TIME KEEPS ON SLIPPIN', SLIPPIN'...

TIME KEEPS ON SLIPPIN', SLIPPIN'...: We've been glued to the RaptorCam where a live streaming camera has it's sights set on a couple of eagles who recently hatched a duo of chicks and are currently sitting on them and another egg- which is supposed to be ready for it's close up Mr. DeMille today or tomorrow- feeding them from the bloated corpse of what appears to be a rodent of some sort, dropping strips of flesh into the babes' upraised, open yaws.

Kind of reminds of of the budget machinations not only in Washington and Honolulu but potentially, next week here on Kaua`i with the leaders in the role of the raptors supplying we ravenous chicks the putrefied scraps of their choosing.

Here the budget may well inform the selection of our newest county council members and if past is prologue we well might see the Big Bird upchuck a a rotted piece of carrion named Darryl Kaneshiro.

It all depends of what Council Chair Jay Furfaro thinks will help solidify his long fought for power as chair.

Apparently he tried to make sure that Derek Kawakami remained on the council so as to avoid this potential appointment because word has been the the Minotaur himself- former Chair Kaipo Asing- might have the votes in a split council to make his triumphant reappearance, pushing poor Jay back to the shadows again.

If the story we've been hearing is true it's no wonder Jay tried to assure Derek would remain on the council during the legislative replacement process conducted by the Democratic Party we detailed yesterday. As it was repeated on Joan Conrow's comment board:

Jay manipulated the whole thing. He was on the nominating committee, did not speak up about the Ducker ethics thing, got Neil to throw his hat in the ring, and tried to rattle Joel with his follow up questions in the 10 minute interview. All to stick it to Mina and try to keep Derek from leaving the Council. He succeeded on sticking it to Mina, but failed on stopping the change in makeup of the Council. But, he's not done trying. Watch this Council selection process. Jay will still try to control it... Specifically, watch for Furfaro to push for Kaneshiro who headed the budget committee last year to keep Asing from going from also-ran to Chair.

Look for Mel Rapozo and Dickie Chang to put Asing forward with, as has become the norm, Nadine Nakamura as the swing vote. If her loyalty is to her brother-in-law, Asing sycophant County Clerk Peter Nakamura, it might just produce a 3-3 tie and dump the whole matter into the lap of Mayor Bernard Carvalho who would no doubt pick a crony out of left field who could be assured to do his bidding on the newly restructured council.

But that presumes that the rumor- and though it is just a rumor, we're going to repeat it in case anyone who has definitive evidence it's true might produce it for us- that Kawakami does not indeed live in the home he claims as his residence- a house in the 14th district which, it has been alleged, is owned by his wife while they actually reside in another district.

Though state law requires members of the legislature to live in their district it is unclear who makes the ultimate decision in these kinds of cases although certainly the courts would be the final arbiter.

The last time there was an opening on the council Kaneshiro slipped right in there due to his supposed "experience." But he replaced the man that is, most likely, his chief rival- Asing, who had moved into the round building upon the demise of Mayor Bryan Baptiste, giving Furfaro his first taste of the power of the gavel.

There's talk of the 8th place finisher in the last election, Kipukai Kuali`i, getting the nod but unless there's a huge outpouring of support from the public he stands about as much chance as Bob Carriffe.

The decision on the council replacement will, no doubt, come down to alliances from both the past and the present. But we may well have to wait for the egg to hatch to know for sure who be feeding us carrion for the next two years.

AT THE ZOO

AT THE ZOO: Last Wednesday’s meeting was the first time to observe the new council in their habitat giving the zoologically inclined an opportunity to observe and interpret the various grunts and howls for their significance.

But while furloughs and millions in new appropriations caught the attention of many, real sociologic researchers need only to turn to the discussion of a “resolution (#2010-39) to establish a policy for facilitating open governance and internet access to public documents” for a case study.

When the rebellious male Tim Bynum first introduced it five months ago on July 14 it seemed like a no brainer to the untrained eye. It was simply a policy statement supporting the already bought-and-paid-for contract with a third party provider that would web cast council meetings and post on-line all the pertinent documents including agendas with related attachments, the full text of introduced bills and resolutions, updated “draft” versions of bills after amendments, along with committee reports and minutes- all linked, item by item, to the video web casts.

But the majority- which included the alpha male, departed Chair Kaipo Asing and his “enforcer” Darryl Kaneshiro along with the young and ascendant male Derek Kawakami- routed the measure saying that, with county “furloughs” the staff wasn’t going to be able to handle al the “extra work”... and besides, why pass a resolution if we were already doing it?

To the surprise of few, if any, they didn’t.

But now that furloughs are ending and meetings are finally being web cast- although we still couldn’t get them last week despite downloading update versions and performing trouble shooting settings- the time to set the policy seemed ripe.

Or maybe not.

The self described troublemaker had now returned to the tribe and was ready to be true to that moniker by asking why we needed a resolution for something we were doing already... this for a council that has successfully delayed, deferred and defeated attempts to move into the information age for years... and from a council that would probably routinely approve a resolution supporting the policy of using toilet paper if a political ally introduced it.

But the new group had chosen the more experienced dominant elder rather than the latest alpha male as their leader so when Jay Furfaro prepared a 17-page draft memo in collaboration with the county clerk- who together lord over the non-dominant females (council staff)- detailing how it would be done, Kawakami was left with only Rapozo to support his straw-grasping “we’re already doing it so why do we need a reso” obstruction.

And when Dickie Chang- the goofy young male that they keep around for entertainment- sided as he usually does with the elder Furfaro it looked like a majority on the measure was forming.

The returning matriarch JoAnn Yukimura- who has so-far been protective of the rebel Bynum and loves policy resolutions to begin with- had earlier indicated her support.

So that left the new heavily face-painted female from previously unknown realms to assert herself in her first session with the group.

And so Nadine Nakamura finally revealed what kind of councilmember she will be.

The resolution begins with, as they tend to do, a bunch of “Whereas” this and “Whereas” that, the first of which, as you’d expect in a resolution concerning open and transparent government, are identical to the very first words of the state’s sunshine law:

In a democracy, the people are vested with the ultimate decision-making power.

But for some reason these words- which are considered fundamental to the law and are commonly cited in court cases and in studies proclaiming the Hawai`i Sunshine law itself (if not the execution of it) one of the best in the country- offended Nakamura.

She offered an amendment removing those words because “we’re in a representative democracy and the people have elected representatives who are vested with the power to make decisions on their part.”

It hard to even fathom what Nakamura must think in striking at the heart of democracy. Perhaps she’s enamored of substituting a classic small “r” republican argument for a small “d” democratic one.

Even though the sunshine law’s passage is essentially correct in saying that “people are vested with the ULTIMATE decision-making power (emphasis added)” she felt the need to make her presence known and raise a bunch of gorilla dust in asserting that, now that she is a “member” of the clan, SHE has “the power to make decisions on (our) part.”

We suppose it was really attempt to assert herself with the exercise of some power in her first meeting by adding something to something that was going on that day.

Rather than confront a potential ally on this- and possibly prejudice Nakamura’s support in future measures- even though they had the majority for this specific vote already, Bynum and Yukimura made the politically wise decision to sit there silently and "ultimately” vote for Nakamura’s amendment... although you could practically hear their internal shrieking through the TV set.

All in all the observation team came away excited to have observed the new dynamic after the November battle that caused one to be thrown out, one to ascend, two to run away, two to come back, one to join and one to bide his time.

It promises to be a fruitful research year- and a fascinating one to boot.

EIGHTY SEVEN STRIKES AND YOU’RE STILL NOT OUT

EIGHTY SEVEN STRIKES AND YOU’RE STILL NOT OUT: You’d think that after battling against the recent gutting of the transient vacation rental ordinance, Council Chair Kaipo Asing and his right hand man- or left hand as it goes at the table- Derek Kawakami would be champing at the bit to finally close some of the biggest loopholes in Kaua`i agricultural land use law.

Maybe so... if you just arrived from Mars yesterday and had missed the Gordian knot of hypocrisy and deceit that has dominated their actions and along with those of fellow gatekeepers of the Minotaur’s labyrinth, Councilmembers Darryl Kaneshiro and Dickie Chang, for the past almost two years.

So when the four of them voted down three “no brainer” bills to stop some of the biggest abuses of ag land on “first reading” you only had to look at who introduced them to figure out why.

