agenda item was a report on the new landfill, what actually happened apparently went completely over Azambuja's head.

The acronym MRF- standing for Materials Recovery Facility- never saw the light of day in the article on the meeting. But it was the central topic of discussion after it was discovered that, despite the desperate need for a MRF to move forward on curbside recycling, the administration, as many have feared, is apparently going to wait for the process of siting the new landfill and completing an environmental impact statement to even start actually building a MRF.

That's because, according to Councilperson JoAnn Yukimura, the administration of Mayor Bernard Carvalho is apparently so enamored of their vision for a Resource Recovery Facility at the same location as the new landfill that they won't even consider anything else.

Rather than starting the process now separately from the landfill siting- which won't be done until at least 2020 according to the administration's presentation- there were no plans presented to indicate that the administration even considered trying to get the MRF "done yesterday" so to speak, in order to divert trash from the old, nearing-capacity landfill so as to buy time for siting a new one.

That would mean construction of an MRF won't even start until June of 2016, Yukimura indicated after looking at the administration's timeline.

Not only that but siting the MRF and other resource recovery facilities inland and near the new landfill is a numbskull idea for a number of reasons despite widespread claims that it "sounds logical."

First of all, as Yukimura and Councilperson Tim Bynum both pointed out, hauling the recyclables far inland- where the presumed new landfill site is- and then back to the harbor will increase costs immensely. But siting the MRF near the harbor would actually make sense so apparently it wasn't considered by the administration.

What no one mentioned is the massive mix of trucks going in and out will cause unneeded congestion costing time and money. And of course if the facilities are too close to the landfill itself, it would put the kibosh on expansion into the area where the facilities are sited.

The reality is that, despite the fact that a MRF was supposed to be completed this year according to the Integrated Solid Waste Program the county approved years ago- and that the "pilot" curbside recycling program had to be suspended for lack of a MRF- there is apparently still no fire under the butts of the Department of Public Works to get the process started except as part of the landfill siting process.

County Engineer Larry Dill did come forward to say that the administration was supposedly working separately on a MRF but it seems like a CYA afterthought. It came only after former County Engineer and current Environmental Services Officer Donald Fujimoto seemed incredibly befuddled by the criticism, apparently because the administration has been so stuck on the concept of putting all the trash-related stuff in one place that they didn't see the need for a MRF as being the most important solid-waste-related project for the county right now.

The whole matter will be back on the agenda soon because the discussion was continually being cut short since the subjects of the MRF and the old landfill weren't even on the agenda.

But the fact that even after the embarrassment of having to cut short the pilot curbside recycling program, even after the passage of a new zero waste resolution by the council AND administration, even though the current landfill's life apparently won't get us to the opening of a new landfill and it's filling up faster than it was supposed to and even though all those recyclables are going into the current landfill because there is no MRF, the administration is still in la-la land with their grand plan for their one-stop opala palace.

Excuse us while we look for a place to get sick.

MAYBE THE ZOMBIES ATE THEM

2011-11-02T12:42:00.002-10:00

MAYBE THE ZOMBIES ATE THEM: We've devoted a slew of bits to the case of Big Island blogger Damon Tucker's beating and arrest- allegedly at the hands of the Hawai`i County Police Department (HiPD)- for, as Tucker claims, photographing a melee outside a Pahoa bar last August after being told to stop doing so.

But even though it appears that Tucker was well within his rights to take photos in a public place, the charges of obstructing police operations is going forward, despite the fact that it appears from the video that he was across the street from all the "action."

The statement from the HiPD that "(t)he Hawaii Police Department recognizes that the media and the public have every right to photograph police activity in a public place from a safe distance" indicates that they do know that Photography Is Not a Crime, as the national clearinghouse website of the same name states.

But apparently that is not the case in Los Angeles where the LA Sheriff’s Department is being sued by the ACLU of Southern California "alleging they harassed, detained and improperly searched photographers taking pictures legally in public places," according to the LA Times.

The article states that:

The federal lawsuit alleges the Sheriff's Department and deputies "have repeatedly" subjected photographers "to detention, search and interrogation simply because they took pictures" from public streets of places such as Metro turnstiles, oil refineries or near a Long Beach courthouse.

"Photography is not a crime. It's protected 1st Amendment expression," said Peter Bibring, senior staff attorney for the American Civil Liberties Union of Southern California. "It violates the Constitution's core protections for sheriff’s deputies to detain and search people who are doing nothing wrong. To single them out for such treatment while they’re pursuing a constitutionally protected activity is doubly wrong."

Bibring said the policy and practices of the Sheriff's Department reflect a widespread misuse of "suspicious activity reporting" under the auspices of Homeland Security and counterterrorism. Similar suits have been filed in several other states.

Note that it's alleged that it's not isolated incidents but a policy of the department that is the subject of the suit.

The problem is that it's apparent in our reading of the lawsuit itself that either the cops are complete imbeciles who can't tell real terrorism threats from things like photographing innocuous locations or else they are using the law to harass people who won't kow-tow to abuse of their authority.

We suspect the latter.

Don't believe it? Here's more from the same lawsuit:

In another incident, deputies detained and searched Shane Quentin, a photographer with a master's in fine arts from UC Irvine while he was taking pictures of brilliantly lighted refineries in South Los Angeles on Jan. 21. Deputies frisked Quentin and placed him in the back of a police cruiser for about 45 minutes before releasing him. Two years before, Quentin had been ordered twice by deputies to stop taking photos of the refineries, according to the suit.

With the exception of a few bad actors, we on the neighbor island get accustomed to encountering officers who are genurinely trying to protect and serve and take seriously their responsibility to refrain from trampling on citizens' rights in trying to put away the bad guys.

But as our population grows, we're forced more and more to recruit new officers from the same mainland climes where these kinds of attitudes lead to having a populace that is alienated from the paramilitary operation which is supposed to keep them safe without making for an "us" vs. them" paradigm.

We're not sure what's going on inside the HiPD as far as Tucker's obstruction case goes. We sure hope that they are considering abandoning Tucker's prosecution and even repremanding the officers and instituting training on how to handle such situations without escalating them into news-worthy events.

But as Tucker waits for the resolution of the criminal charges and readies his civil suit, this federal lawsuit is going to be one to watch, not just for us but for HiPD as they wrestle with their own in a department that has had more than its share of bad actors over the years.

SAIL AWAY

2011-11-01T11:58:00.001-10:00

SAIL AWAY: We admit to not paying a lot of attention as we let the six hour plus snoozefest- i.e. last week's Kaua`i County Council committee meetings- play, preferring our murder mystery about a detective with Tourette's Syndrome to the seemingly interminable description of the "Multimodal Land Transportation Plan" that began the meeting.

All we could think was, as Glenn Mickens would say, "as if." But that's another column entirely.

It didn’t seem to get any better as Bill 2415 "relating to exemptions for commercial alternative energy facilities" hit the floor. Apparently some developers are seeing dollar signs and have all this "useless" ag land which can now be developed into large-scale solar farms. And they all want to maximize profits by getting a tax break from the county for installing something that just sits there and creates profit for 20 years with minimal maintenance.

But as the discussion droned on as to whether it was indeed agricultural or industrial use, the fact that there would be a limit to the amount of electricity that our local electrical co-op can handle from an "intermittent source" like solar- which only makes hay when the sun shines- came up.

That got our attention because once again it reminded us of the fact that, as anyone who wants to actually put solar panels on their roof and avoid paying for electricity has found out, they are no longer able to participate in the "net metering" program.

Net metering is when the excess electricity one generates from their photovoltaic systems is sold to the co-op at the same rate the user pays for using the co-op's juice, making the "meter run backwards" as they say.

Anyone who missed the boat on net metering gets paid something for the juice they can't use, but not the same "equal" amount that those who got in early pay.

Unless, that is, you're an ag-land-rich developer.

For some reason, even though the amount that individuals can produce without throwing the whole electrical system into chaos has reached its limit, the amount for those who want to sell electricity to KIUC on a large scale basis has not.
And they're even apparently going to get a tax break.

There are plans of course to figure out a storage medium, whether by using super-batteries or by heating water or a through few other schemes. But these seem to be reserved for those who want to "sell you electricity" which of course is, like investor-owned utitlities, still the core business plan of our local electric co-op, despite the fact that it is now owned by the end users.

Getting "free" electricity from the sun is a great idea. The problem comes when the way we go about it is to make it so that the only one who gets it for "free" is KIUC which then turns around and sells it to us rather than facilitating putting panels on individual users' roofs and providing its members with the "free" stuff.

(Saturday Special) THE LUNATIC IS IN MY HEAD

2011-10-29T12:14:00.003-10:00

THE LUNATIC IS IN MY HEAD: Ever since Thursday we've had a nagging feeling we were missing something after reading the article in the local newspaper about Tuesday's Kaua‘i Island Utility Cooperative (KIUC) board meeting where it was announced that they were going to essentially ignore the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission's (FERC) ruling dismissing of two of KIUC's eight preliminary hydropower permits and throwing the rest into question.

So on Thursday, when we couldn't quite put our finger on it, we decided to rehash the story of the apparently sleazy way KIUC's deal with Free Flow Power (FFP) went down.

But last night it all became clear after we read a Facebook posting by board member Ben Sullivan.

Sullivan for some reason has taken it upon himself to be the spokesperson for the board's insistence that they are not going to abandon the FERC permits or process in favor of what the FERC called the state's "long history of authorizing and regulating hydropower projects."

Last night, in a seemingly tone-deaf statement accompanying a notice for this week's three meetings regarding KIUC's remaining FERC hydroelectric projects, he wrote "I think our approach is a good one, we just have to make sure there is ample communication and that we work together during the evaluation."

"What approach?" we thought. "What communication? The insistence that the FERC process is the right one no matter what anyone says?"

All of a sudden it hit us. Part of the FERC ruling said essentially that they would no longer issue any more permits for the state of Hawai`i. And that makes KIUC's whole stated reason for using FERC in the first place no longer valid.

KIUC has repeatedly said that they had to use FERC because they were afraid someone else would take out preliminary permits and by doing so, under FERC rules, obtain sole rights to develop those projects. That, they said, would have put KIUC over a barrel of having to negotiate with whomever got the permit and buy the power- possibly at an inflated price- denying the coop actual ownership of the facilities.

But now that no one can get one of those preliminary (or final for that matter) permits, nobody can do that anymore so there's no reason that KIUC even needs a FERC permit anymore.

It's that simple.

But there was also one more claim made by Sullivan that flies in the face of KIUC's previous statements regarding the state regulatory process.

It has been a matter of some ambiguity as to whether there is or is not a state "process for approval" of hydropower in Hawai`i. But according to the FERC ruling “Hawai‘i has a long history of authorizing and regulating hydropower projects at the state level,” and has approved 13 projects throughout the state citing a recent one in Wailuku, Maui.

The whole problem with the FERC process, according to Don Heacock and Adam Asqueth- the two aquatic biologists who have been challenging the use of FERC's federal oversight- is that, due to a US Supreme Court (SCOTUS) ruling, the feds apparently have the power to usurp the state's excellent water use laws which protect whole watersheds and ecosystems, regulating stream flow, water distribution and use as well as other essential matters.

KIUC has maintained over and over that they will follow all state regulation and standards in using the FERC process for public participation and decision making, even pointing to a different SCOTUS ruling that they claim may rule out the usurping of state law.

But seemingly contradicting this is another statement made by Sullivan in Thursday’s article.

Sullivan said there are certain advantages to using FERC for permitting.

“One of the them is the cumbersome nature of the state process —and perhaps even the non-existence of a state process — and that’s an important issue we’ve discussed,” he said. “There’s high cost involved in a process that has no timeline for ending, and it’s difficult to know whether it’s in the members’ interest to even engage in such a process. The FERC avenue offers an alternate to that, potentially. It also lays out a process that we can limit, as you have suggested, and I think that it’s something that the staff is constantly working with the state to do.”

So in other words KIUC does NOT necessarily intend to honor all of the state's water laws as they pledged when state water authorities came out against the use of the FERC permitting.

There is apparently some honest- to-god, double-talking bullcrap going on with KIUC (what else is new). If you care, show up for one or all of this week's meetings and tell them to stop the prevarications and misrepresentations, abandon the FERC process and follow the state law... as they pledged they would.

The meetings are scheduled for Tuesday at Waimea Theater, Wednesday at Hanalei School cafeteria and Thursday at Kapa‘a Middle School cafeteria all from 6 to 7:30 p.m.

WATCHING THE RIVER FLOW

2011-10-27T13:24:00.002-10:00

WATCHING THE RIVER FLOW: Our old J-school prof's blue pencil used to wear thin on students' submissions in writing "sez who?" in the margins when their articles contained fully unattributed "facts." It's become one of our pet peeves too- at least add a "reportedly" or the all-inclusive "according to critics."

So it should be too much of a surprise that steam came shooting out of our ears once again this morning when another "according to who?" bit of bull-dinky appeared in a local newspaper article about KIUC's reaction to the FERC decision to "dismiss" two of their preliminary permits and ban future ones in the islands.