Councilmember Tim Bynum’s bills would have:

- stopped the semi secretive way vast tracts of ag land have been chopped into tiny little pieces by requiring a public hearing before the planning commission for all ag land subdivisions;

- limited the size of “farm dwellings” to 2500 feet without planning commission approval and;

- lowered the “density”- the number of acres per farm dwelling- on ag land to the standards used on the other neighbor islands.

But what was almost astonishing was that neither Bynum or Kawahara- nor anyone from the public- said anything about Kaneshiro’s hysterical, fist-pounding, emotionally high-pitched tirade about how the bill would personally effect him due to his ownership and/or control of vast tracts of agricultural lands where he runs his ranching operations, complaining how the bills would limit his ability to subdivide his own ag lands for housing for his children, grandchildren and presumably the generations a-comin’.

Presumably they all had temporary amnesia as to a recent county charter amendment to the “Code of Ethics” under section 20,04B: Disclosure, which says that:

(a)ny elected official... who possesses or acquires such interest as might reasonably tend to create a conflict with his duties or authority... in any matter pending before him shall make full disclosure of the conflict of interest and shall not participate in said matter.

What the heck was Kaneshiro doing even speaking on the subject much less literally screaming about how the bills would directly effect him?

That charter does however list the penalties for violations of the code under 20.04C, Penalties.

(1) Any violation of any of the provisions of this section shall, at the option of the director of finance, render forfeit and void the contract, work, business, sale or transaction affected.

(2) Any violation of any of the provisions of this section shall constitute cause for fine, suspension or removal from office or employment.

Presumably that means it would take action by the Director of Finance to nullify the vote to receive the three bills. Good luck with that, especially because it would take an action from the moribund, sycophantic Board of Ethics (BOE) to get him to do it..

It’s hard to say what the bigger outrage is- a first ever (that we can recall, and that goes back almost 30 years) “receipt” of a bill for first reading due to objectionable content or the fact that Kaneshiro was not only permitted to speak on the subject but to cast the deciding vote, with one Councilmember, Jay Furfaro (a supposed member of Bynum and Kawahara’s minority faction) absent and not voting.

Maybe it was the way Kawakami tried to turn it into a flag waving “protect the American Dream” matter to allow people to build huge mansions and subdivide their land while failing to mention that the bills dealt with agricultural lands

Maybe it was the way Asing seemed to have a deer-in-the-headlights look in his eyes saying absolutely nothing while his henchmen made a farce of his recent strenuous defense of preservation of agricultural lands, even to the point of forbidding farm worker housing with a bazillion restrictions.

Maybe it was, as usual, Chang's clueless political lockstep with the majority and inability to think for himself .

Maybe it was the attempt by Asing to try to blame it all on the “county attorney’s concerns” about the bills only to have the CA call bullsh*t on him by saying that he would have concerns about ALL land use bills.

No, the biggest outrage of all is that these three measures to protect what’s left of our agricultural lands are dead for the immediate future.

NOT BUT WITH A WHIMPER

NOT BUT WITH A WHIMPER: As if there was any doubt as to the outcome or the specifics the council passed an even more loophole ridden version of the TVR bill yesterday with (predictably) Dickie Chang and (disappointingly but not unpredictably) Lani Kawahara joining Jay Furfaro, Darryl Kaneshiro and bill author Tim Bynum voting “yea” and Derrick Kawakami and Chair Kaipo Asing voting in the negatory.

That information comes no thanks to the lazy dullard on the government beat at the local newspaper who apparently couldn’t stay up as late enough to file a story on the all important vote but Joan Conrow who “juggled work with time in the Council Chambers to see for myself how the vote on the transient vacation rental (TVR) bill went down,” filed her post at 11:16 last night.

The added poison to the already toxic legislation says, according to Conrow:

you don’t actually have to be engaged in bonafide farming, as evidenced by tax returns, to get approval for your TVR on agricultural land. You can still get a permit if the planning commission finds intensive agriculture is prohibited by the shape, size, topography, surrounding land uses OR — and this is today’s big giveaway — for any other reason.

And as far as “Mr. Wala`au”, also predictably Joan quoted Dickie Chang as saying “(w)hether it’s right or wrong, we need to move forward” saying that apparently “that answers the question of whether his private pau hana briefing by beer-bearing county attorneys had any effect on his decision. 'Cause he was against the bill before that little meeting.”

But the big question is whether this will really be the political game changer many are predicting.

There is palpable fury over this bill among not just the usual suspects but those who ordinarily don’t give politics a second thought except for every two years in November.

Many felt that they were sold down the river when the grandfathering bill was passed but thought that the restrictions and difficulty of the process- replete with provisions for public scrutiny- would serve to phase out the existing TVRs in residential areas.

But not only did the corrupt planning department refuse to follow the guidelines but the planning commission didn’t seem to care. And now instead of seeking to strengthen the bill the council has essentially torn it up and thrown in a plum giving the most egregious illegality- those TVRs on ag- a path to legality to boot.

Other than those who stand to gain financially it’s hard to find anyone- even among those who ordinarily support the land rape of Kaua`i- who has supported the mess.

So how will this shake out- or shake up Kaua`i politics?

The questions are first, will this be the end of the political careers of Furfaro and more importantly Bynum as many have vowed to make it and on the flip side will the animosity over Asing’s reign of terror and the disappointment over the misplaced hopes some had for Kawakami last election be negated by their somewhat meaningless votes?

Furfaro’s popularity has always been an enigma. But his vote wasn’t disappointing anyone. His unflinching support for tourism development has always been a hallmark of his tenure on the council. But his growing pomposity and ego driven bombast recently has become more and more irritating, at least for those who catch it on TV.

Is the anti incumbent feeling this year enough to push him out? Don’t count on it.

Bynum is the big question mark. Before the TVR debacle his growing popularity in supporting what was seen as Kawahara’s push for openness and free-flowing information allowed him to ride her ample coattails which many predicted would lead her near or to the top of the polling this year.

But with Kawahara out of the race after being beaten to a bloody pulp by the likes of Asing, Kawakami and Kaneshiro voters may not put as much stock in the need for Bynum’s “second” to what was perceived, rightly or wrongly, as the fight her “new blood” introduced into the council dynamic.

With “his” TVR bill, as well as other votes that are seen as hypocritical of his words on sustainability and land use in general, that may well be the defining issue upon which Bynum’s continued incumbency depends.

That leads to Chang who slipped in last time due to name recognition alone. But really his victory in ’08 was a numbers game- one that may again be the more important factor this November.

With two “vacancies” in ’08 there was a dearth of viable candidates to fill the two slots other than Kawahara. A virtual unknown, Kipukai Kuali`i even came close without any endorsements from the progressives that a social workers and organizer might have gotten if organizations like the Sierra Club- and admittedly observers like us- hadn’t put all their eggs in the Kawahara basket.

This year is quite the opposite. The two who created the vacancies- Mel Rapozo ad JoAnn Yukimura who both ran for mayor and lost- are back and are virtual shoo-ins for election.

But other than Nadine Nakamura- who despite having some good buzz is still is a question mark due to the wariness people have over her profession as a “planner”, which on Kaua`i may be a dirty word- and Rolf Bieber who has made a name for himself in taking on the administration and the corrupt ethics commission, viable candidates are few and far between.

Given Chang's negatives after two years of cluelessness Nakamura stands to take advantage and move into his slot.

But that may all be moot if Asing or Kawakami- or both- fall out of the top seven something that, although unlikely if you look at past elections, may be possible in a year when disgust with council incumbents has made dents in their usual bases of support.

The question for Furfaro and Bynum may not be their negatives as much as how effective a charge Bieber or Kuali`i can make and how far the once mighty have fallen.

We have few illusions. To quote John Lennon- and perhaps explain Kawahara’s decision that she’d had enough-

There’s room at the top they keep telling you still
But first you must learn to smile as you kill
A working class hero is something to be

ONLY HALF BULL?

ONLY HALF BULL?: Deep in the darkest recesses of the Minotaur’s labyrinth when the light of day threatens to expose all, his minions scurry to defend the perimeters at every parry of the knights of illumination.

And last Wednesday, the news that that of death of the Minotaur was premature being still unknown, his minotaur-in-waiting performed his own dance of darkness as if to prove his worthiness to ascend to the throne

Council Chair Kaipo Asing indeed filed to run for another term last Thursday despite statements in 2008 that this term would be his last.

His filing came on the heels of another slaying of the oft promised and always delayed on-line, live streaming of meetings and posting of video and agenda-related documents.

The six month deferment was accomplished through the complicity of his always rely-a-bull 3-D’s who were joined by the clueless would-be king, Jay Furfaro, whose continued confusion over how the sunshine law actually works gave the excuse for essentially the defeat of another attempt by Councilpersons Tim Bynum and Lani Kawahara to get everyone to move off the dime and “git ’r done”

And though the local paper not only ran an article but an editorial each was, as usual, equally clueless as to the back story and Furfaro’s apparently inability to understand the basics of the state’s open meetings “sunshine” laws.

Furfaro’s confusion goes back to December of 2008 when we filed a complaint with the Office of Information Practices (OIP) after he was caught Red-Handed sending a letter to fellow councilpersons not just describing the then-new original bill calling for “non-enforcement agreements” for vacation rentals on ag land, but soliciting their support which is forbidden under any and all circumstances by law.

OIP opened a case, as we reported in Jan. of 2009 but rather than admit his blatant violation of the law Furfaro has been fighting it ever since, even somehow spending, as he said Wednesday, $1700 to do so.

The law is actually very simple. Pay attention Jay.

Councilmembers cannot discuss any matter either on an agenda or that might be on a future agenda with more than one other councilmember. And even then they cannot solicit or commit to a vote.

And, they can’t get around that by “serial one-on-one communications” or by going through a third party to do so.

The correct way to introduce anything they want to discuss is to put it on the agenda as either a communication or a bill or resolution. Otherwise it is forbidden to discuss it with more than one other member.

Once it is on the agenda the way to discuss it is to wait for the item to come up on the agenda and then say and do anything you want including introducing or even “floating” amendments to a bill.

But somehow Furfaro remains obstinate in his refusal to learn these simple procedures as evidenced by the fact that at this very meeting, during this very agenda item where he brought up his confusion in order to ask for the deferral, he referred to a 19 page letter he had sent to the Civil Service Commission regarding his thoughts on county furloughs- which the council has set for December discussion- and actually sent a copy of that letter to the rest of the council without putting it on the agenda.

All he would have had to do was send a communication with the 19 page letter to the council, have it placed on the agenda and it would have been legal. But as if to re-iterate his inability to understand a simple concept that all other council, boards and commissions in the state seem to have no trouble understanding, he just distributed it to councilmembers by placing it in their mailboxes.

Furfaro has even devised another attempted by-pass of the law lately calling for the “floating” of amendments to a bill at one committee meeting to be taken up at the next one but making them available only to the councilmembers and not to the public, according to discussion at Wednesday’s meeting.

Just as absurd were some of the other excuses used to delay implementation of the system- for which the contract has been signed and apparently all the protests have now been resolved.

What the resolution calls for in the posting of all the accompanying paperwork for all agenda items- not just the actual communications, bills and resolutions but the background documents pertaining to the item.

Right now “hard copies”- on paper- of all those are available to the public at council services as soon as the agenda is officially filed. And copies of each are made for councilpersons as part of their “packet” which they also receive when the agenda is filed.

According to sources at council services the copying machine there isn’t just some $39.99 Wal Mart special. It’s a fancy schmancy piece of work that not only makes copies but makes digital copies of each and can, with the push of a button can- drum roll please- even post them on line automatically.

But you would think that they needed a Manhattan project to figure out how to post them and then have to hire three more employees to push that bottom from the way Furfaro, Asing and Councilpersons Dickie Chang, Darryl Kaneshiro and Derrick Kawakami jumped at the chance to defer posting the documents- via the system which IT Division Chief Erik Knutzen told us a year and a half ago was ready to go- until they resolve the “county furloughs” issue and meet with staff to figure out how to push the button.... something they’ve had four years to do.

But there are no buttons at door to the labyrinth and distribution of information remains for now on a need-to-know basis.

HAIRY PLUGS

HAIRY PLUGS: You’ve gotta see yesterday’s long delayed non-discussion of county furloughs during yesterday’s county council’s budget hearings to believe it- or you can read the rather boring, dry account that has become the hallmark of new government beat reporter Léo Azambuja in the local newspaper.

But while defender of the realm Councilperson Darryl Kaneshiro- who well may be the first councilperson ever to be voted out of office for a second time this November- did his best to usher in the age of nefarious and keep the sunshine out by screaming down Tim Bynum and Lani Kawahara when they wanted to discuss the Mayor Bernard Carvalho’s furlough-dependant budget, we have no idea where the two dissidents were going with the discussion.

Because the real issue isn’t fiscal its political.

Many people ask us why we don’t run for office. The answer is simple- we believe in more government regulation and higher taxes. Who’s voting for that?

In this case, after services have been cut well into the bone at both the state and county levels, only a handful of screamin’ meemie wing nuts are actually asking to cut essential government services further.

In the case of the county raising the real property tax rate it seems like a no-brainer to all but the “where’s my free lunch” crowd.

For the uninitiated, counties in Hawai`i are given only one way to tax people- through real property taxes.

Each year two things happen at budget time. First the real property division office adds up the assessed value of all properties on the island. Then the mayor proposes a tax rate which when multiplied by that amount yields how much revenue the county can expect to take in.

That amount must at least balance with the expenditures in the budget.

For years, as valuations have skyrocketed in the housing and real estate market, a handful of people have screamed about their property taxes doing the same. But the council, in a political move that everyone recognized as disingenuous double talk, has claimed that they didn’t raise the property tax “rate” while the budget practically doubled.

And of course technically they were right- although revenues have almost doubled the “rate” remained the same.

So now that the bottom has dropped out of the assessment side of the equation the revenues have plummeted too- only the tax “rate” remains the same in this budget.

The system was set up so as to use the rate as a tool to balance the budget. When assessments are up, the rate goes down. As assessments go down the rate should go up.

Only the council has played this little “I didn’t raise your taxes” game for so long that the “big lie” has worked and people only look at the rate to tell if their taxes are going up. In reality if they were to raise the rate to require that people pay only what they paid last year- or even an average of the last few years- there would be no need for furloughs or vacant or dollar funded positions which are bringing the wheels of county services to a halt, according to those who provide and use them.

In the 90’s and early ‘00’s famed original “nitpicker” and activist-supreme Ray Chuan made sure to mention this at every opportunity making it an issue that eventually led to an ordinance that set a 2% cap on actual yearly real property tax payments. It came as a result of the pressure of the “`Ohana charter amendment” a few years back that, although it was struck down by the state supreme court, was. in part. implemented by the council.

People, notably then councilperson Joann Yukimura, warned at the time that when the boom ended and the bust came it would only take as little as one year of lowered payments to cause revenues to go so low that the mechanism for raising revenue in the charter- upping the rate- would be ineffective to fund essential county services.

That’s essentially why the supreme court ruled as they did.

This is that year, although the trend started last year. If the rate is not raised to account for the decreased assessments this year- and probably again next year and maybe the year after too- eventually we will get to a point where, assuming the housing bust continues, no matter what we do we will never be able to fund essential services like fire, police and life guards.

The list of similar repercussions is endless.

Though furloughs are the most visible “cut” in this year’s budget we’re also delaying hiring and maintenance of things like equipment and roads that will exponentially catch up with us very soon- especially if we can only raise tax payments two percent a year after they’ve suddenly dipped 10 or 20 percent.

It’s time to raise the real property tax rate and put an end to all these idiotic penny-wise and pound-foolish cuts. But that will take political will and courage especially in an election year- something that has traditionally been in short supply on Kaua`i.

A COLD DAY IN HELL

A COLD DAY IN HELL: As Sir Lancelot in the person of local newspaper reporter Mike Levine prepares for his Friday departure from the paper- and, we hear, the island - as this brief shining moment of journalistic Camelot ends he’s left us with one last accurate depiction of last Wednesday’s council debate on how best to keep the upcoming budget hearings from being viewed by the public.

But as we watched slack-jawed at the insipidly transparent tossing of anykine noodles against the wall by those opposing Tim Bynum’s and Lani Kawahara’s quest to open the process to televised scrutiny it seemed more like a cartoonish melodrama than a sober legislative hearing.