In the second paragraph of an article penned by Business Editor Vanessa Van Voorhis, apropos of nothing she writes:

Free Flow Power (FFP) of Massachusetts filed preliminary permit applications with the federal agency earlier this year for projects located on Koke‘e and Kekaha Ditch Irrigation systems. The permits, once issued, were to be turned over to KIUC, under a paid contract agreement with the co-op for an undisclosed amount (emphasis added).

Of course our readers know that that timeline is straight from the Kaua`i Island Utilities Coop's party line and has never been substantiated. As a matter of fact it appears that KIUC was presented with a "deal they couldn't refuse" after FFP obtained preliminary permits from the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC).

No one really knows for sure whether in fact KIUC actually approached FFP or the other way around because the Memorandum of Agreement (MOA)- the contract between FFP and KIUC- has been declared "proprietary information" by the supposedly member owned and run co-op.

But, as we wrote last July 6 just before the "vote" to invalidate the MOA was closed:

According to documents uncovered by reporter Joan Conrow and information that has been dragged out of KIUC CEO David Bissell and their attorney David Proudfoot, the MOAs came about after FFP filed for six- and already received at least three- FERC preliminary permits that allow the holder to exclusively investigate the possibility of constructing hydroelectric systems for the named areas, potentially leading to FERC licensing of the projects.

But those permits are non-transferable so FFP set up shell corporation to file for the permits and after they were granted they "sold" the shell corporations to KIUC under those MOAs.

There's a reason why we put sold in quotes. Because, according to the information repeated over and over by Bissell and Proudfoot, should the members vote no, the MOAs say that the permits would have to be turned over to FFP- AND we would have to pay them $325,000 to take them back to boot.

We also noted that:

People might be interested to know that the person who approached KIUC for FFP to set up the "offer they couldn't refuse" is said to be investment banker Bill Collett, the same person who set up the whole purchase of Kaua`i Electric from Citizen's Electric for an exorbitant amount of money that was still way more than the book value even after it was decreased by $50 million by the PUC.

But the local newspaper hasn't exactly been in the forefront of investigating the claims of its biggest advertiser, KIUC.
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And it seems they're not about to start now.

The article also again raises the question of whether there is indeed a Hawai`i state process for permitting hydroelectric systems. As we first reported last week, in the FERC's dismissal of two of the permits they cited an established state process, one that had been used in developing 13 other hydroelectric projects in the state.

But while, according to the article, KIUC board member Ben Sullivan still questions whether there is an actual state process State Aquatic Biologist Don Heacock explained to us last week that the state process is the same one used for any other stream diversions.

He told us that, as he and Adam Asqueth- who led the effort to get KIUC to abandon federal oversight- said over and over during the membership vote in July, any hydropower effort must use the state standards for water flow and deal with them in light of the effects on the whole watershed and include effects on water use and diversion on the watershed as a whole.

According to the article Sullivan cited problems with the state process in the same breath as questioning whether there is one. But KIUC CEO David Bissell and Sullivan himself had claimed during the voting process that using FERC would never usurp any state regulations.

The article quotes Sullivan as saying:

“One of the (the problems) is the cumbersome nature of the state process —and perhaps even the non-existence of a state process — and that’s an important issue we’ve discussed... There’s high cost involved in a process that has no timeline for ending, and it’s difficult to know whether it’s in the members’ interest to even engage in such a process. The FERC avenue offers an alternate to that, potentially. It also lays out a process that we can limit, as you have suggested, and I think that it’s something that the staff is constantly working with the state to do.”

So which is it? Are they going to follow the state process or claim there isn't one and do a little as they can get away with?

The article also quotes Sullivan as saying "I do believe that we made some mistakes in the early going, but I do believe we’re doing our best in the interest of the community and continue on with an open mind and open options is the way to go,"

If that's at all true it's about time for him and the board to come clean about all the alleged FFP/FERC shenanigans, release the MOA, abandon the other permits and follow the state processes, as they promised during the vote.

MEET THE NEW BOSS

2011-10-26T12:10:00.002-10:00

MEET THE NEW BOSS: The Charter Commission continues its work without much public oversight except when they bring their work before the county council to ask permission to do it- a very strange obsession since the council can put charter amendments on the ballot all on their lonesome.

But it hasn't escaped our attention that Mayor Bernard Carvalho has been on a crusade to use the commission to consolidate power in the mayor's office.

Using his crony Boards and Commissions chief John Isobe as a cudgel, he has sought amendments to the charter that would take away the appointing power of the few boards and commissions that appoint their respective department directors, such as the Police, Fire, Planning and Civil Service Commissions.

But we've gotta ask why he bothers because he and his predecessors been able to evade the law so successfully for decades.

Case in point? Yesterday's thus far unreported Planning Commission (PC) vote to remove the term "Interim" from the title of now permanent Planning Director (PD) Michael Dahilig.

As many may remember when former PD Ian Costa went up in flames amidst an FBI investigation, Dahilig was whisked from the county attorney's office and dispatched to the top planning spot by Carvalho amidst much hoopla over the usurping of the commission's prerogative to appoint their own director.

Of course the same thing had happened when Costa himself was installed over a decade ago when former Mayor Maryanne Kusaka installed then acting County Engineer Costa with only a pro-forma vote by the commission.

This time however many thought the opportunity to initiate a search for a real live professional with experience might be in store, maybe even one that would be a good fit for the island's controlled growth paradigm, as demanded by voters, who approved the charter amendment to put some teeth into the general plan growth numbers in 2008.

But a search of the last six months of PC agendas shows only regular executive sessions to evaluate Dahilig and nothing whatsoever dealing with any search.

So it shouldn’t have been any surprise when this week's PC meeting agenda came out and the first item of business was the "(a)ppointment of the Planning Director pursuant to Section 14.04 of the Charter of the County of Kaua'i."

And since there had been no search, no one could be surprised when Carvalho's hand picked PD Dahilig was permanently installed in the planning department’s top job.

Well, there has never, in our memory, been a planning director actually appointed by the PC without having been hand selected by the mayor, so why start now?

ALL AROUND THE MULBERRY BUSH

2011-10-25T12:59:00.003-10:00

ALL AROUND THE MULBERRY BUSH: Sometime you've gotta wonder what's up when it comes to our state judiciary.

No, we're not talking about the scandal plagued sheriff’s division or the "we be's" who populate the offices and act as if they own the process, if not the judges themselves. No, it's not the probation department that thinks that "field work" is going hunting and fishing on weekends.

If you want to know what plaguing our state's courts just look at the actual rulings of some of the men and women wearing the robes.

Today's decision by the newly reinvigorated Hawai`i Intermediate Court of Appeals (ICA) overturning 5th Circuit Court Judge Randall Valenciano's ruling that allowed the Republican party to "replace" a candidate for the 14th House District who intentionally filed and withdrew just before the deadline, is a case in point detailing how politics often rules the courthouse roost.

The problem is that rather than sort out what the law really is trying to say, they simply shirked that responsibility and disqualified the original candidate for not completing his application.

As Mina Morita- the one who then held the 14th district seat at the time and eventually won reelection- said at the time:

Simply put, Hamman did not file nomination papers for the District 14 House race by the close of the filing deadline because he withdrew on July 19. And, there was no way he could because he filed his nomination papers for the Senate race and a person cannot run in more than one race. The Republicans did not have a candidate qualified for the ballot for the District 14 House race at the close of the filing deadline, therefore, no candidate vacancy exists to allow Harry R. Williams to run as a legitimate candidate.

We went a little further in explaining the way the law leaves room for interpretation, citing Hawai`i Revised Statutes (HRS) 11-117 and 118 as well as Hawai`i Administrative Rule (HAR) Chapter 3-173-1 to explain the mess and in addition mentioned that it wasn't the first time the ambiguity in the law had caused a musical chairs brouhaha at the filing deadline. Two years previously, in the case of Kirk Caldwell, the same lack of clarity squeezed him out of candidacy in any election as the "resign to run" law did its dirty work.

We won't bore you by repeating the technical explanation here again, but we will say that in between the Caldwell and Morita fiascoes, the legislature sat around with their thumbs up their butts, kow-towing to the churches, who had their noses in proximate climes over civil unions.

And as if to reiterate that inaction isn't just a mistake at the Capitol but is a carefully planned result of the Hawai`i legislative committee system, remedial bills weren't even scheduled for a hearing during the session following the Morita-Hamman mess.

Now we haven't seen the decision yet, but if the press reports are correct, the ICA didn't bother to tell the legislature to get its act together and clarify the law - as the appellate courts are wont to do on occasion- so we don't have to go through this again in 2012. Instead they decided the case based on a lack of sufficiency in the application itself, virtually saying "we won't touch this political football" even to say the law is unclear on process thus leaving the matter flapping in the wind.

So when the legislature fails to act again this January and the filing deadline comes around next year, expect yet another debacle consisting of candidates waving competing sections of law at each other and the chief elections officer. And don't worry- we'll be here with the distinctly unsatisfying chance to once again say "we told you so."

IN THE BEGINNING...

2011-10-24T12:23:00.002-10:00

IN THE BEGINNING...: At least new Council Chair Jay Furfaro is trying. Problem is that he's extremely trying.

Since he took over after the de-throning of long time Minotaur and champion of opaque governance, Kaipo Asing, Furfaro has managed to continue the policies that make sure that any potentially relevant or revelatory testimony from the public is squelched. His favorite ploy is what we've come to call the "Jeopardy! Exclusion" where he cuts off discussion between members of the public and other councilpersons just when it begins to cut to the chase because the councilperson didn't put their comment in the form of a question.

But whereas Asing was sharply cunning and devious, Furfaro seems to get more and more befuddled every week by his own attempts at control and command.

As our readers know, emerging under the guise of new council rules were two measures designed to reduce that pesky "public participation in the governing process" which, in Furfaro's mind, is apparently a dastardly plan to delay lunch.

The first rule change was filed under "the old switcheroo" when a plan to allow people to testify on any council-related topic at the beginning of a meeting came back out of the rules sub-committee as a rule simply allowing for testimony on any regular agenda items at the start of the day... if and only if the testifier gives up their right to testify later in the day when the matter is taken up.

Then there was the "consent calendar," a rule to allow the council to simply ignore a slew of communications such as bill submittal letters and various reports and such. It dispenses with a public reading of the measures and allows the council to pass them all in one fell swoop, assuring that no one in the viewing public will ever know what the measures were about and stopping attendees from having an extra chance to testify on bills and resolutions being introduced.

But for some reason, after a month or more of these changes, unlike Asing who used to take advantage of new rules without even passing them (don't ask), Furfaro still can't figure out what his own rule changes actually were.

Last Wednesday Furfaro started the day supposedly taking up the new "consent calendar" by announcing that "if you talk now you can't talk when the agenda item comes up later" obviously confusing the two rule changes once again.

After some testimony- not on any items that had been placed on the consent calendar but on the "no drinking, pissing or crapping on the county building grounds" laws- he again asked if anyone wanted to talk on the consent calendar.

You could see it on the faces of the staff that they wanted to figure out a way to say "uh, Jay..." but didn't want to embarrass or confuse the easily-offended and already bemused and bewildered Furfaro any further.

Finally it took council regular Ken Taylor- ever the diplomat- to suggest that perhaps if they put the "time for the public to testify on agenda items" on the agenda itself Furfaro might see it there and finally be able to comprehend that not all the rules passed this year are called "the consent calendar."

But what's a poor Minotaur to do? With the firing (no,he quit- no, he was fired- no, he quit- no, he was fired) of former County Clerk Peter Nakamura, Furfaro's flank is exposed since acting clerk Ricky Watanabe has left it to the staff to follow and read the agenda items and none of them has the nerve to try to correct their boss- as Nakamura used to do- when he gets off into La-La land.

We know it probably doesn't matter much in the grand scheme of things if Furfaro learns how to chair his way out of a paper bag. But it sure is fun to watch him try.

(PNN) FERC DISMISSES PERMITS FOR TWO KAUA`I HYDRO PROJECTS IN FAVOR OF STATE REGULATION; CASTS DOUBT ON STATUS OF OTHERS

2011-10-20T12:01:00.004-10:00

FERC DISMISSES PERMITS FOR TWO KAUA`I HYDRO PROJECTS IN FAVOR OF STATE REGULATION; CASTS DOUBT ON STATUS OF OTHERS

(PNN) -- The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) has dismissed Free Flow Power's (FFP) and Kaua`i Island Utility Coop's (KIUC) preliminary permits for "Kahawai Power 4, LLC (Kahawai Power) and Kekaha Ditch Hydro, LLC (Kekaha Ditch Hydro)... to study the feasibility of a hydropower project on the Kekaha Ditch Irrigation System near the town of Waimea, Kauai County, Hawaii," according to an order issued today (Oct. 20).

The order is based on the fact that "another developer, Kekaha Ditch Hydro, was already pursuing (the project) through Hawaii’s state hydropower authorization process" calling KIUC's preliminary FERC permit "claim-jumping."

The order also casts doubt as to whether the rest of KIUC's preliminary permits will be allowed stand if the "potential for a preliminary permit issued by the Commission to interfere with existing development activities at the state level is significant."

"While we cannot let a state process interfere with our exclusive mandatory jurisdiction" the order states, "we do not want our preliminary permit program with respect to projects subject to permissive licensing to chill the development efforts of entities pursuing a legitimate state authorization process."

It is unclear what specific state process FERC is referring to. Previous reports and statements from KIUC, opponents of the FERC process and, in fact, state officials themselves have indicated there is no official written state process for developing and approving hydroelectric projects.

In an email today Adam Asquith who has led the opposition to using the FERC process for hydroelectric development on Kaua`i said

This ruling by FERC is significant and fully supports the arguments of the petitioners against the KIUC Board decision to use the FERC process on Kauai...KIUC should voluntarily withdraw all its preliminary permit applications and give up the ones that have been granted. This action would be consistent with the FERC ruling and KIUC's acknowledgment of its wrongful use of the FERC process.

The order indicated that all other FERC permits in Hawai`i- such as the one that, according to FFP's application, would dam the Wailua River- are in trouble too. In further explaining their decision FERC's order states that:

(FERC) has agreed, in a Memorandum of Understanding with the Department of the Interior, to not issue preliminary permits for hydrokinetic projects located on the Outer Continental Shelf. Such decisions are within our authority, so long as we provide adequate justification for them. Examining the facts in the cases before us leads us to conclude that, while the Commission cannot envision every set of facts that may be presented to it, as a general matter we will decline to issue preliminary permits for projects in Hawaii that would be subject to permissive section 4(e) licensing, unless the facts of the particular case present extenuating circumstances that would require the Commission to consider such an application.

The FERC order cited 13 other hydroelectric plants in Hawai`i that had undergone state permitting specifically referring to the example of the Wailuku River Hydroelectric Power Company plant which began producing electricity in May of 1993.

In allowing a state process to supersede the FERC permitting process- as opponents had demanded- the commission wrote that

(w)e note that filing a complete preliminary permit application with the Commission is significantly less demanding than the substantial efforts that appear to have taken place here under the state development process. Thus, the potential for a preliminary permit issued by the Commission to interfere with existing development activities at the state level is significant. While we cannot let a state process interfere with our exclusive mandatory jurisdiction, we do not want our preliminary permit program with respect to projects subject to permissive licensing to chill the development efforts of entities pursuing a legitimate state authorization process...

Nor do we want to force developers of projects not subject to mandatory licensing to engage in the federal authorization process when they have been successfully pursuing authorization from the state, simply because another entity has filed a preliminary permit application with the Commission for the same hydropower site.

The operative paragraph that indicates that KIUC's other hydroelectric projects that have received preliminary permits from FERC will be allowed to undergo state oversight without FERC involvement states that:

in order to avoid similar situations in the future, we will, as a general matter, decline to issue preliminary permits for projects in Hawaii that would be subject to permissive section 4(e) licensing. This proceeding demonstrates the potential for the Commission’s preliminary permitting process to interfere with hydropower development that is proceeding in accordance with a legitimate state authorization process.

OCCUPY THIS

2011-10-19T12:17:00.003-10:00

OCCUPY THIS: One of the stranger aspects of the Occupy Kaua`i "rally" (for lack of a better term) last Saturday was the presence of Kaua`i Police Department (KPD) Chief Darryl Perry. But stranger than his mere presence is the way he has taken advantage of the local version of the movement to pump up his image in the media.

Not just his presence but his statements- that essentially he was there to protect the participants- were widely reported although he and his officers just stood by during the one thus-far-unreported incident. Just after the 11 a.m. start two state trucks came by packed with contra-flow "cone-droppers" who yelled at "protesters" to, among other slightly nastier things, stay out of the street, even though no one was obstructing traffic.

And obviously Perry's fellow officers didn't seem to care.

But Perry wasn't done with his use of the rally for personal PR purposes after Sunday's and Monday's TV and print offense.

Today a piece in the online "newspaper" Civil Beat appeared in the form of an "interview" with the Chief although it had Perry's own byline making it unclear if the "questions" were Civil Beat's (as the first question intimated) or Perry's own.

Anyway he took advantage to of the opportunity to say things like:

The “occupy” movement and civil unrest in general is a means to express displeasure and/or dissatisfaction with the current state of the political climate as it relates to government or corporate policy.

Growing up in the 1960s during the Vietnam Era, and being witness to local protest movements concerning Native Hawaiians, I can understand the frustration of individuals who feel that they are disadvantaged through no fault of their own or they need to stand up for others who are not able to do so on their own.

But don't for a minute think he was supporting the confrontational aspect of the movement pitting the "99%" of the people against the 1% that control most of the wealth in this country and county.

He went on to say:

This frustration appears to be global, but I believe what is unique about Hawaii in their appeal to the silent majority via demonstrations, is that we have great respect for each other which is based in our up-bringing of being pono. I want to make it clear, that this respect for one another is not racial and specific to one ethnicity, it is more culturally based, and as you know, Hawaii is a mixture of all races coming together and believing that we don’t check our values at the door for a cause or circumstances; that our integrity is always at the forefront of our actions.

Ah, the old plantation mentality appeal, essentially saying that we 99%ers just love to be exploited by the 1% and are too laid back to do anything but have our say and go back to our cruddy, exploitative, starvation-wage jobs.

Well we wonder how Perry and his KPD officers are going to react if a plan by the group "Occupy Kaua`i" comes to fruition.

According to a widely circulated email, members of the group met Monday evening and

after much thought and even more deliberation, we decided that we would do an actual "occupation" at the park near the county building beginning this Friday. We are going to have a meeting at the pavilion at Lydgate park on Thursday Oct. 20th at 7pm. We are going to go over our goals, concerns (we have somebody looking into legal issues), planning, logistics...etc. We will be having a potluck, so please bring something to share, but no big deal if you don't. Please inform anybody you know who may be interested in standing with the 99%.

Assuming the "legal" issues can be worked out, it will be interesting to see how Chief Perry and his force respond to the only actual "occupation" in the islands- what with the respect and permissiveness he's been expressing toward the group in the media this week.

ANOTHER REVOLTING DEVELOPMENT

2011-10-18T12:22:00.001-10:00

ANOTHER REVOLTING DEVELOPMENT: There's an old joke about two guys trying out a new restaurant and when they get their orders and dig in, the first one says "yuck- this food is awful." His friend looks up and stops chewing just long enough to say "yeah- and such small portions."

That pretty much sums up the situation with the Kaua`i County Council's newfangled automatic video recording system which apparently not only produces a washed-out picture and garbled, barely-audible sound, but doesn't automatically produce an end-product that Ho`ike Community Television can actually use on their equipment.

According to Ho`ike last Wednesday’s (October 12) Council Committee meeting is still not being cable cast six days later because council services can't seem to produce and bring them a usable DVD copy for playback.

When the council moved back into the Historic County Building after another renovation- the last one having been done in the 90's- they had installed an automatic recording system with fixed cameras and microphones that no longer block the view of the council for attendees.

But in addition to apparently skimping on the quality of the equipment, they also failed to remember to do it all in a way that produces a DVD for Ho`ike playback when the session is done. Rather, according to Ho`ike, the system only produces a digital version in the recorder.

How hard would it be to do what consumers do at home and simultaneously record the proceedings in real time on a DVD recorder? Who was the Brianiac who didn't understand that the process doesn't end with the recording of the meetings but with the successful TV transmission to the viewers?

According to Ho`ike their phone has been ringing off the hook with a slew of people calling to ask those same questions- and complain that the picture and sound on the Oct. 5 meeting doesn't even look as good as those recordings made on the slowest speed of the first consumer Betamaxes ever produced.

For once our presumption that Ho`ike was to blame apparently was off-base, although when we called a week ago Friday to ask about the Oct 5 meeting they said they didn’t know why they hadn't gotten the DVD from the council and asked us to call and find out why. When we asked sarcastically if that was now our job, we got the customary "click" we're used to from Ho`ike.

But the real idiocy is that even with this new system and the apparent rewiring of the whole Historic County Building, the meetings are still not aired live on television via the same system that pipes it into the county's administrative offices across the street in the round building. That might actually make public testimony via telephone possible, as is the case in many jurisdictions across the country. And we couldn't have that and continue to lag at least a decade behind the times when it comes to public access to government.

Oh yeah- and despite the fact that the council appropriated a new staff position this fiscal year just to post on-line the paperwork that accompanies the weekly agenda you still need to drive to Lihu`e to get it.

As usual, the nauseating fare proffered at Cafe Council Kaua`i is lacking in sufficiency. And we don't expect that to change anytime soon. Perhaps a last line should be added to our old joke... "and it took so long for the waiter to get it here."

BUT IF YOU TRY SOMETIMES, YOU JUST MIGHT FIND

2011-10-17T12:25:00.001-10:00

BUT IF YOU TRY SOMETIMES, YOU JUST MIGHT FIND: Don't get us wrong. Anytime a hundred and fifty people show up with signs and chants- especially with an "eat the rich" attitude- it warms our red-diaper baby cockles.

It's just the thought that something not just incongruous but at least contradictory, if not downright hypocritical, was happening, kept us feeling somewhat uneasy from our umbrella shrouded beach chair perch at the back of the crowd.

The first thing that any but the oblivious would have noticed is that the only local face in the crowd was that of Kaua`i Councilmember Kipukai Kuali`i, a former "community organizer" who we'd expect to see at the head of the line with his little "as long as it takes" sign.

Of course the biggest "joke" was seeing a bunch of haoles carrying big sticks saying they were going to "occupy" a part of Hawai`i nei. But that wasn't it either.
The predominance of white faces actually brought us to ponder if, indeed, the majority were actually members of the "99%" as their chant claimed.

No it wasn't just that any of us who actually are a member of the 99%- those shut out of the 40% of the wealth in America which the remaining 1% controls- would actually be part of the 1% in any third-world country. It was simply that those that are privileged enough to actually live on Kaua`i are more likely to be approaching the wealth of the 1%ers than they are to be near the bottom of the 99%ers.

At one point we sat down next to a friend we've known for almost 40 years and mentioned this and the fact that it was likely that many in the crowd lived in million-dollar estates, own stock certificates and hedge funds or otherwise similarly invested funds, not just participated in but purveyed the economic system that they were protesting.

He took it personally and immediately objected saying "I don't live in a million dollar estate." But then we both suddenly realized that, although he had bought land and built his home with his own hands many years ago at a tenth of its current value, he probably did now live in a rich man's home worth at least a cool million if not twice that.

And that's the point. The scene of those of us rich enough to live on Kaua`i protesting the accumulation of wealth was unnerving enough. But the fact is that most of the self-same people hoisting signs and chanting have probably never shown up to a planning commission or council meeting to protest the latest development that is keeping those at the bottom in non-living-wage jobs and encouraging the 1%ers from colder climes to scarf up Ag condos and subdivisions.

And as long as the 99% stay away from direct political action in droves, it's less likely that there will be any sustainable future for the island. Actually we'd love to have asked for a show of hands as to how many of the crowd voted in the last election.

A demonstration may be what democracy looks like. But voting and showing up to a meeting is what democracy actually is.

We left with the distinct impression that although we all felt better in having gone down to the demonstration to get our fair share of abuse, unless we "occupy" some meeting rooms in Lihu`e and the voting booths across the island, we'll all be back out in front of Safeway next year and the one after futilely protesting against ourselves.

MEET THE NEW BOSS...

2011-10-14T12:52:00.006-10:00

MEET THE NEW BOSS...: It wasn't that long ago that we all laughed at the prospect of former Governor Lingle running for senate whether Senator Dan Akaka decided to run again or not.

One debacle after another had left most of the state's voters with a distinct "don't let the door hit ya in the ass on the way out" attitude toward her future in Hawai`i politics.

And why not? In arguably the most Democratic state in the country she had cozied up to the national Republicans two years earlier, opposing our "native son" in the presidential race. Then she dissed every teacher and somehow every parent in the state too with her "Furlough Fridays" in a manner that belied her usual and notorious PR perfect pitch. She had made a show- one that no one really believed- of trying to convince people her veto of civil unions was a "tough decision." And no one had forgotten the SuperFerry debacle which left both sides blaming her for either trying to force the doomed-from-the-start "H4" down our throats or, in "entitled" Honolulu, bungling the effort.

Yet this week's archetypical Stepford Wife announcement of her candidacy caused not just the usually out-of-touch-with-Hawai`i-politics Cook Political Report to call the race a "toss-up" but had many local pundits treating her candidacy with credibility.

So assuming something changed, what was it? Still the same robotic and vaguely spooky Lingle? Check. Still the same predominately Democratic "fool me twice.. ya can't get fooled again" electorate? Check. Still the same draconian congressional Republican cabal that she cozied up to in '08? Check.

So what's the difference? It well may be the rocky row her replacement has hoed.

As Governor, Neil Abercrombie couldn't have mimicked more of her specific blunders if he tried. Suspending the state's environmental protection laws for fishy reasons? Although declaring an emergency to move Nene geese that had been causing the same problems at Lihu`e Airport for a decade isn't exactly the SuperFerry, it was the same thread of political expediency that runs through both in the minds of the electorate.