So we take you to Frostbite Falls and The Further Adventures of Rocky “Lani” J. Squirrel and Bullwinkle “Tim” J. Moose in:

“How Much Sunshine Does it Take to Melt a Snow Job?” or “A Crony Enslaved Is A Crony Earned”

When last we left our heroes moose and squirrel, the evil Pottsyvanian Boris “Darryl” Badenov and his paramour Natasha “Derrick” Fatale were plotting to perpetuate Fearless Leader’s (guess who) plot for council domination as Jay-Peabody and his pet boy Dickie-Sherman looked on.

Bullwinkle: What are we going to do Rocky? We can’t let these no-good-nics thwart the people’s right to see the way we’re spending their money.

Rocky: I know Bullwinkle- we’ll put the matter on the agenda and everyone will see their evil plans and the people will rise up and demand ...

Bullwinkle: Uh, didn’t we try that last summer Rocky?

But when the time for debate came to economically downtrodden Frostbite Falls, knowing the public’s traditional gullibility and short attention span Boris and Natasha had some tricks up their sleeve.

Boris: People of Frostbite Falls. We must stop moose and squirrel’s from letting world know of incompetence and corruption, er I mean wise and compassionate use of tax dollars. If we spend $17,000 on televising budget hearings that will be sole cause for county employees furloughs. And we must keep sessions secret so bond rating people won’t have a record of utter stupidity, er I mean brilliant money management. Otherwise world will know of our waste and pork-barreling, er I mean benevolent oversight.

Natasha: Good one Boris- why not tout slush fund while you’re at it.

Fearless Leader: Stick to the script you two or you’ll be sent to the civil service gulag.

So- will our heroes get the budget hearings on TV? Will Boris get his kickback? Will fearless leader run again?

Tune in again next time for “Powder-puff For The People” or “White Noise Is Good Noise”

(Commercial for next $1 million, unaccountable, unsuccessful, down-the-rat-hole tourism grant).

Now it’s time to tell some fractured fairy tales so let’s get into the way back machine.

Peabody: Now Sherman, remembering I’m both for televising the meetings and against spending the money what do you have to say for yourself?

Sherman. Why don’t you see- even if we televise them no one will ever get to see them. Each day’s session lasts eight hours so it will only air in the middle of the night before the next day’s session goes on the air... because as everyone knows the days are only eight hours long here in the past and weekends and the future don’t exist.

(Next commercial for multi-million $ helicopter-toy).

When we last left our intrepid duo they were being cut off by fearless leader after the double-talking bamboozling of the rest of the council.

Rocky: What are we gonna do now Bullwinkle? Look like, the local newspaper’s on-line streaming notwithstanding, there’ll be no TV for most of the people who don’t have or use computers?

Bullwinkle: I know- we’ll introduce a bill to allow more vacation rentals and strip all the protections in the last bill.

Rocky: How will that get the budget hearings on TV?

Bullwinkle: It won’t. But I’m moving on. People will only remember we fought for them and won’t care if we give up. This may not be Chinatown but it is Kaua`i.

So will our heroes get the hearings televised? Will the local newspaper simply tape their “feed” and submit it to public access TV? Will the administration find $17,000 after they stole $130,000 from the line item for televising meetings for an on-line streaming project that should have been in next year’s budget?

Tune in again next time for:

“Broadband Melody” or “A penny encumbered is a pound yearned for”.

NOTHIN’ TO SEE HERE

NOTHIN’ TO SEE HERE: In the deepest, darkest depths of the demonic despots’ dwelling the sun never shines on a secluded secret system sheltered by the minotaur’s mighty minions.

Kaua`i county’s budget has always been a slight-of-hand exercise slapped together without the glare of the TV cameras, allowing the council to hide the ingredients of the sausage from the public eye.

Which is why when Councilmembers Tim Bynum and Lani Kawahara dared to try to even discuss the matter of televising this year’s budget hearings Councilperson Darryl Kaneshiro tried every trick in the book to squelch discussion, replete with gavel banging recesses and county attorney threats.

It’s another of those must see segments starting right at the beginning of last Wednesday’s finance committee meeting.

Things were already testy after Bynum’s January request for the administration to come before the council and the public to talk about the county’s options and their thoughts on getting through this year’s financial crisis had been refused and deferred until days before the budget was due... which is today.

Kaneshiro started by actually defending the administrations secrecy saying that letting the public know what Mayor Bernard Carvalho was up to was a bad idea even though Bynum’s request was based getting more details about Carvalho’s January testimony before the legislature and statements made to the press.

Bynum apparently had the gall to think that public input before the budget was drawn up was a good thing and Kaneshiro wasn’t having any of that.

But when council watchdog Glenn Mickens asked about televising the budget hearings Kaneshiro had a hissy fit.

First he tried the old misdirection gambit saying Mickens was wrong in saying that the budget hearings used to be televised. In fact Mickens had said no such thing or anything approaching it. But Kaneshiro nonetheless was successful in browbeating the easily intimidated Mickens into thinking somehow he had actually said that. .

Then Kaneshiro launched into more misdirection saying that the budget hearings abide by the sunshine law and are open to the public... and anyway they’re long and boring and no one needs to see all that... and there’s a pubic hearing anyway... and, of course, it’s way too expensive to televise them, “especially in this fiscal crisis”.

The facts are of course that, first of all no one mentioned whether the meetings were open to the public, yet as they always do when the subject of televising meetings come up, they answer a question that wasn’t asked and ignore the fact that no one has the time to show up to a week of 8 a.m. to 12 noon meetings but may have the time to watch them on TV.

Second the “public hearing” for the budget bill occurs after the council approves the budget. There has virtually never been a change in the budget based on anything ever said in the public hearing. At that point its just a charter-mandated formality with the budget going to the mayor exactly as it was before the pubic hearing.

But the “too expensive” claim is the most absurd claim of all.

At $125 an hour- the figure cited by Kaneshiro- the 20 hours of budget hearings would cost $2500 to inform the public about how their money is being spent. In a $160 million budget that’s not even gum money.

Actually the council spends more than twice that every year on televising non-agendaed portions of the meetings- up to a hour or more per meeting- for things like the opening prayer and of course those “certificates”- which are basically thinly-veiled “grip and grin” re-election campaign photo-ops presented free on TV.

While they might be nice for the participants they are most assuredly not something that needs to be televised especially if the more than 50 hours a year of them causes the cameras to go dark for the 20 hours of all-important budget hearings.

Not only that but according to a county source there’s about $10,000 “extra” left in this year’s TV budget.

That’s separate from the question of what the administration is doing overseeing the budget for televising council meetings in the first place given the strict separation of powers in our charter and the fact that “recordings” of council meetings are council records, to be kept by council services according the state sunshine law.

So anyway after Kaneshiro gave his lengthy spiel Kawahara started to do the one thing Kaneshiro couldn’t and wouldn’t stand for- making sense as to why she and Bynum were in negotiation with the administration to get the budget hearings on the air.

That caused Kaneshiro to all of a sudden decide that televising the budget meetings weren’t on the agenda, finally cutting off Kawahara by banging his gavel and calling a recess.

After they came back, council watcher Ken Taylor took up the cause and was cut off, not by Kaneshiro but by County Attorney Al Castillo, who has routinely taken it upon himself to act as if he were the chair.

The squabbling went on from there with a second gavel-banging recess courtesy of Kaneshiro finally resulting in Bynum and Kawahara saying they were going to put the discussion on the agenda for this coming Wednesday- which they have done.

That may be why, despite the fact that they didn’t mention the dust up, the local newspaper fired a shot across the bow this weekend in their Sunday editorial, Shot in the dark

The first six and a half paragraphs dealt with why it’s probably the most important thing the council does and argues that:

With millions of dollars less to go around next fiscal year, the need for community members to have easy access to what cuts to services and increases to fees are being made becomes all the more important.

But the real shocker was contained in the seventh paragraph where they wrote:

If the county isn’t willing to ante up despite the public pleas for these meetings to be televised, we will do our best to not only maintain our regular coverage in the daily paper but also by streaming the meetings live at www.thegardenisland.com.

While it’s commendable that they will apparently spend the money (and it can’t be cheap) to get the meetings on-line it isn’t the same as television where channel surfers and those that simply don’t own a computer- or don’t own one able to play streaming video- will be able to see how their money is spent.

We’ve sat through years of these things and they are anything but boring. It’s where you can see plainly what the priorities of each councilmember are and how well they vet the administration’s request, department by department.

Gee- wonder why they wouldn’t want you to see that?