But in the one place where Abercrombie could have put a wedge between "what a Democrat in office will do" and "what the Republican did," his tin-ear handling of the teachers' union negotiations left many asking what the difference is.

Abercrombie's now infamous "I'm not your pal" statement to the unions and the viral YouTube screaming match with a nurse were followed by the same imposition of a contract and violation of the tenets of collective bargaining that caused massive protests at state capitols in Wisconsin, Michigan and Ohio after Republican governors in those states imposed similar anti-union measures.

Even though criticism of the actions of the teachers' union's tactics in fighting Abercrombie's unilaterally-imposed, force-fed contract got most of the press, the antipathy toward Abercrombie still simmers just beneath the surface among the unions whose support will be crucial if either Mazie Hirono or (god no) Ed Case is to send Lingle back out to national Republican pastures.

It's a long time between now and a year from November and it's said voters' memories are long in Hawai`i. But those memories are made not just in broad sweeping brush strokes but in the daily paint splotches and, to mix metaphors, once a crack appears in the veneer it's hard to plaster it over to keep the wood from splitting right down the middle.

Abercrombie would do well to keep, if not a low profile next January when the legislature meets, at least one that doesn't rock his own party's boat. Because if Hirono or Case loses to Lingle many Democratic fingers will be pointing his way and it will be a short two years until the '14 gubernatorial election where he'll need all the party support he can get.

THE RULING CLASS

2011-10-13T12:31:00.005-10:00

THE RULING CLASS: We've been fairly merciless with Council Chair Jay Furfaro and his foibles and blunders, not to mention his tendency toward chest-beating blowhardism.

His insistence that his business experience in the tourism industry can be translated and applied to just about any situation has resulted in some real head-scratchers and outright bad results.

But recently, out of the blue, Furfaro has suddenly rectified one of the most blatant violations of the state Sunshine Law- one which, despite our constant whining, sniveling and even letters to the Office of Information Practices (OIP) asking them to intercede, has never been enforced on Kaua`i.

In the late 90's we made it our mission to drag the council- often kicking and screaming- as well as other boards and commissions, into compliance with the simplest of sunshine law provisions.

We joined with then Honolulu Star Bulletin Kaua`i Bureau Chief Anthony Sommer- author of KPD Blue (see left rail)- to request the listing of each specific executive session (ES) on council agendas. At the time, council chairs had always just announced that "we're going into executive session now so please clear the room."

Although the move was at first resisted by then Council Chair Ron Kouchi, it was first instituted by the Police Commission when then new Chair Michael Ching and new Vice Chair Carol Furtado acquiesced, saying they couldn’t believe it had never been done before.

Well soon Kouchi consulted then County Attorney Hartwell Blake, waking him up from his notorious perch under the air conditioner at the back of the council chambers, and finally the specific ES's began to appear routinely on council agendas, starting with ES-1 (we're now up to ES-505).

The Sunshine law provision regarding executive sessions reads

§92-4 Executive meetings. A board may hold an executive meeting closed to the public upon an affirmative vote, taken at an open meeting, of two-thirds of the members present; provided the affirmative vote constitutes a majority of the members to which the board is entitled. A meeting closed to the public shall be limited to matters exempted by section 92-5. The reason for holding such a meeting shall be publicly announced and the vote of each member on the question of holding a meeting closed to the public shall be recorded, and entered into the minutes of the meeting. (emphasis added)

But when we asked Kouchi to take a recorded, roll call vote he failed to respond and when Kaipo Asing took over as chair he continued the tradition despite years of prodding from us before we finally just gave up.

Well lo and behold a few weeks ago our ears and eyes perked up when the council was about to go into executive session and Furfaro asked then County Clerk Peter Nakamura for a roll call vote on each matter. And he's done so for each matter at each meeting since.

But of course for every step forward it's two steps backward for the Kaua`i County Council.

Furfaro is a stickler for the "council rules" which are generally passed by resolution at the inaugural meeting every two years, although they can be amended at any time by reso, as they were this year after a committee examined them.

But although community activist Bruce Pleas made it an issue a few years back, the following extremely important rule has gone back to non-enforcement status under Furfaro.

Rule 12 under Public Hearings states in Section e(4)C states that:

(C) Persons testifying shall clearly state their name, address, whom they represent, and whether they are a registered lobbyist, in compliance with H.R.S. Chapter 97, Lobbyist Law.

Not only is this a council rule but a state law.

Anyone either attending or watching the meeting on TV or on-line knows that this rule is never enforced. Recently during the debate over asking the legislature to close the loopholes in the solar hot water heater requirement for new homes, lobbyists from the Gas Company filed up to testify against the measure. They even flew one in from Honolulu. Not one identified themselves as a lobbyist, nor were they asked.

But Furfaro, who seems to constantly cite the rules, especially when it comes to limiting public testimony, seems to have somehow missed this provision.

Apparently the minotaur giveth, the minotaur taketh away.

LIKE A GLOVE

2011-10-11T12:52:00.003-10:00

LIKE A GLOVE: It isn't like it was a surprise when Kauai County Clerk Peter Nakamura* was apparently fired this week.

After all, the first shoe had been dropped over and over throughout the years with allegations that he had cost the county a cool quarter-million in the Margaret Hanson Sueoka harassment suit along with his alleged misdoings in collecting unapproved cash-for-vacation-time from former Chair Kaipo Asing as has been splashed all over the front page of the local newspaper recently.

Not only that but the second shoe had been poised for a gravity-driven trip for months with executive sessions concerning his employ showing up on the council's agenda almost every time they met.

But the fact that Nakamura was offered and accepted a job in the planning department was a bit odd given that the revolving door was wide open for him after his performance as perhaps the best flack-catcher the county has even seen.

We've had a love/hate relationship with Nakamura throughout his tenure. Early in his tenure his penchant for providing information and documents was unique in the county if not the state, where our sunshine law has been cited nationally for being one of the best while showing up among the worst when it comes to how it actually functions.

But that was before the ascendancy of Asing and, in serving the new king, Nakamura of course took to carrying the king's sword which in Asing's case was a heavy instrument indeed.

As per Asing's instructions, Nakamura became the scrooge of public information, fighting with aplomb councilmembers' battles with the Office of Information Practices (OIP)- like the one over the infamous ES-177 that eventually resulted in the recent full de-toothification of the OIP.

Someone that is willing to fall on his sword like that is invaluable in the corporate world and Kaua`i is littered with such former county officials who have found a place in the close knit Kaua`i business community based on their ability to take a bullet for their bosses... people like current Grove Farm VP Mike Tressler who, as Finance Director, parlayed his part in the pogrom that resulted in the removal of former Police Chief KC Lum, into his current high-paying position.

Could it be that Nakamura's claim that he was returning to his first love- planning- actually be true?

Whether or not that's the full explanation, his trip across the street to the administrative offices, while unique, fits quite well into Mayor Bernard Carvalho's scheme for filling positions with "protected" cronies. Anyone who has served with the kind of blind loyalty Nakamura has exhibited over the years can't help but be an asset to Carvalho in a way few if any from the outside can be.

But would Nakamura settle for a position as a lowly planner when lucrative job the business sector beckons? Of course not.

It just so happens that the planning department has a "temporary" director right now- Mike Dahilig who, according to the county charter, is unqualified to take the position permanently. And he has done the job he was sent to do- take over the reins of a department allegedly under FBI investigation and get the feds off their backs... not to mention guiding the difficult and potentially contentious process of passing the all important ordinance that returns scrutiny of tourist accommodation permits from the council back to the planning department in compliance with the so-called citizen-petitioned General Plan charter amendment.

Nakamura- who ironically served as Planning Director under then-Mayor, now-Councilmember JoAnn Yukimura (who apparently was instrumental in his firing)- seems to be the beneficiary of a circumstance that makes his future as planning director all but a formality once the commission acts.

So all's well in the Minotaur’s labyrinth as the bone mill cranks out another bowl of that distinctly Kaua`i-flavored porridge which, while sweet-smelling to the minotaur and his minions, stinks to high heaven to the rest of the island's denizens.

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*Correction: We inadvertently left off Peter Nakamura's name in the first paragraph. This on-line version has been corrected. We apologize for the error.

TIPPECANOE AND ABERCROMBIE TOO

2011-10-10T11:24:00.004-10:00

TIPPECANOE AND ABERCROMBIE TOO: It might have been impossible to throw a rock at our mouse this weekend without reading someone- make that everyone- weighing in on the weekend's bloodbath on the 5th floor of the state capitol.

In case you were in a cave, apparently anyone not eligible for social security was ousted from Governor Neil Abercrombie's administration. But the official word was that the first two, chief of staff Amy Asselbaye and deputy chief of staff Andrew Aoki, left "to spend more time with their families," causing gut-busting laughter to echo through the homes and offices of anyone who has followed the administration's gaffe-filled first nine months.

The pundits have had a field day over the weekend listing all the governor's communications foibles, most of which also had people doubled over whenever his spokesperson Donalyn Dela Cruz opened her mouth.

Even Henry Curtis, not known for humorous takes on the PUC dockets with which he usually occupies himself, went to town listing Abercrombie's aberrations.

Whether it was the "fact" that the head of the OIP wasn't fired for not agreeing with the governor about not revealing the list of judicial nominees or the seeing nothing wrong with not bothering to announce emergency declarations, the governor's team seemed to shoot themselves in the foot in a "that's my story and I'm sticking to it" kind of way at every opportunity.

That was the theme once again this weekend as Dela Cruz not only stuck to the "more time with their families" line but essentially called Honolulu Star Advertiser capitol correspondent Derrick DePledge a liar, in calling any other explanation merely "speculation."

Though we won't excerpt it here, DePledge on Friday extensively cited "sources close to the administration" in explaining the way the older generation of Abercrombie's advisers pushed the youngsters out essentially blaming them, rather than the governor himself, for the foibles.

The most absurd part of this weekend's festivities was the fact that the "grown-ups" who had apparently taken over, did exactly what had led up to the the youngsters being "quitted"- trying to cover up some bad news or boneheaded move with a batch of totally unbelievable bullsh*t.

Even after two others left- essentially in protest for the firings of Asselbaye and Aoki- Dela Cruz was still pretty much asking if we were gonna believe her or our own lyin' eyes.

Abercrombie has gotten off to a bad start, not because of any policy, although the way he allowed the press to characterize him as flip-flopping his way through the last legislative session didn't help. It's because even with a cadre of capitol correspondents that could meet in a phone booth (what's a phone booth, grandpa?), he and his team couldn't control his message.

It's gotten trite to point out that it's rarely the act itself that gets pols in trouble- it's the coverup. All the firings in the world won't help if Abercrombie can't get used to the added scrutiny that comes with a switch from legislation to administration.

iGUESS

2011-10-07T12:11:00.002-10:00

iGUESS: "Resistance is futile" they told us. And they were right. And we gave in.

Instead of what we expected- the usual "egad- Grandpa 'friended' me on Facebook"- our progeny actually forced us to sign up and waste an inordinate amount of our formerly precious time.

It was not just familial insistence- there are now people whose email accounts are so jammed with spam that they no longer open them in favor of being "liked," "shared," and "poked."

It's not all bad. For those who have been on another planet, on Facebook one can "share" practically anything on-line these days at the click of a mouse and they show up in your friends' "news feed"- although the word "news" is often a misnomer.

And who'd a thunk it? All our "friends" seem to be radical lefties who, for the last few weeks have been posting every article available on the "Occupy Wall Street" protests.

We've received slews of hand selected commentaries on corporate greed and related subjects like sustainability and consumerism.

Many of the protesters apparently bemoan our corporate culture which thrives on creating demand for products that we didn't even know we wanted much less needed until we saw the clever ads and decided that, although yesterday we'd never contemplated owning one, now we suddenly can't live without it. Then, as soon as we all own one, our corporate overlords and marketing geniuses suddenly come up with something else we never knew we needed to replace what we just bought so we can throw that "old" crap in the closet and buy the latest thing. More money for more junk, to consume more electricity- all to fill the pockets of more bazillionaires.

Then yesterday- and you probably know where we're going with this- all our radical activist "friends" suddenly took a day off from attacking unsustainable consumerist greed because they were apparently devastated by the death of Steve Jobs... the king of "acceptable" consumerism.

Although we've been one of those eye-rollers at those who pray at the altar of Apple, we're no less schizophrenic in our habit of using a computer and the internet to research and write, if not actual Luddite-themed tomes, then certainly anti-consumerist and even anti-capitalist screeds.

We're not sure why, for many, Steve Jobs sits at the right hand of god while Bill Gates works fanning the flames of hell for Satan. Is it because Jobs seemed to anticipate what we would decide we needed once he purveyed it while Gates merely filled the demanded niche before anyone else? Why is the size of Gates' wallet a topic that spurs anger from we in the new anti-corporate greed movement which is entrenched on Wall Street- and increasingly every city and town across the country- while no one even cares that Jobs left a tiny bundle upon his departure, thank you very much?