THEIR MASTER’S VOICE

THEIR MASTER’S VOICE: When the hand-held cell phone ban was passed a couple of weeks back a few members of the council- most notably Chair Kaipo Asing as well as Dickie Chang and Darryl Kaneshiro- expressed some reservations with their “aye” votes when a national study was revealed a few days before passage, questioning whether there were really any less deaths due to accidents involving people who were talking and/or texting while driving.

But Wednesday, when the bill was “reconsidered” for a minor “tweak” as the local newspaper called it, it seems a much more reliable and authoritative voice convinced the three that the study was in error.

Chang told the council that his doubts had been assuaged after hearing from none other that Oprah who has apparently entered the fray and declared cell phones to be deadly weapons.

Reassuring everyone he wasn’t a regular viewer or anything, by telling the assembled that he came across the vital information “while flipping channels” Chang said that if Oprah herself supports a cell phone bans, well that was good enough for him to now wholeheartedly support interdiction.

But, well, that’s Dickie- we would expect no less reverence for the infallibility of TV show hosts from him. As a matter of fact we pretty sure it was the basis of his campaign for office.

Less expected was that Dickie’s off-the-cuff recitation of Oprah’s spiel was followed by Kaipo who. saying Dickie had “taken the air out of his balloon”, read from an apparent print out of Oprah’s anecdotal admonitions against the evils of driving while yakking or texting, replete with descriptions of exploding train and bus wrecks.

Not to be outdone, Kaneshiro decried his original reservations saying basically that if that’s what Oprah thinks it was enough to remove his hesitations and reservations and that he was now in full support of the prohibition.

Then it was 4 p.m. and they all took an hour long recess to do their daily due diligence.

Well, alright maybe not but it sure goes a long way toward explaining how the council can so often be so misinformed. But it also explains why they are reelected over and over.

But it could be worse – they could be watching and citing Fox News.

A “CONCERTED CONSPIRATORIAL EFFORT”?

A “CONCERTED CONSPIRATORIAL EFFORT”?: A few years back the Kaua`i County Council finally discovered the best way to manipulate the dialogue before the cameras during what some of them call “the show” by taking required testimony on agenda items before and only before their discussions and then, if it’s embarrassing, finding a way to deflect it- often by answering a different question or addressing a different topic than the testimony raised.

Never was that more in evidence than at the last council meeting when the subject of former Kaua`i Police Department (KPD) Chief KC Lum’s lawsuit against the county was addressed.

Council watchdog Glen Mickens had the temerity to state that the persecution and dismissal of Lum was a “concerted conspiratorial effort” which, as the local newspaper’s Michael Levine reported, was met with vehement denials by two of the Minotaur’s gate keepers, Councilmembers Darryl Kaneshiro and Jay Furfaro, and the bone-gnasher himself Chair Kaipo Asing.

But what those who read the article or watched the cablecast of the meeting might have missed was the slight of hand on the council’s part in addressing, not the agenda item detailing an appropriation to fight the Lum lawsuit- which was struck down again in federal court at the 9th circuit level days before, apparently unbeknownst to the council at the time- but the separate somewhat related case of ES-177 which was “won” by the county weeks ago in Hawai`i Supreme Court.

The smoke and mirrors, hocus-pocus was because the charge of there having been a “concerted conspiratorial effort” to get rid of Lum would be difficult if not impossible to deny by anyone who really followed the saga from start to finish.

The first thing about the 9th Circuit decision that should be noted is that they did not rule that there was no conspiracy to get rid of Lum in general, just that it wasn’t race based.

As reported in another article- this one on the 9th Circuit decision itself- the court specifically said:

Lum and attorney Clayton Ikei failed to show former county Finance Department Director Michael Tresler acted with conspiracy based on racial bias when Tresler canceled Lum’s employment agreement (emphasis added)

The second important thing was that the decision was based on the “fact” that former Police Commission Chair Michael Ching showed bias in the hiring of Lum, based on a Board of Ethics (BOE) case that was enforced by the county council after a BOE “trial” of Ching which was held behind closed doors at Ching's behest.

It should be noted that fellow Police Commissioner Carol Furtado was brought up on the same charges of favoritism but chose a public hearing of her case resulting in an acquittal, most observers believe, because it was held in the open.

But looking at the whole sad story it would have been truly absurd for the council to claim that there was no concerted conspiratorial effort in Lum’s firing.

Let’s remember how it happened concerning at least two pertinent events.

The whole business started when former Councilperson and former KPD Officer Mel Rapozo came onto the council along with now Prosecutor Shaylene Iseri-Carvalho, both of whom held a grudge against Lum for events in their past.

Rapozo had been in the room during the infamous “lap dancer” molestation incident and Lum was the lieutenant on duty that night. When Officer Darla Abbatiello- who later sued and won a suit for harassment against the department and county- burst into Lum’s office and told him what was happening down the hall, Lum had no choice but to report the incident- something Rapozo and others to this day claim resulted in the firing of the “three good officer” who molested the “lap dancer” and the resignation of Rapozo who, supposedly, “just” stood by watching and laughing.

Iseri’s grudge came from a party she was hosting at Lydgate Park pavilion where the level of noise and boisterousness was such that a complaint was filed and Lum was the responding officer. A drunken Iseri, then a deputy prosecutor, confronted Lum when he came a second time to tell her to break it up and she always held a grudge based on the incident according to multiple sources.

Then came ES-177 and, according to an OIP letter to County Clerk Peter Nakamura during the back and forth about releasing the minutes, Rapozo went off on the whole department, especially Lum, detailing what he saw as injustices.

Rapozo obviously thought no one would ever know what he said since no executive session minutes had ever been released by the council- a fact still true today. Since it would have been embarrassing to the newly elected Rapozo had the minutes been released Chair Asing took the opportunity to try to corral the “maverick” Rapozo and hang the ES content over his head, assuring compliance with Asing's wishes and machinations over the next two council terms whenever Rapozo’s enthusiasm got in the way or “rocked the boat” as Asing is fond of saying.

It was in fact Asing who filed the charges with the BOE against Lum, at first on council letterhead and then, when he realized the whole council had never approved such a charge and that it would have indeed been an ethics violation to use his office to file the complaint against Ching, he said he made a “mistake” and said he was filing as a private citizen.

But the real heart of the conspiracy occurred at the mayor-appointed, council-confirmed BOE. The Ching case was heard by a retired Maui judge in secret and the secret report was given to the BOE. But while the report the BOE released to the council seemed to indicate that Ching had indeed used his position to secure a special privilege for Lum that wasn’t what the full report indicated.

Citizen activist Richard Stauber came before the council during the council’s session held to approve the BOE report and had a copy of the full report in which the judge essentially said that nothing untoward had happened and actually exonerated Ching although he did allow the county attorney’s office to write up the summery judgment which is what the council considered without officially seeing the whole report.

Saying a “little bird dropped (the full document) in my widow” Stauber tried to present it to the council as part of his testimony. But the council, perhaps fully aware of the content and not wanting the full report to become part of the public record, actually not only refused to accept the document and but when Stauber placed it on their table they instructed staff to physically give it back to Stauber.

Though the document was presented to the then council-beat reporter for the local newspaper Lester Chang- whose writing skills bordered on incompetence and who was widely known for his kow-towing to Asing and his penchant for trying to please the council- he refused to report on or even mention the additional data making sure that the general public never heard about the full report.

Finally a reluctant Mayor Bryan Baptiste, who originally really wanted the whole thing to just go away but later came to see which way the wind was blowing, joined the conspiracy apparently instructing Finance Director Michael Tressler- who was reward with a cushy. do-nothing vice-presidency at a big local land owner Grove Farm- to terminate Lum’s contract, resulting in Lum’s retirement because if he had allow himself to be “fired” as chief it could have resulted in him losing his seniority and thus pension.

Many other little oddities occurred during the time, mostly related to Police Commissioner Leon Gonsalves’ “hop sing” letter.

That bled over into the Lum persecution which also involved supporters of current Police Chief Darryl Perry including his brother, prominent attorney Warren Perry, and the leadership of the police union SHOPPO along with others in the administration who had begun to understand that their support of Lum might lead to consequences such as when another officer was disciplined for circulating a petition supporting Lum.

Soon the silence in support of Lum was deafening and no one was left to say boo when he was canned.

We certainly haven’t covered all the elements of the conspiracy here. To find out more details, if you’ve never read former Honolulu Star Bulletin Kaua`i Bureau Chief Anthony Sommer’s book KPD Blue (see left rail) it’s about time you did. And if any of the names or terms seem unfamiliar you can cut and paste them into the search box at the top of the page to see our past coverage.

What’s perhaps most galling about last Wednesday’s council “show” was the little conspiracy in the room and the way councilmembers browbeat and intimidated Mickens because, although he sat through the whole debacle along with Sommer and PNN, he might not always be as quick with his wits and as ready for confrontation as we might be had we been there and been given the opportunity to say what we’ve said here.

So pick on someone your own size Kaipo, Jay and Darryl. Anytime, any place we’d be not just glad but elated to debate any or all of you on the topic of the “concerted conspiratorial effort”. No?- well your silence is deafening, especially given your treatment of other who may be less articulate when they appear before you and your avoidance of people who can verbally hold their own.

We feel that Lum made a mistake in trying to make the whole case about racial/ethnic discrimination rather than a general wrongful termination. We also feel like his attorney Clayton Ikei didn’t serve him well in the various courts. Since it’s doubtful Lum has the money to continue the fight it seems that the county’s victory at the three-judge-panel level of the federal 9th Circuit will stand.

To claim there was no conspiracy in general to reverse the hiring of Lum- who would have been approved by the commission even without Ching's vote- unfortunately serves as a lesson to those who might enter the Minotaur’s labyrinth- have your wits about you and sword drawn even when the dark is as dark as can be, lest you serve as grist for the bonemill.

THEY ARE THE EGGMEN

THEY ARE THE EGGMEN: Wednesday’s council meetings was the first in months where discussion of council rules and associated matters weren’t on the agenda with dissident Councilmembers Tim Bynum and Lani Kawahara seemingly trusting that changes are in the works and so the public’s access to information will be radically expanded and the rules will be followed without bizarre or sinister interpretations.

But that trust was belied shortly after the gavel was pounded when government watchdog Rob Abrew continued his battle to have the council follow at least one of its own rules.

When the matter of the agenda came up on the agenda Abrew once again questioned why the council’s agenda again contained an item Communication C-2009-288 that violated council rule 15(b).

Although the state sunshine law calls for all agenda item to be posted six calendar days before the meeting the council has it’s own rule saying that:

All communications to be placed on the agenda must be initialed by the Council Chair and received by the Council or the Office of the County Clerk before 4:30 p.m. on the Friday two weeks preceding the day of the regular or Committee meeting.

The item in question was time stamped” as “received” on Thursday August 13th for the August 19th meeting.

So after laying out the case once again- as he did at the last council meeting where County Attorney Al Castillo had told him and the council the rules were simply “guidelines” that could be chucked in the trash on a whim- asking the council “are we going to pick and choose the ‘guidelines’?” which are followed.

In the past councilmembers- especially Chair Kaipo “il duce” Asing and his right hand man, defender of the realm Darryl Kaneshiro, have been relentless in claiming the council must always follow their rules- especially the one that calls to testimony to be restricted to two three minute segments.

But now that it proves inconvenient the rules are suddenly discretionary.

Kaneshiro started the defense with the old misdirection play claiming he didn’t really see what the problem was since no law was being broken referring to the sunshine law’s six day requirement. But Abrew patiently explained it all over again that that was basically irrelevant to the council rules.

What’s been called “the secret sunshine law”, HRS 92-71, allows counties to strengthen the state laws against closed government.

Then it was old-boy-in-waiting and latest addition to the palace guard Derek Kawakami’s turn to explain away the apparent flouting of the rules. He explained the intent of the rule launching into an explanation of how it was designed to make sure the staff wasn’t inundated at the sunshine law deadline because sometimes “matters come up” at the last moment that must be on the agenda.

Last meeting Kawakami was adamant that the rules were being followed and that there was no need to form an ad hoc committee to review them to come up with any changes at all.

The fact that experts agree that rules should be either followed or changed never came up.

Bynum on the other hand cited a promise to review the rules internally made by the chair and the three other councilmembers who voted down the committee idea.

He countered that “I heard a commitment to address the rules” at the last meeting and “I trust in due time we’ll do that” adding that the problem is that “as written the rule is absolute- that’s something we may want to look at.”

Kawahara agreed that “there is a commitment to look at the rules” and with that the agenda was approved without any action to effectuate any changes.

The council rules are archaic having been written 25 years ago, way before the “information age” and in a barely post-plantation era when dissent was not just unacceptable but could with five votes “suspend without pay for not more than one month any member for disorderly or contemptuous behavior or for personal vilification in its presence.”

No one could watch the last couple of meetings without finding that this description of behavior fit more than one councilmember’s actions.

There are a slew of other eyebrow raisers in the rules along with ones that are never followed.

For instance right off the bat, we’ve been going to inaugural meetings for years and we’ve never heard from any three member “credential committee” called for in Rule 1(a)2. It states that:

The Mayor, as the temporary Chair, shall appoint a credentials committee of not less than three members. The credentials committee shall immediately examine the credentials of the members elected. If a majority of the credentials are in order, the credentials committee shall so report and the oath of office shall be administered to the Councilmembers-elect by some person duly qualified to administer oaths.

Sometime when we feel ambitious we’ll go past the first couple of pages and point out some of the other rules that are either ignored or violated routinely. But just remember that four councilmembers found that the rules are just fine as they are at the last meeting.

ACHTUNG AHMADINASING

ACHTUNG AHMADINASING: Democracy took it’s lumps at Wednesday’s council meeting as the first real votes on specific resolutions were squelched by the now well-defined majority which used every trick in the book to avoid taking actions to resolve simplest of issues brought forward by reform Councilmembers Tim Bynum and Lani Kawahara.

The total lack of rationality and recognition of reality was striking. The meeting served as a coming out party for good-old-boy-in-waiting Prince Derek Kawakami who, with established defender of the realm Darryl Kaneshiro, flanked-in-phalanx the besieged Chair Kaipo Asing with a feigned rhetorical “problem?... what problem” blindness topped with a flourish of “that’s my story and I’m sticking to it”.

Everyone knew there’d be trouble as soon as the resolution to form an ad hoc committee to study and propose changes to the council rules was read and Kaneshiro quickly moved to receive- meaning kill- the resolution before Bynum or Kawahara could move to approve it.

After Bynum tried to briefly detail the problems he and Kawahara have had with the rules- especially rule 10(c) pertaining to placing items on the agenda- it quickly degenerated into a series of misdirections and silly personal attacks from Kawakami, Kaneshiro and Asing himself.

Although it was the ad hoc committee resolution that was on the table Kawakami started the distractions by saying that there was no need for a clarification of 10(c) because another rule- 15(c)- allowed placement if items on the agenda by a council 2/3 vote.

Of course that had failed to be enough to do the trick when Bynum tried to get an item on the agenda on June 3.

That started the whole thing. Not only that but of course the real issue is that councilmembers should have the right to introduce any item with or without support from four other members.

Yet that was to become a rallying cry when the actual resolution to clarify rule 10(c) came up later on the agenda.

The first silliness came from the reliably clueless Councilmember Dickie Change who attacked Bynum by saying that at the June 3 meeting, when County Attorney (CA) Al Castillo stifled discussion of the non-agendaed item as a sunshine law violation, councilmember Jay Furfaro had moved to defer the matter but no one seconded it

“I was shocked no one seconded it” Chang said using hindsight to tell Bynum he had the opportunity to put it on a future agenda right there even though the motive for the request for deferral was unknown at that moment- and because a motion for deferral ends discussion.

Chang seemingly either forget or wasn’t aware that as a councilmember he could have seconded it himself.

The mouth, if not brain-engaged Chang then indicated that he was now going to oppose the resolution that he co-introduced with Furfaro saying it wasn’t really “the 360” it appeared to be, forgetting to stop ay 180 and indicating that the audience wasn’t the only one getting dizzy with all the spinning.

Then it was time for Asing to issue the first of his lip-service repetitions of a statement he made on July 22nd saying that “the chair does not have absolute power” despite the fact that he had exercised such by routinely stopping Bynum and other members from placing matters on the agenda- something Bynum has documented at his kauaiinfo.org web site with the actual memos sent to Asing.

“Pay attention to what I say, not what I do” Asing had admitted refusing to place matters on the agenda while denying it in the same breath at the 22nd – as PNN reported last week- and again later during Wednesday’s meeting.