We don't own an iPad, an iPhone or an iAnything and have no desire to do so. Heck, we don't even own a cell phone and can be caught complaining to those who do about how, just as "they" perfected the sound in telephones so that voices on the other side of the world come through landlines like we're in the same room, someone went out and invented a device that make Bell's first phone sound clear as a bell in comparison.

We own a the biggest-bang-for-the-cheapest-price PC we could find and constantly kvetch about how the broadband for which we Americans pay $50 a month goes for under ten buck across Europe.

But that doesn't excuse us for the same hypocrisy as the Jobs worshipers practice.

We can remember a conversation a while back with a close friend bemoaning the way our agricultural lands were being lost to agricultural condominiumization. Then she suddenly got a tear in her eye and asked "well w-w-where's m-m-my ag condo?".

So go ahead and preach sustainability while you snatch up the the next "i" product you didn't know you needed until you saw it and then wondered how you could possibly have lived without. It's all part of being an American consumer.

And unless and until we think about it, most of us wouldn't have it any other way.

BURN BABY BURN

2011-10-06T12:26:00.005-10:00

BURN BABY BURN: Ian Lind used to call it a "two newspaper day" when, first of all Honolulu had two newspapers and, they apparently got different information resulting in a different "lede" in each.

But even after the so-called merger of the two, today's treatment throughout the state on Kaua`i Island Utility Coop's (KIUC) announcement that they're going to try to take money they borrowed for a generation unit and instead build "the largest solar installation in the state," yielded at least two distinctly different stories nonetheless.

The local Kaua`i newspaper's Business Editor Vanessa Van Voorhis started by regurgitating the KIUC press release announcement, writing in her lede

Kaua‘i Island Utility Cooperative on Wednesday announced its intent to pursue the development of a 10-megawatt solar farm, which would be the largest of its kind in the state.

“KIUC would have more solar PV concentration (per capita) than any utility in the U.S., if this project can be successfully developed,” KIUC CEO David Bissell said in a press release.

The co-op intends to construct the integrated PV and Battery Energy Storage System project by reallocating a $68 million previously approved loan from Rural Utility Service. RUS had approved the funding for a 10-MW “Gen X” or “CT2” combustion turbine generator.

But then well into the article she pulls the following fact from, well, apparently nowhere:

KIUC says the combustion turbine was originally hoped to be fueled by renewable bio-diesel, but that technology has not developed quickly enough to realistically use the RUS funds in the approved timeframe.

Who "KIUC" is in this case is unknown since the press release doesn't say a thing about what kind of fuel the "10-MW 'Gen X” or “CT2' combustion turbine generator" uses. Perhaps Van Voorhis was confused by an announcement a year ago that KIUC had signed an agreement to buy bio-diesel for their Ele`ele power plant. But the term "combustion generator" sounds like something quite different from burning bio-diesel. Then again what do we know.

The Honolulu Star-Advertiser wasn’t much help since they apparently didn't even bother to call anyone, re-upchucking the original KIUC chuck.

But, as many have found, there's a new kid on the block.

At the on-line "newspaper" Civil Beat we apparently get the real story from reporter Sophie Cocke. She spoke to KIUC Production Manager Brad Rockwell, before writing the following headline and lede.

Kauai Scraps Biomass Plant for Solar Farm

Biomass is out, solar is in.

The Kauai utility is planning to use $68 million in funds that had originally been allocated for a biomass plant to build the largest photovoltaic array on the island – 10 megawatts.

Jeez- was that so hard? And all in 38 words.

Two different "newspapers of record" and one can't bother to make any phone calls and the other calls only the spokesperson for KIUC and seemingly gets the story wrong.

The usual excuse at the paper on Kaua`i is that, as local people often say to their often FOB reporters, "you ain’t from around here, are ya?". But Cocke isn't exactly from Makaweli either.

Guess it's just another "can't anyone here play this game?" day.

THE AGE OF NEFARIOUS/LET THE SUNSHINE IN

2011-10-04T12:33:00.004-10:00

THE AGE OF NEFARIOUS/LET THE SUNSHINE IN: When we wrote about a Kaua`i County Council discussion of a potential recommendation to the state legislature to close the loopholes in the law requiring solar hot water heaters on all new homes- loopholes that are disproportionately used to obtain variances on Kaua`i and Hawai`i Island- we thought there wouldn't be much more to say.

But with the matter appearing for final disposition at tomorrow's council meeting we just had to comment on the "funny if it wasn't so sad" session at last week's committee meeting.

It was another example of what money in politics can do to say the least, with the Gas Company and their campaign cash having apparently swayed the council to repeat the mantra of "options" and "choice" ad nauseum.

Of course with all that dough and the testimony of those who are beholden to the GasCo for their livelihood, it wasn't hard to see why councilmembers were sticking to their mantra, even if it really meant it was "dare to be stupid" time.

We knew it wasn't going to be possible to get to the meat of the matter when, during public testimony, the latest council regular, Lonnie Sykos, dared to be smart in suggesting a reason why there is a 50% variance rate on Kaua`i and the Big Island and only 5% on O`ahu and Maui.

He suggested that perhaps changing the state law might be convoluted and time consuming but finding out why Kaua`i is granting all those variances and perhaps correcting whatever we're doing just might be wise.

But much like those proverbially too busy pulling bodies out of the river to go upstream and finding out who was throwing them in, Council Chair Jay Furfaro, as if to say "stop making sense," interrupted Sykos- as he is wont to do when someone says something he doesn't want said- telling him that he was off the subject on the agenda since the matter was listed as pertaining to asking the state to change the law, not finding out why they didn't really need to change the law

But that only foreshadowed events to come that would show who was really in charge of the show.

It started with Ronald Sakoda who, although he said he was speaking only for Ronald Sakoda, is actually the proprietor of Ron's Electric and Sen. Dan Inouye's representative on Kaua`i.

Saying "excuse me if I cry a little" before plopping his sack of crocodile tears on the table, Sakoda anecdotally bemoaned how young people "making the biggest investment of their lives" couldn’t afford the extra money added to their mortgage when they could be using the money for "a new car (or) food for the baby."

So now the solar hot water heater is going to leave us with starving infants.

Now we know, as talking Barbie used to say, "math is haarrd." When we were young we were thinking of majoring in math and if it weren't for the fact that we stunk at basic arithmetic we might have.

It's not out of the realm of possibility that those on the council might have similar problems so let's try to see about this claim that installing solar water heaters on new homes will lead to famished-keiki syndrome.

A new retrofitted solar hot water system costs $8000 according to the list of building permits in Kaua`i Business Report. There are rebates galore and, according to the state Department of Business and Economic Development (DBED) it's also cheaper to install one during construction than to retrofit one.

But let's even use the 8 grand figure.

We took that $8000 and plugged it into a 30 year mortgage since we're supposedly talking not about rich people building million dollar homes, but about a family just starting out that is struggling to make the payments, so is keeping them as low as possible.

When we divide $8000 by 360 months (30 years times 12 months a year) we come up with $22.22 a month. Add another just under three bucks a month for interest (even though the credit union provides interest free loans according to Councilmember JoAnn Yukimura) and you get a final cost of about $25 a month. That's the actual amount one would additionally pay each month for the extra $8000 in cost.

It could be $20 or even lower with the savings cited above but we'll go with $25.

We wanted to know how much gas the average standard water heater uses so we called the Gas Company and asked. We were told that on average people used 3/4 of a gallon of "gas" per day. We were also told that gas- actually propane- costs $6.56 a gallon.

So when you "do the math" that comes out to a whopping $147.60 a month- we know, that seems high to us too- for a plain gas water heater.

Now the standard figure from DBED is that a solar heater on average will provide only about 80% of the hot water needed. So take 20% off the $147.60 and you wind up with a real figure of $118.12.

So the choice is between paying about $25 bucks- and don’t forget that's an inflated figure due to rebates, the savings of not having to retrofit and the interest-free loan- and paying $118.12 a month, giving baby an extra $93.12 to spend on Similac and Gerbers.

Next was a presentation from Richard Degarmel of the Gas Company who presented a totally baffling "Cost Guard study" claiming costs were much lower than a similar DBED study suggested.

The problem was the study compared a solar system supplemented by an electric water heater and one of those "on-demand" systems rather than comparing it with a solar system supplemented by a gas heater.

This wasn't just comparing apples and oranges. It wasn't even comparing oranges and tennis balls. It was more like comparing shoe horns and rocking chairs, being that neither item really mattered to someone looking for the lowest cost to heat their water.

The fact that no one on the council seemed to "get" is that no matter what kind of water heater you're using- electric, standard gas or on-demand gas- you will save money, even month by month, by supplementing it with a solar system.

Whether or not the eyes of councilmembers were clouded by the fact that the recommendation was opposed by the deep pockets at the Chamber of Commerce, the Kaua`i Developers Council, the Contractor’s Association of Kaua`i and 99 others who provided written testimony, is a matter for speculation.

But it does seem odd that the council couldn't do the basic math to determine the savings of a solar hot water installation over not having one, but when counting up the numbers of those who butter their bread, their arithmetic is apparently impeccable.

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Correction: The Hawai`i Tribune Herald is not "the only union shop in the islands" as we wrote yesterday. According to Ian Lind:

The Tribune-Herald is the only union newspaper on Hawaii Island, but not the only one in the state. Reporters at the Star-Advertiser and Maui News are also represented by the Pacific Media Workers Guild, which took over from the Hawaii Newspaper Guild, and printers at the S-A are also unionized. I don't know about the Maui News.

We apologize for the error.

A LITTLE TRAVELING MUSIC SAMMY

2011-10-03T12:45:00.005-10:00

A LITTLE TRAVELING MUSIC SAMMY: The first time it occurred to us that it had been way too long since we'd been off-island was when Hawaiian Air unexpectedly assigned us a seat.

But then, flying to the Big Island this weekend to participate in Saturday's UH- Hilo Media Symposium was all about change... in the media at least.

The "Old Media versus New Media" panel contained the mucky-mucks of Hawai`i journalism... and Andy Parx- who almost didn't get to go because one of the sponsors said with an upturned nose "he's just a blogger."

We told the story of how, after 30 years in journalism, much of it as a "columnist," we "became" a blogger as a function of choosing the "blogger" software, giving us a McLuhan-esque thesis for the weekend: there is no "new media," just one new medium after another.

The really observant in attendance saw that we were all a bunch of old media dinosaurs trying to figure out exactly what this "new media" was.

Our main observation was that Hawai`i Island has what Kaua`i lacks - a vibrant journalism community with dozens of "journalist-bloggers"- or whatever you call people like Andy Parx and Ian Lind, who shared two panels- many "aggregator" sites and seemingly dozens of local reporters that have eked out a living and in fact a career practicing their craft.

Not to mention a packed room full of J-school students expecting to make a living at it.

There's no such thing on Kaua`i. We feel all alone in a forest- along with Kaua`i Eclectic's Joan Conrow- in "news-blogging" (if you will) because there are simply no opportunities for local journalists here. The local newspaper pays starvation wages and usually hires reporters from those who are "on the circuit" on the mainland. They stay for anywhere from two months to two years and then move on to the next stop.

The few professionals who live here have long since left the trade and ended up selling anything from real estate to "activities" or waiting tables.

The Big Island on the other hand has an actual press club that has existed for decades. And, although there was quite a bit of damage in keeping it that way, the Hawai`i Tribune Herald remains the only union shop in the islands.

The result for Kaua`i is a distinct lack of available information, almost all of which is "courtesy" of the local paper where incompetence is a tradition that began with the departure of (full disclosure) our mentor, legendary editor Jean Holmes, in the early 80's.

But back to the weekend. We did manage to meet people who heretofore had been only names on a web site, including Damon Tucker who, as we wrote last month, was beaten allegedly by the cops and arrested, apparently for taking taking pictures of a melee in front of a Pahoa nightclub.

Tucker was arrested for "obstructing a government operation" and the police, according to reports, allege that he was physically getting between them and those involved in the fracas. But Tucker sat us down and shared the cell-phone video taken that night and our observation was that he would have had to have been a magician to have managed to get between the cops and their subjects.

Though the two clips are very short, the timing between the two is what caught our attention.

In the first, which is only nine seconds long, an officer can be seen telling Tucker to "stop" and that’s where it ends. Tucker says that the rest of the sentence was "taking pictures" or something to that effect.

The second clip was taken one minute and thirty-one seconds later according to the time stamp and in it you can hear the sound of handcuffs being put on Tucker and in that intervening time is when Tucker says he was thrown to the ground and beaten.

The thing is that according to Tucker, the view is of the officer standing almost directly across the street from the nightclub where the fight occurred with Tucker taking the video right in front of him. That means that in the minute and a half, if the police's story were true, Tucker would have had to have crossed the street, gotten between the police and the fighters gone back to the other side of the street and been taken down, beaten and handcuffed.

In addition Tucker had a regular camera which the police confiscated and claimed that that was what he used to take the pictures of the fight. So add "getting out the regular camera" to the list of chores he miraculously performed in a minute and a half.