Asing glared at Bynum and called Bynum’s well documented problems with agenda placement “manufactured problems” stating with palms raised “I don’t understand- where did it come from?”.

Next Kawahara made a statement that would be butchered, misquoted and used to attack her by Kaneshiro and Kawakami later in the meeting, saying to Asing that changes in the rules “that were actually brought up to you in the six months I’ve been here” but were not given a place on the agenda.

During the discussion of the rule change itself Kaneshiro would be adamant in heatedly accusing Kawahara over and over of lying by saying she personally had sent memos asking to introduce measures even though she said no such thing.

But the issue of the ad hoc committee was what was actually on the table and there were real problems with the idea- problems that became clear when one of the proposed members, former council chair Ron Kouchi, spoke.

After saying he might have a “perceived conflict of interest” since his employer has a bill coming up on the council’s agenda, he pointed out that the committee would need council staff time and therefore have to direct staff- something he said non-members would have all sorts of difficulty doing.

He said in the past such committees and “task forces’ always had one or two councilmembers to direct staff.

That led to some discussion by Kaneshiro and others regarding the possibility of putting a resolution on a future agenda to form a committee with up to the two councilmembers- the number sunshine law allows to communicate on council matters- to study the rules although there was no real commitment to do so.

The resolution was then "received" by a 4-3 vote with Furfaro- if not Chang- supporting his own resolution along with Bynum and Kawahara.

But the show was just beginning and after lunch the fireworks were lit when the actual rule change resolution- one to clarify that rule 10(c) couldn’t be used by the chair to keep items off the agenda indefinitely - came to the floor.

The change seemed simple and straightforward enough but again Kaneshiro quickly moved to receive and kill the resolution and it was quickly seconded by Kawakami as the script apparently called for.

Kawakami again brought up rule 15(c) repeatedly calling it an “alternative mechanism” for placing things on the agenda even though the measure would then require a 2/3 vote to go foreword.

Bynum tried to calmly explain- as if anyone could forget- all the hassle he had when he tried to get something on the agenda that way and Kawahara reiterated that a 2/3 vote certainly was a “different level” of support that needed to be met and wasn’t “equal” to the simple rule 10(c) which guarantees councilmembers the basic right of a representative in a democracy- to introduce measures for the agenda.

Then it was Kawakami’s time to shine and show his stuff to any good old boys who might have doubted his ability to get down and dirty by defending Asing and the status quo- a very important skill in their eyes and a trial by fire that many sycophants have had to endure to be accepted into the club.

He and Kaneshiro then lit into Kawahara over and over with the ‘you said you had submitted things for the agenda” which of course she didn’t say- and was of course a distraction from the self evident story that has been told over and over about Bynum’s well documented two and a half year quest for democracy... one that everyone had witnessed since June 3 when the two month plus circus of attempting to get the rule change on the agenda began.

Bynum then tried to refocus back on the issue at hand reading the rules and trying to again briefly recap the hassles he’s had even trying to get something on the agenda, even through the 2/3 vote method.

He then called for Castillo to come up so he could ask him if it’s even possible to use the 15)c) “alternative mechanism” since it was Castillo who had said everything he tried to do on June 3 violated the sunshine law because it wasn’t on the agenda- a catch-22 PNN has described in detail over the past couple of months .

Bynum asked simply “can a councilmember make a motion to put something on a future agenda”.

But Castillo hemmed and hawed and eventually refused to answer him, even reverting back to the bad old days of former CA’s who requested everything be put in writing, saying he needed a “specific set of facts” to “make a ruling”.

Then it was time for Asing to repeat his “the chair does not have absolute power” line adding “I don’t believe one person should have that power”.

And of course Kaneshiro, Kawakami and Chang agreed with that and praised Asing for saying- if not doing- it. They also agreed that there was no problem since the chair had said it so it must be true.

And why change the rule if there was no problem they reasoned, acting as if the last two months had never happened and they hadn’t read the documents or heard the testimony.

That was when Asing had his own meltdown trying to say that he had never blocked anything from the agenda at the same time as admitting it had happened quite a few times.

Some of the back and forth exchanges were priceless. At one point Bynum asked Asing “didn’t you tell me you wouldn’t put (a resolution) on the agenda”.

Asing screamed “no!” before giving an excuse as to why he didn’t put it on the agenda.

Another time Asing denied blocking Bynum’s Po`ipu Beach Erosion Study bill which, at the July 22nd meeting, Asing had admitted he had blocked.

And when Bynum finally asked Asing if he had blocked the very resolution that was on the table- the one Bynum and Kawahara had fought for two months to get placed on the agenda- Asing, after having debated for ten minutes, finally said “I’m not going to get into a debate”.

In previous meetings former councilpersons JoAnn Yukimura and Mel Rapozo had testified that they also had the experience of having bills refused agenda placement but when Bynum tried to say that, Asing yelled “that’s an accusation”- something that made no sense (of course it was) and something he’s done before when cornered.

First Asing countered the Yukimura denial by talking about a bill that she wanted to introduce that, he said, had not been “cleared by the county attorney” and admitting that he blocked the bill- vowing he’d do it again if it hadn’t been run by the CA.

But Bynum said that he had forgotten about that bill but what he was really talking about was that Yukimura had tried to introduce a resolution opposing the Superferry coming to Kaua`i without an EIS and Asing refused to put it on the agenda because it was “too controversial”.

That caused the clueless Chang to agree with Asing’s decision saying “I can see the reason why the chair would not put that on the agenda” mentioning the controversy in the community at the time and citing the convention hall debacle with the governor being shouted down.

All this of course should have been enough to indicate that the rules needed clarification but led by Kawakami the three “D’s”- Derek, Dickie and Darryl- each said they personally had never had any problem placing matters on the agenda so there didn’t seem to be any problem with the rules.

Finally, in the ultimate “are you going to believe me or your lyin’ eyes” statement, Kawakami said told the council that “nothing (in the rules) gives the chair that kind of power (to refuse agenda placement)... the rules in place, properly applied, work just fine”, completely ignoring that the rules had very apparently not been “properly applied” and the resolution sought to clarify them so they would be.

Finally to no one’s surprise despite the fact that, as Bynum said, “there has been a problem- that’s as clear as a bell”, the resolution was “received” by a 4-3 vote with Furfaro joining Bynum and Kawahara in voting against the move to kill the rule change and Kaipo and the three D’s standing together in the same majority that put Asing in the council chair last December.

In case we haven’t done a good enough job in conveying the “through the looking glass” tone of the whole meeting, we’ve taken the opportunity sum it up with a re-write of the psychedelic Carrollian favorite, “White Rabbit” by the Jefferson Airplane.

***************

One bill makes him shudder and
Another makes you bawl
And the one the chair initials
Don’t do anything at all.
Ask Peter when he’s 10 feet tall.

And if you go chasing minutes
And you see them in the hall
Tell ‘em a reso-toting Minotaur
Has told you, “you’ve got gall”
Call Dickie when he was just small,

When men who rule on ethics
Get up and tell you they don’t know
And you’ve just missed weeks of email
And your mind can’t grasp it all
Ask Kaipo- I think he’ll know

When logic and proportion
Are received and, now they’re dead
And Darryl’s shredding Roberts
And Derek’s knocking head’s

Remember what the old boys said
Stay in bed
We’re all in bed

PITCAIRN HERE WE COME

PITCAIRN HERE WE COME: By the time councilpersons Jay Furfaro’s and Dickie Chang’s resolution to appoint an advisory committee to review the council’s rules came up on last Wednesday’s council agenda the room had becomes a jangle of exposed nerves, frayed to the bone from the contentiousness of the previous 12 plus hours of political wrangling.

The “sub committee” as it was referred to- despite the fact that is was “sub” to nothing, having no council members- was apparently Furfaro’s attempt to play both sides against the muddle by delaying any real change and putting it in the hands of three status quo supporting good old boys: Former Judge Spike Masunaga, Former council chair Ron Kouchi and former everything-to-everyone in power Phil Tachbin.

As we wrote last week it was transparently a way to put any discussion of the changes requested by open governance advocates, Councilmembers Tim Bynum and Lani Kawahara, behind closed doors and discussed by people who had been anything but sunshine advocates over their careers.