Oh- and according to Tucker, the police have told his attorney that there were no pictures on the memory card of the camera.

Today according to Associated Press,

Journalist Amy Goodman, host of the syndicated program "Democracy Now!" and two of her producers will receive $100,000 in a settlement over their arrests during the 2008 Republican National Convention in St. Paul.

Many will remember how Goodman was arrested simply doing her job in reporting on the convention.

"When journalists are arrested, it is not only a violation of the freedom the press, but of the public's right to know," Goodman said in a statement. "When journalists are handcuffed and abused, so is democracy. We should not have to get a record when we put things on the record."

Getting back to the symposium, it seemed that every time we mentioned Tucker's name in close proximity to the word "reporter" it elicited an audible groan and a rolling of the eyes from the professionals there.

But the fact is that when someone is acting in the capacity of a reporter and has the means to distribute the story and has done so in the past, that person becomes a reporter by performing the act of reporting.

And that may be the crux of why many in the old guard of the old media insisted on there being reporting standards of professionalism for bloggers, especially those who do reporting and opinion in the same piece.

We maintained that there's no need because critical readers will be able to sort out who is reliably reporting events even if it is intermixed with opinion. And of course those without those skills will not.

It's really no different than it's ever been. When we were growing up you could either read the New York Times or The New York Post. Some people can't tell the difference and for them their lack of critical reading and thinking skills will never allow them to distinguish between the two. Even with time showing the reliability of the Times and their reputation for veracity that comes with it, those who lack those skills will see the Post's material as factual no matter how often they are proven to be purveying false information.

The lesson we took from the symposium is that the "new media" is simply a function of the new technology- nothing more and nothing less. There's no need for new rules of journalism on the part of the writers because the readers and their skills will be what determines the viability of each publication in the future.

As it was half a century ago, the medium is still the message and no new gizmo is going to change that.

PAY THE LADY

2011-09-28T12:11:00.002-10:00

PAY THE LADY: Kaua`i County Council meetings are generally political exercises with long-winded, often well-deserved finger pointing at a stumble-bum mayor and his ever expanding cadre of appointed dimwitted cronies being the rule rather than the exception.

So it was no surprise that the subject of paying them all resulted in a few of the wilder politically-tinged sessions, with each councilmember unable to agree with any of the others on what the biggest issue was but all agreeing there's something rotten in the state of Lihu`e.

We've yet to view yesterday's finale to the latest chapter in the continuing saga regarding the most recent Salary Commission resolution where it was allowed to become law, if (always a big if) the local newspaper article is to be believed.

But anyone who has paid attention over the years knows that the debacle of political gamesmanship in every nook and cranny of Kaua`i government is the result of an ironic and iconic self-lit exploding cigar.

The subject of any legislative body's salaries is always a touchy subject. Kaua`i was no different and decades back the Salary Commission (SC) was created to take some of the pressure off the council so they could get a raise without really proposing one.

The only problem was that even with a recommendation from the SC, the council still had to ultimately vote to raise their own salaries. They tried some tinkering over the years, once to change the county charter to make any raise take effect only after the next election. But that didn't do any good because everyone knew that the incumbents were reelected over and over.

So throughout the 90's and into the 2000's, the council's, the mayor's and all other appointed officials' salaries remained the same because the council couldn’t stand the political heat associated with raising them. The council's salary for what was turning into a full time job as the island grew, was stuck at $28,000 and $32,000 for the chair. Some of their clerks were getting almost twice that.

It got to the point where civil service workers in many departments were getting paid a lot more than the department heads. In one case the salary for the County Engineer- the head of the Public Works Department- was so low he quit to take a civil service job in the behemoth department, leaving the job open for many years because no one who was qualified would take it.

Finally a solution was proposed. In an "experiment to take the politics out of the process," as it was called, the SC resolution wasn't advisory any more but would automatically take effect unless five or more members of the council voted stop it.

But really it was just an illusory change and although the smoke and mirror machines were fully engaged, people saw- or at least the council assumed the people saw, which is the same thing- that the council was still, in essence, in charge of either accepting or rejecting their own raises.

Though the first few raises went through with minimal grumbling because voters accepted the "salary inversion" excuse cited above, no one foresaw that the exponentially ballooning pay raises contained in the multiple-year resolutions would become outrageous when things like "furlough Fridays" and 5% pay cuts came about after the bottom fell out of the free enterprise system.

All of a sudden the whole process had to be reversed and the council was faced with a "yes means no and no means yes" situation where allowing the current resolution to pass would actually be giving out pay cuts and voting to reject the reso would allow raises to go into effect.

That's where the incompetence of the local newspaper comes in because none of the council members trusted reporter Leo Azambuja to correctly report the story so each councilmember, with visions of "Council Votes For Pay Raise Resolution" headlines, came up with his or her own excuse for why they were voting against the reso.

Some cited the March 15 date in the charter by which the resolution "shall" be forwarded to the council. One cited the apparent ethical violation allowing Boards and Commissions Administrator John Isobe to write the actual resolution lowering everyone's salary but giving himself a raise. Another claimed that the mayor directed the whole thing, charging impropriety through interference with the supposedly independent SC. Still another complained about the fact that the budget didn’t reflect the resolution even though the amounts were actually less than the salaries appropriated in the budget.

It got so wild that, in an unprecedented move, County Attorney Al Castillo took the hot seat and gave off-the-cuff verbal legal advice, trying to placate councilmembers' various phoney finaglings, with often conflicting and confusing opinions... made all the more perplexing when Castillo's deputy Mona Clarke sat in and gave even more advice, much of which was at odds with Castillo's counsel.

It's no wonder that the the council couldn’t even actively decide to "receive" the reso, essentially killing it and had to kill it via a reported tie vote which had the same effect of receiving it but without the full set of fingerprints.

Meanwhile any changes to Article XXIX of the charter regarding the Salary Commission isn't even on the radar screen of the Charter Commission which is contemplating asking voters once again to remove the prohibition on board and commission members from asking for money, favors and otherwise lobbying the council, planning commission and other boards and commissions... even though the same amendment was soundly rejected in 2010.

If campaign money is the mother's milk of politics then the actual salaries of elected officials is the meat and potatoes. But either way there's bound to a nice buffet spread to enable the expected politically-motivated food fight when next year's salary resolution hits the council floor.

DOIN' A BANG-BANG UP JOB

2011-09-27T12:53:00.003-10:00

DOIN' A BANG-BANG UP JOB: Kaua`i police, weapons drawn, descended on the old Lihu`e courthouse today, firing at random.

And they will be all week if they act in accordance with a press release issued by the Kaua`i Police Department (KPD) yesterday afternoon that apparently somehow failed to make it into today's local newspaper.

Although according to the press release it's only an "official training" exercise using "blanks," with the total lack of notification of the populace at large we expect that if all goes as planned, people will be diving under cars or running in circles, hands to cheeks, shrieking at the top of their lungs in fright since no one in KPD thought to issue the release earlier or make sure people were properly informed.

The whole release reads:

Police to conduct training exercise this week

LĪHU`E – The Kaua‘i Police Department (KPD) will be conducting official training today through Thursday, between the hours of 7:45 a.m. and 4:30 p.m., at the former Fifth Circuit Court Building located on Umi Street in Līhu‘e.

The public may see officers in the vicinity of the building with weapons drawn. Please note that this is only training. No live munitions will be used, although the sounds of blank rounds may be heard.

KPD requests the public’s assistance in keeping a distance from, and not interfering with the training exercise.

Of course it would have helped if the Honolulu newspaper's on-line edition wasn't hidden behind their pay wall because in a tiny, buried, somewhat more sensational blurb in their "Newswatch" briefs they told people- well actually they told only their paid subscribers- that:

Police training on Umi Street will involve guns

The Kauai Police Department will be conducting realistic-looking training through Thursday at the former 5th Circuit Court Building on Umi Street in Lihue, the county said in a news release.

The public might see officers in the vicinity of the building with weapons drawn and might hear gunfire, but the rounds will be blank. The exercise began Monday and will run between 7:45 a.m. and 4:30 p.m.

Of course if people drop dead from a heart attack or do something stupid like get hit by a breadtruck after running out into traffic in a panic, there will be plenty of blame to go around since the local newspaper apparently had plenty of time and opportunity to get the news out by press time.

You would think with something as important as the fact those cops firing weapons in an apparent assault on a building in the central Lihu`e Civic Center area are, in fact, "only joking" would be something people would actually be informed about.

But noooo- not on Kaua`i. Apparently it's just another one for the "can't anyone here play this game?" file.

BEWARE THE IDES OF MARCH

2011-09-26T12:17:00.004-10:00

BEWARE THE IDES OF MARCH: Reading the local newspaper for information is normally like drinking diet soda looking for nutrition. And when it comes to government beat reporter Leo Azambuja's dispatches, it's often as if someone slipped a Mickey in your drink.

But if a particularly complicated discussion takes place in the council chambers, readers will probably wind up with a can of dehydrated water.

Such was our little buddy's report on the Salary Commission resolution being considered by the council last Wednesday, mostly because the very basic prerequisite facts for understanding what happened were either missing, mentioned without any context or explanation, or placed at the very end of the article.

One such missing fact is that the way salaries for appointed and elected officials are designated in the Kaua`i County Charter is that our Salary Commission set "caps" for the amount and then the appointing authority in each case designates the actual salaries. And, most importantly, the council must actively reject the resolution from the commission with at least five votes or it is automatically deemed to have been passed.

Those few words might have made the article intelligible but the "automatic passage" fact was missing in action and the words "appointing authority" not only appear 1022 words into a 1330 word piece but just kind of float there like a bug in our aforementioned soft drink.

But really that's beside the point because the real news from the meeting- what should have been the "lede"- could be summed up in the headline: Rapozo Levels Ethics Charges Against Isobe In Pay Raise Flap.

In all fairness this is what did appear 217 words before the end of the article:

Rapozo said it was ironic that the person who crafted the resolution, Boards and Commissions Administrator John Isobe, was the only county official who would get a pay raise if the new resolution is approved. Isobe’s position is not listed in the new resolution.

Ironic? How about corrupt.

Rapozo actually detailed how, according to salary commission documents and minutes, the salary commission, under Chair Charley King of King Auto Center, decided to allow Isobe to draft the actual resolution to be sent to the council, supposedly freezing many executive salaries at a lower level than had been contained in the previous resolution.

But when the final reso showed up before the council the only one whose salary cap was actually raised rather than lowered was Isobe's.

But it got worse. In trying to deny that any funny business took place, Council Chair Jay Furfaro took the tactic of defending, not Isobe but King, saying his integrity was essentially beyond reproach.

But if Charley is cast in the role of Caesar's wife then Leo is a competent journalist.

King has been a chief Republican leader and fundraiser for decades on Kaua`i and was widely thought to be the most influential person in the administrations of former Mayors Maryanne Kusaka and Bryan Baptiste.

As to King's "ethics" one example that sticks in out mind is "Big Red Chrysler-gate."

Kusaka was known to like "nice things." When she first got elected she was discovered to be selling jewelry to people seeking favors from her- right out of her office- in order to support her own expensive habit.

But one thing she didn't have was a nice big luxury car. So when she showed up driving a big red top-of-the-line Chrysler New Yorker people started to ask questions.

Well it seems that when Kusaka took office she had suckered the council into what was called "program based budgeting." The conflicts with the prior council and then Mayor, now Councilmember, JoAnn Yukimura, were legendary. So, in those post-Rodney King "why can't we all just get along" days, she brought in Steven Covey of the infamous "7 Habits of Highly Manipulative Jerkwads" or something like that and held love fests with the legislators.

In a gesture of this spirit of Kumbaya, the council eliminated "line-item" budgeting- where every expenditure is specifically appropriated by the council- to this "program based" system where the council essentially threw a big old heap of money at each department with little or no accountability for what it was spent on.

And one of the biggest mounds of moolah was that for the mayor's office which included not only her staff's expenses and salaries but those of most of the "agencies" that aren't created by the county charter.

So, with what amounted to her own multi-million-dollar slush fund, rather than buy her own car and charge the county for official uses, Kusaka didn't just get the county to buy the car but actually leased the Chrysler at multiples of what the purchase would have cost taxpayers.

And who did she lease it from? Why of course her chief adviser and campaign contributor and bundler Charley King who also made out pretty well on the exorbitant terms of the lease.

And of course it was almost impossible to actually figure all this out because there was no real record of it- or at last none that were reported to the council which is the body responsible for overseeing the purse strings of the county. It took some loose lips in the administration and a bit of investigative work by Honolulu Star-Bulletin Bureau Chief Anthony Sommer- the author of KPD Blue (see left rail)- to break the story to the "shocked-shocked" councilmembers who promptly went back to line-item budgeting... at their earliest possible convenience.

We have to admit that the funniest part of all of this was Furfaro's Shakespearean "but Charley is an honorable man" routine. But the tragedy just may be that the Friends, Romans and Countrymen on the Ethics Board- overseen by (drum roll, please) John Isobe- will not probably be lending their ears to anything.

TRY WAIT

2011-09-22T12:03:00.001-10:00

TRY WAIT: The kvetch-fest over Governor Neil Abercrombie's "emergency" declarations- and the fact that he failed to tell anyone about one of them for months- suspending environmental and planning laws to clear ordinance from the beaches and oceans and nene from the Kaua`i Airport area would be deafening if it weren't for the paywall blocking the state's "newspaper of record," making it an unproductive endeavor to link to columnist Dave Shapiro’s traditional harangue or, surprisingly, Cynthia Oi's tome on the subject.

But while some debate whether these are in fact emergencies under state law, another "emergency" proclamation by his Governorship has got to be the slowest developing crisis in history showing that if you wait until the molehill becomes a mountain you can create a pressing matter of epic proportions out of anything.

The fact that a stretch of the highway near Lumahai has been falling into the ocean is no surprise to anyone who has driven the stretch in the past decade. But Abercrombie's "emergency declaration" on September 7 would make you believe that rather than it being a result of glacial-paced erosion, some menehune came in last month with pickaxes and chopped away at the coastline all in one night.

The fact is that the declaration is the result of almost a decade of trying to get the state to get its act together. We can remember current State Senator Ron Kouchi as Kaua`i County Council Chair- that would place it before 2003- grilling then County Engineer Cesar Portugal about what was thought to be the imminent loss of the northbound lane of the state highway.

What should be a state problem has since been a subject of concern for every council and county engineer ever since. While the county has been making temporary fixes, the state has dragged its feet in moving the highway 40 feet inland- the current "emergency" solution which was first proposed 10 years ago.

But that would have taken due process, pubic hearings and most importantly environmental impact statements, certified shoreline determinations and, quite probably, a plan to be approved by the Army Corps of Engineers, as we heard in council testimony over the years.

But noooo. The state's solution is to wait until it is an actual emergency and give the finger to due process, public hearings, transparency and, most importantly, any thoughtful review of the fact that if this section is falling into the ocean, what's next? That might raise the nasty problem of why we're putting things like bike paths- and even new homes under the county's new process for granting exemption from what had been widely acknowledged to be the strongest shoreline protection law in the country- 10 feet away from the shoreline in an age when climate change could well remove that 10 feet in as many years.

Is this the future of how the state's environmental and shoreline protection laws will be handled when the ocean come in to stay? Wait long enough to suspend them?

Apparently.

UP CLOSE AND PERSONNEL

2011-09-21T12:01:00.004-10:00

UP CLOSE AND PERSONNEL: If we didn't know better- and since we don't, we do- we'd think that the Kaua`i County Council was avoiding the real issues surrounding the long-delayed move to chuck our Personnel Services Department and institute a Human Resources Department.

An article in today's local newspaper stumbled and bungled around the subject but as our readers know it's not really a simple matter of restructuring.

As we mentioned briefly in July, when the new "consent calendar" system of further obscuring council business hit the floor new Councilmember Kipukai Kaua`i` nearly threw a conniption fit over the appearance of the routine quarterly report from Personnel Director Malcolm Fernandez on the calendar. Although we're not quite sure of why, we certainly hope Kuali`i has an inkling of the past problems with the way jobs are doled out on Kaua`i and the FBI's involvement in late 2008 and early 2009.

In a nutshell, as we described in a September 2008 article, Councilmember Mel Rapozo and then member Shaylene Iseri Carvalho started getting suspicious of why the mayor's cronies seemed to be showing up in civil service positions at an alarming rate.

It all became clear when, as we described at the time,

(D)uring this year’s budget discussions the council finally included in the ordinance a requirement that, when the administration changes a council-funded position to another job, they must at least notify the council.

And the first such transfer was contained in a brief communication (2008-256) requesting a “reallocation” of the position of a “Solid Waste Program Assistant (SWPA)” to a position for a “Senior Account Clerk”.

Solid Waste’s Personnel Director Crystal Fujikawa, flanked by Personnel Director Mel Fernandez, sat before the council and was asked to explain why they were asking for a change a mere three months after they requested the SWPA in the budget that the council approved.

Fujikawa explained that since the SWPA had left the job- although she amazingly couldn’t remember when- this change was a “downward reallocation” to an “entry level” position, raising some eyebrows and objections, especially from the Council Vice Chair, mayoral candidate Mel Rapozo and his ally Shaylene Iseri Carvalho.

“We just budgeted that position” said Iseri. And knowing how badly the Solid Waste Division has been in need of expertise, she wondered aloud why personnel didn’t recruit for and fill the position instead of hiring just a clerk.

What Fujikawa said next revealed the true nature of cronyism in Kaua`i government and showed exactly how powerful the mayor is in terms of patronage even though legally he or she only gets to hire department heads.

According to Fujikawa, when a county position opens up the first thing they do is to try to see if there is a current county employee with the required expertise who wants to fill it. Nothing wrong with that, as all councilmembers agreed.

But then, if there is no county employee with the specific qualifications who wants the job, instead of trying to recruit someone qualified to fill the position from those on the island or, if not, elsewhere- one who might be able to, as Rapozo said, “hit the ground running”- the county simply eliminates the skilled position and downgrades it to fit the qualifications of the employee they want to promote or hire.

And, if necessary they’ll even make it an entry level job to accommodate someone’s auntie or uncle... or campaign supporter.

Well it turned out Rapozo and Iseri weren't the only ones interested in the traditional cronyism and patronage on Kaua`i and, as we exclusively reported that December, the FBI had taken up the cause, according to Iseri who revealed in open council session that they had interviewed dozens of Kaua`i officials and employees on the matter.

Around the same time we reported anecdotally an event that made it clear that then new Mayor Bernard Carvalho was preparing to continue the patronage. We showed up to a county office in mid December and asked "Where's Lou?" (not his real name) who had always handled our business.

The woman sitting there at Lou's desk matter-of-factly explained that Lou had retired and she was being forced to do double duty because, she stated, "with the election and all Bernard hasn't decided who's going to get the job."

Well Rapozo lost the election and had to sit out the 2008-2010 council but now that he's back apparently he's learned to be good little boy, seemingly abandoning what appeared to be a quest to clean up the personnel system, leaving it to Kuali`i- who probably hasn't a clue as to what happened in '08- to try to dig through the paperwork until a light bulb goes on for him.

Just changing the title from Personnel to Human Resources seems to fit the MO of Kaua`i charter changes just as the title of administrative assistant was changed during the last election, with no corresponding change in function.

The deck chairs on the Titanic seem destined for repositioning once again. And as long as we keep electing captains who use the "ship of state" as their own little fiefdom, we can change the charter all we want to no avail.

Anyone got any donuts to wager to our dollars that Fernandez will be the head of the new Human Resources Department? We didn't think so.

BEING CLASSIFIED

2011-09-20T12:13:00.003-10:00

BEING CLASSIFIED: Back in the dark ages of our youth the grainy black and white pictures of Appalachia that accompanied the announcement of the War on Poverty on the evening TV news seemed impossibly remote to an overweight adolescent in the northeast megalopolis.

But for a view of the current War on the Poverty Stricken we needn’t do more than open our eyes and look around.

Two articles depicting Hawaii as especially cruel way appeared today, one telling the horrific details of homelessness in Honolulu in the lead-up to the APEC conference and another regarding how Hawaii is apparently a leader in the oppressive practice of making workers accept "independent contractor" status, forcing them to forgo any medical, vacation or unemployment benefits and pay their own excise and payroll taxes in full.

But the worst part is that when someone dares to ask those who are keeping the poverty stricken in their place at the bottom of society to pay more in taxes, they start screaming about a burgeoning "class war."

If only.

The fact is there has been an escalating class war going on for the last 200 plus year in America. It's called the free enterprise system and it has reached its inevitable tipping point where the only question is how much longer can the working class slide down the razor blade of life before the stealing class has it all.

Though the 21st century robber barons simply turn up the volume on Fox News to drown out the cries of those who are quickly discovering that they let go of their grasp on "middle class" status many years ago and are currently in free fall, their cries of "class war" are all the more ironic given that they've been long-engaged in one of their own that has brought most Americans to their economic knees.

A recent survey said that "only" two people out of ten believe that they will become millionaires in the next 10 years. Given the fact that "only" two in 88 have that much in assets, it means that there are an awful lot of delusional poor people out there who have been convinced they have a reason- assuming self-interest is a good one- to work hard so those millionaires can become billionaires.

Only in America could those who have accumulated almost all of the wealth have the gall to perpetrate a war on the poor and then claim that the potential for a modern day storming of the Bastille is reason enough to not just keep their absurdly low rate of taxation where it is, but to lower it further still rather than help provide food and shelter for those they've made homeless and starving.

We now return you to your current state of self-destructive, delusional apathy which is already in progress.

MRF-FREE'S LAW

2011-09-19T12:34:00.003-10:00

MRF-FREE'S LAW: There's a sure way to get our blood boiling- mention solid waste and Kaua`i county government in the same sentence.

Back in the early-mid 90's, when the term "zero-waste" was just a'bornin', Dr. Ray Chuan, activist extraordinaire, used to walk into the council chambers each week with stacks of papers and during the interstitial periods, start pawing through them.

Of course we couldn't resist looking over his shoulder and so much to our amazement we and eventually the rest of the "nitpickers" became experts on the last thing in which we wanted to stick our noses- literally or figuratively... trash.

It didn't take a genius to see that the costliest- and stupidest- thing that could be done was to dig a hole in the ground and bury valuable materials rather than recycle them. The solution was- and is- to make it as easy for folks to separate them out of their yucky trash, pick them up curbside and bring them to a place to separate them for shipment, as many places on the mainland were already either doing or planning to do at the time.

Now more than 15 years later and three administrations later Kaua`i not only doesn't have a Materials Recovery Facility (MRF) but, according to the local newspaper- albeit buried mid-way through an article- Mayor Bernard Carvalho has no real plans to build one, making recycling as haphazard and costly as possible.

It's not like the money to plan and build a MRF hasn't been appropriated by the council at least four time we can think of since the turn of the century. Every single bond float- and restructuring of bonds- has included money for the facility which needs to be the first thing that is done in either a "zero-waste" program or the "integrated solid waste" strategy the county has embraced.

It has also been included in almost every capital improvement budget since then to no avail. If we didn't know better we'd think there was no one who knew how to both build a large warehouse and kick back money to the Department of Public Works' Solid Waste Division and the various mayors.

The article is, as usual when penned by Leo Azambuja, fairly useless in explaining why the heck a MRF is not in Carvalho's budget this year, preferring to concentrate on the reasons why the council refused to waste money by continuing to pay our state senator's brother an exorbitant rate to separate a small amount of curbside recycled materials, recovered through a now-canceled "pilot project."

It's just another textbook example of the county's "ready, fire, aim" modus operandi.

But further, the article fails to point out the massive costs of dumping most of our recyclable goods in our overflowing landfill to the point where some have suggested "mining" the old cells, not just to recover the materials discarded over the years but to open up space so as to delay for as long as decades the need to site a new one that nobody wants in their backyard anyway.

Instead Carvalho is still adamant about siting the MRF in the area in which he is proposing to put the new landfill even though planning and permitting for the dump could be a decade away. That means that in Carvalho's mind we will keep on doing what's wrong as long as we can, falling further behind the rest of the world in solid waste management.

Meanwhile the cart is not just before the horse, it's rolling down an endless hill and gathering speed with no equine activity on the horizon.

Of course if the planning and design had been done years ago the county might have even had the whole shebang paid for by the federal government when the they were looking for "shovel ready" public works projects a couple of years back- as they may be doing again next year.

Carvalho seems to have no trouble acting on a dime when it comes to hiring another suck-up crony to fill another new administration position. But when it comes to capital improvement projects the bungling seems almost intentional.

The old "is it incompetence or is in malfeasance?" question was seemingly made for the last three mayors. But the more Carvalho's administrative skills are on display, the more we have to believe it's the latter more than the former.

HOOK, LINE AND STINKER

2011-09-15T12:35:00.004-10:00

HOOK, LINE AND STINKER: During the last month we've used the bill (#2149) to allow camping at Lydgate Park as a kind of case study of the long-practiced and well-honed dance of the headless chickens used by the last three Kaua`i administrations- especially in the Department of Public Works (DPW) and the now spun-off Department of Parks and Recreation (DP&R)- to run out the clock on county council oversight of various and sundry mismanagement schhemes.

But the manner in which DP&R Director Lenny Rapozo's final "rope-a-dope" performance yielded a split decision in favor of the bill's passage last Wednesday, gave a whole meaning to "don't ask me- I'm only in charge here."

Of course Rapozo's use of "the fog" and the "I not here" method of administrative oversight could not have been accomplished without council allies willing to look the other way at the misrepresentations and outright lies as well as the lack of any semblance of competency of Rapozo and his underlings.

After months of non-answers to "the eight questions" that had been repeatedly asked, in writing, of Rapozo, the bill was moved out of committee to the full council where last Wednesday despite the fact that there were amendments pending and it was no where near ready for a vote... something that has inflamed Chair Jay Furfaro's hair on many an occasion in the past.

Rapozo appeared after handing in the alleged answers just that morning, claiming he never had the questions- many of which had been sent in writing months ago- until the previous Friday. And, much to Furfaro's chagrin, they hadn’t even been distributed to councilmembers yet.

The old bait and switch made an appearance too. Seems the originator of "the fog" himself, perennial county appointee Ian Costa who now serves as Rapozo's deputy, had unexpectedly shown up instead of Rapozo the week before with Rapozo conveniently on the mainland, allowing Rapozo to claim he had no idea what had happened the previous week.

As we've previously described, it's a classic move Costa developed during the year-long "Developers Gone Wild," grubbing and grading hearings before the council in the 90's which exposed the early misdeeds of Jimmy Pflueger preceding the deadly Ka Loko Dam break for which Pflueger is scheduled to stand trial for murder later this or next year.

The session began with Council Chair Jay Furfaro waving around what a real plan would look like, taken from a Virginia Beach Virginia campground saying "can you kokua me... this is what I'm looking for Lenny."

The questions dealt with almost everything imaginable from lack of a sufficient number of toilets to insufficient staffing for maintenance and security and were seemingly at least partially a result of there being no written plan to make sure the professed "work-class facility" would even be run in an organized and coherent manager.

But try as he might, Furfaro could not get a commitment from Rapozo to put together such a plan by the time camping was scheduled to begin, 60 days after the passage of the bill.

Finally after twenty minutes of trying to get such a commitment from Rapozo, Furfaro demonstrated the council's archetypical part in the avoidance scheme by declaring Rapozo's "no" to be a "yes."

Of course the run-around can't properly function without an administration shill. The role was made for Councilmember Tim Bynum whose "don't confuse me with the facts" rhetoric, previously honed on the issue of the bike path, consisted of declaring the questions to have been answered already- whether they were or not- and calling all criticism of the not-ready-for-prime-time "plan" to be too "meticulous."

This left an opening for Councilmember Mel Rapozo to perform one of his classic ape-like chest beating routines consisting of lines like "That's our job, to be meticulous... guilty as charged."

But perhaps the most Kafkaesque scene in the melodrama played out over the issue of the "fishermen" who have traditionally frequented the area since, well, forever.

As championed by Councilperson Kipukai Kuali`i the council went back and forth, working to make sure fishers could go to the campground and essentially camp out while fishing without really being official campers.

Of course the task was impossible on its face. How do you allow people to stay overnight in the campground, in their tents, as long as they leave their fishing poles stuck in the sand with the line in the water- as described by Kuali`i- and then distinguish who is actually camping without a permit and who is simply fishing.

The council has been asking Lenny Rapozo- and Costa- for the actual metes and bounds of the camping area rather than providing the cruddy little map with dotted lines that had been made part of the bill. Mel Rapozo- an ex-cop- described the absurdity of the prosecution going to court with such a map and how any good attorney could raise enough questions to make it unenforceable.

The answer apparently was simply, as stated by many, that the standard was "we know who is camping and who is fishing."

Oh great. The island isn't sufficiently wracked with charges of "reverse racism" by the increasing number of uptight, malahini mainlanders who can't distinguish between the word "haole" as used descriptively and the more provocative "stupid f-ing haole." Now we have an area where the line between campers and fishermen is going to be- at least in their eyes- as much a factor of the shade of their skin as anything else.

County Attorney Al Castillo didn't really help by hemming and hawing and finally maintaining that it didn't matter what the law said as long as there was "sufficient notice" in the form of signage to tell the users what made a fisherman a fisherman and what made a camper a camper.

As if.

Finally, the answer was to be as ambiguous as possible and the council inserted language that allows "fishermen" to "fish" any place in the campgrounds where there isn't an actual designated camp site.

However all this probably doesn't matter one whit because, it was revealed, the county's park rangers are never there between 10:30 p.m. and 4 a.m. leaving enforcement of the unenforceable provision an academic matter anyway.

The bill passed with Kuali`i and Mel Rapozo voting against it and now it's up to the DP&R to promulgate administrative rules- which promise to be as vague as the bill- in the next two months and decide which parts of the campground to "open for camping" with no real idea of what is going to happen, in a classic Kaua`i County "ready, fire, aim" manner.

But whatever happens you can bet dollars to donuts that we haven't heard the end of the seven-year saga, especially when the first "you're not fishing, you're camping- I can tell by the color of your skin" ticket is issued.

-------

Note- We're working with a new editor whose schedule is malleable so, although we intend to keep to the 1 p.m. press time, there may be days when it is decidedly later.

BUT WHAT'LL WE DO FOR EGGS?

2011-09-14T12:37:00.003-10:00

BUT WHAT'LL WE DO FOR EGGS?: There's jokes and then there's jokes. Our sometimes feeble, often offensive, attempts at humor are at least fairly innocuous in the grand scheme of things.

But, as happens all too often in Hawai`i, when those who police the ethics of politicians become the foxes guarding the hen house, the political joke is on us.

Recently though, a whirling dervish of accountability has taken up residence as the Executive Director (ED) of the State Ethics Commission (EC), and those who thought state ethics laws had been suspended under former director Dan Mollway are having conniption fits.

Some of our readers may remember Les Kondo as the head of the Office of Information Practices (OIP) who fought the good fight to bad results in the infamous ES-177 case that eventually surgically removed the incisors that the legislature had apparently given the OIP.

And now, as the new ED of the EC, Kondo has upset the cushy apple cart of one of the most repulsive of unethical practices- one that calls lobbyists "stakeholders" and appoints them to these "task forces" to essentially write legislation regarding the same subject upon which they lobby.

We've written extensively about our Kaua`i County Charter provision 20.02(D) which prevents anyone from "(a)ppear(ing) in behalf of private interests before any county board, commission or agency" if they sit on a board or commission- or presumably a "task force"- regardless of the subject matter.

The state law does the same if there is a nexus between the job of the lobbyist and the board or commission's kuleana.

But although the law is supposed to cover all bodies appointed by the governor or legislature, whereas Mollway looked the other way, Kondo has now included these "task forces" in the same category as any state appointed body- which of course they are.

And guess what? Shockingly, politicians don't like it.

According to Derrick Depledge's Political Radar blog

State Senate President Shan Tsutsui and House Speaker Calvin Say have asked state Attorney General David Louie whether the state Ethics Commission is correct in defining members of task forces as state employees subject to the ethics code.

In their letter the two wrote:

If individuals from the private sector who participate in these panels are now to be considered “employees” of the State for the purposes of the Ethics Code, we are concerned with the chilling effect on both the Legislature’s ability to gather information and on the constitutional right of these individuals (and their actual employers) to petition government.

This stupid argument has been going on for a week or so in the press and the blogs but no one can come up with the obvious and simple solution to the quandary.

On Kaua`i we had some board and commission members- as a matter of fact some members of the ethics board itself- lobbying the county council for money for their non profits while others were representing developers seeking zoning and zoning permits before the council and planning commission respectively.

And then they'd turn around and rule on the ethics of activities of those granting them their requests.

And just like with the state, they argued that their "rights" to petition the government were being violated. But that ignores the elephant in the room- that sitting on a board commission or task force is not a "right" but a privilege and you can simply step down from your position and let someone who does not lobby other government bodies take your place.

But nooooo. For some reason these pustules on the butt of democracy have been permitted to shed their crocodile tears without anyone telling them to get their asses out of government if they are coming to the government, hat in hand... especially if the subject matter of their appointment is the same as their lobbying, as is true in the case of the state ethics law.

Do we really need to give the guy who is being paid to lobby an extra boost in his efforts by allowing him to skew the actual report upon which the legislature will depend to write legislation?

What- massive campaign contributions aren't enough? Is your bundling finger broken? Did the manapua store close and now legislative staffers are stuck with crummy donuts?

It's simply amazing in this state how politicians, who've been getting away with murder for years, react when a new sheriff that is apparently not on the take actually tries to enforce the law. Why you should have seen them (if you missed it) when Kondo told them they couldn't keep accepting expensive tickets to events if the event didn't have a nexus to their legislative jobs. You'd have thought he was ripping the lollypops out of their lyin' pie holes.

It's bad enough when, as is the case, corporate America has placed its greedy boot heel on the throat of the democratic process. We don't have to have to actually open wide- or bend over- and allow them to place the whole boot where they can do their damage from the inside out.

NOW YOU'RE COOKIN' WITH SUNLIGHT

2011-09-13T13:46:00.003-10:00

NOW YOU'RE COOKIN' WITH SUNLIGHT: When Gary Hooser was the Kaua`i State Senator he used to spend the time between sessions asking constituents to help him come up with a "big idea"- some legislation for which he could use his position to really make a difference.

So in 2004 he managed to spend his political capital to pass a bill requiring all new homes to have solar hot water heaters.

It's of course a no brainer- it's without dispute known far and wide as the "low hanging fruit" that pays for itself quickly to provide carbon-free hot water- the most expensive part of a family's energy bill- resulting in free hot water for many years.

But of course nothing worth doing comes easy and the gas company is a huge campaign contributor with lobbyists 'o plenty. So when the bill was finally passed it contained the possibility of a "variance" which turned into a loophole that has been used in about half of all new homes on Kaua`i and the Big Island- and a quarter state wide- to thumb their noses at the law and the environment and use a gas hot water heater instead.

So when the Kaua`i County Council took up a measure to join the rest of the counties in asking the legislature to close the loophole it too sounded like a no brainer.

But for some reason, other than Councilperson JoAnn Yukimura who had introduced the request, when testimony started the others were talking about "eliminating choices" and "options." Kipukai Kuali`i kept pounding on a representative from the alternative energy proponents at Apollo Kaua`i trying to get him to admit that maybe in the future there will be some kind of magical solar electric generation that would be more efficient- an absurd notion since the efficiency of using electricity no matter where it comes from will never be able to match the efficiency of directly heating water with the sun.

It doesn’t matter where the electricity comes from. Using it is still never going to be more economically efficient than direct heat.

So what was going on here. Where was this coming from?

Well it all became clear once the real lobbying began.

First it was the Kaua`i Gas Company GM Glen Takinoshi who came forward to stumble through a prepared text using now familiar terms like "options" and "providing choices" and essentially saying that if the loophole were to be closed The Gas Company could- gasp, perish the thought- go out of business.

When Yukimura basically left Takinoshi a babbling idiot after questioning him about the Gas Company's attitudes toward renewable carbon free energy and global warming- after which he finally said he'd have to check with someone else- they brought in the big gun...the state Vice President of Government Affairs and Communications Stephanie Ackerman whose "are you gonna believe me or your lyin' eyes" testimony was quite effective on the council bumpkins.

Just as Yukimura had run circles around Takinoshi, Ackerman ducked, danced and jabbed trying to make the debate about "personal freedoms" and the big, bad government that wants to take them away from us.

Finally Councilmember Tim Bynum stepped forward to say that sometimes it's the job of government- especially one in a place set to be inundated by the ocean in the not so distant future and one who pays the highest energy prices in the country- to step in and take control from the business lobbyists. He also explained how the more ubiquitous solar hot water heaters are, the less the electric co-op would be required to spend on excess generation capacity to accommodate "peak demand"- a major component of our bills on a "closed grid" island system.

Of course there was no identification of the two as "lobbyists" as council rules explicitly require and Chair Jay Furfaro- whose hair ignites every time a rule limiting public testimony is even stretched- said nothing.

But you gotta admire the nerve of the Gas Company for trying to move people to pity them because they may go out of business.

No, it's not just that they are sole purveyors of propane in the islands and the elimination of companies who sell fossil fuels because there is no longer a demand would bring glee to the hearts of all but the staunchest of climate change deniers. No, it's not even that the claim that they'd go bust is absurd on the face of it since people will still use propane for cooking, clothes drying and even as the back-up system of choice for solar water heater owners.

It's that, more so than any business in the islands- even other monopolies- every customer has a deep and abiding hatred for the Gas Company.

It's not just the way, unlike say the electric, phone and cable companies, they will never ever give you a break on the due date of your bill. It's not just that their prices are marked up outrageously, even when compared to gasoline providers.

No, it's the fact that every single person who works there treats their customers like dirt and with a "what do we care- you've got to buy from us" attitude- an affectation for which every customer seems to have an anecdotal horror story.

When local people talk story about asshole businesses on Kaua`i, the topic always turns to the Gas Company- which not only won't ever deliver gas unless and until your bill is paid in full but will come to your house and remove your remaining gas if you don't pay on time.

And they're uniformly nasty about it to boot.

We've heard people suggest that they must have to pass some kind of anti-customer relations test or attend classes teaching them how to snarl and be generally grumpy and uncooperative.

And these are the guys who are now asking us to have pity on them because closing the loophole in the law requiring solar hot water heaters on new homes will hurt their business.

Even if they were the nicest, most pleasant people in on the island and bent over backward to allow long-time customers an extra day or two to pay their bills, there'd be little sympathy for a fossil fuel company that cried crocodile tears over the possibility that cheap alternative, carbon-free energy would put them out of business.

But when it comes to the Gas Company, we suspect there would be a long line for the opportunity to dance on its grave.