That was certainly the public perception going in. Furfaro’s latest attempt to say “I’m a dissident too”- while at the same time not outwardly opposing Chair Kaipo Asing’s ever-tenuous grasp on ultimate power and also maintaining his famous paternalism- was certainly going to be put to another test.

Furfaro started out the discussion trying to paint the “ad hoc’ committee as his attempt to make sure that the council’s rules- the key subject of the day’s discussions- were going to be reviewed completely by respected members of the community, experienced in the function of organizations.

Chang. a co-introducer, went next and said essentially the same thing. He co-introduced the reso with Furfaro thinking it to be a measure in support of Kawahara and Bynum. Both were surprised that there was opposition immediately when activists all over the island looked askew at the effort.

Neither made mention of the absurdity of having a secret cabal of non-council members meet behind closed doors without public input to decide what needed to be done to improve both the council’s and the public’s access to public documents and make sure that open meetings are the norm, both of which are a dubious propositions under current rules, as interpreted by Asing,

When they were done, leader of the rebellion Bynum’s turn to speak came and he stated that he had no problem with the committee or it’s members assuming that they will meet in sessions open to the public and take public input.

Bynum, sensing that a third vote in the person of Furfaro- whom he and Kawahara supported in opposing Asing for chair last December- was essential for future battles on this and other subjects, supported Furfaro’s “ad hoc committee” resolution.

That was just fine with Furfaro of course who has been seeking to have some of the massive community support that Bynum’s and Kawahara’s dissident stance has garnered.

Kawahara seeing the other two members of her coalition supporting it expressed some misgivings about it but acquiesced after hearing assurances from Furfaro that the committee would meet openly with public testimony

Kawahara and Bynum were in a tough spot. Neither could afford to attack the three respected community members for obvious reasons and the wind had been taken out of the sails of any opposition they might mount when the assurance of openness was made.

Previously public opposition to the resolution was mixed at best with most focusing on expanding the list of committee members to include well known sunshine and open government advocates. It looked like certain passage with four votes- the four most important at that point- assured in favor of the resolution

That’s when the totally unexpected happened.

Surely the mad dash to catch up with the bandwagon by Furfaro hasn’t gone unnoticed by Councilperson Darryl Kaneshiro, who was faced with the prospect of being the last defender of the realm, viewed by those paying attention as Asing’s right hand man, actually sitting on Asing’s right at the table.

The fact that community outrage over the whole matter had coalesced over the ad hoc committee since it hit the pages of the local newspaper days before, wasn’t lost of Kaneshiro who has done nothing to suggest he was anything but a shill for the now reviled Asing.

So, in his last chance to turn things around and associate himself with the reform movement sweeping the island, he pulled the political play of the day by opposing the committee.

In a speech that could have been torn from these “pages”, he objected to the fact that an outside group would be doing something that the council could and should be doing “around this table... before the public... in an open forum”- going over the rules in the light of day, not by a closed, small group.

It was so out of character for Kaneshiro- who never seems to run out of ways to consolidate power behind Asing in all of this- that at first no one knew what to do.

But it was Bynum, sensing the opportunity to build on Kaneshiro’s eloquent plea for open and good governance. who took the moment to say Kaneshiro had caused him to change his mind on the matter and he now favored having the council tackle rule changes on the floor- what he had really wanted all along.

Then they fell like dominoes with even Chang and then Furfaro recognizing the sea change around the table.

Finally, even Asing endorsed the idea.

It was only Furfaro’s last ditch plea to defer and not kill the resolution in the face of what even Furfaro admitted was certain defeat if it were to be voted on, that kept it on a future agenda where it will appear on August 12.

On thing of note that we missed in yesterday’s and Friday’s reports was what happened after the dinner break last Wednesday.

Sensing the discussion had played out, Bynum then turned to the issue that started it all- his resolution to change the wording of a council rule to make sure members could place matters on the agenda.

He tried to make a motion to put that resolution on a future agenda, a motion seconded by Kawahara.

But Asing also sensing the end of the discussion was adamant, insisting at every juncture that, if “discussion” was over the agenda item had to be “received” before anything else could happen. But then of course there would be no discussion of the matter on the table and Bynum would have no way to make a motion.

And of course, after some wrangling, the matter was “received” and Bynum did not get to take a vote on putting it on a future agenda.

Most probably Bynum gave up because he sensed that this was a battle that had already won with the chair’s vow that things would change “Monday”, assuming that one of those things would be access to the agenda.

If Bynum now tries to introduce the reso- especially in light of the later discussion initiated by Kaneshiro that the council would be taking up the rules on the council floor- and Asing refuses, Bynum will have a strong point to show that nothing has changed and that Asing broke his much vaunted promise to accommodate change.

WE’VE SPRUNG A LEAK MR. CHRISTIAN

WE’VE SPRUNG A LEAK MR. CHRISTIAN: Our coverage of last Wednesday’s Meltdown of the Minotaur gave a lengthy depiction of the issues raised by council reformers Tim Bynum and Lani Kawahara and Chair Kaipo Asing’s point by point ducking of the issues and attempts to make it a personal pissing contest.

Before we begin today’s part 2 we should correct our reference to “an apparently long recess where, according to witnesses Castillo badgered Kawahara in an animated conversation” and that “she wanted an executive session (ES) to apparently discuss some of the threats Castillo made.”

Although she did have a short conversation with Castillo, according to other witnesses it was brief and uneventful and there was a different conversation with “someone” else that had her apparently upset her and was possibly related to the reason the police showed up later and spoke with Kawahara.

But, back to the meeting, despite the fact that at one point Asing promised he would “work to resolve the issues” beginning today no one believes that will happen based on his continued adamancy after that statement that everything was ok with the way he manages the council.

And the reason is that it’s more than apparent that, although the issues raised so far by Bynum and Kawahara - getting mail and correspondence addressed to them, placing bills on the agenda and equitable access to all council documents- seem like relatively small simple matters, they strike at the heart of Asing’s control of every aspect of the function and work product of the county council.

If you watch the part of the meeting after the dinner break you’ll see how the implications of any implementation of these seemingly manini changes threaten the day to day back-room dealing that is the hallmark of Asing’s rule, as it was for every chair before him.

That may be why at one point an agitated Asing screamed “so we now have two people running things- the clerk and Lani Kawahara” and “why are we having this discussions in public?”- control information and you control everything.

That’s may be why Asing stated that communications from the administration and constituents alike dealing with matters for the council’s considerations go first to an “agenda file” where they are “sanitized” and “cleaned up”.

And that may be why Asing’s three supporters- the three D’s who voted to put him into the chair- all said they like it that way so they aren’t “overwhelmed” with information.

Obviously Uncle Kaipo gives them all the information they need.

Anyone who has read the full liturgy of attempts by Bynum and later Kawahara- detailed at their kauaiinfo web site- to get just the three simply “no-brainer” changes made knows how despite Asing’s incredulity that they “went to the newspaper” instead of going to him are bafflingly disingenuous. The stream of memos there show how hard they tried to take care of matters internally.

Bynum’s memos go back years and when Kawahara came on board last December she started asking for the same changes.

Yet Asing ignored every single memo, not just ignoring the content but not even responding by saying “let’s talk about it” or something similar. In fact the document trail shows Bynum tried over and over to set up a meeting with both Asing and County Clerk Peter Nakamura in the same room at the same time.

Instead each told him to talk to the other.

Which is why the crucial moment of the long day’s journey into night came when freshman Councilmember Dickie Chang asked Kawahara if she had ever met face to face with Asing on the matters they raised.

Kawahara told him “no” and that began the unraveling and full confession, unintentional though it was, by Chang, Asing and long time councilperson Darryl Kaneshiro as they described not just specific instances but the broad practices of making decisions in the bowels of the county building instead of on the council floor.

Tone deaf and seeming having never read the state sunshine law (or at least certainly not “getting it”) Chang actually told how he discusses all matters with Asing and others, colluding to make sure everything- including the outcome- was already scripted by the time of the meeting was called to order.

Kaneshiro, who should have known better, joined in also incredulous over Kawahara’s lack of an appearance before Asing to kow-two and “request” these things to happen- despite the fact that a two year lack of response to Bynum’s memos- and six months to hers- had made it apparent Asing had no appetite for even discussing the changes.

Chang prattled on and on actually using the terms “to cut a deal” and “play the game” in describing how he discussed most council matters with Asing and also implicating councilperson Jay Furfaro with whom Chang said, he discusses “everything”.

For the record, the sunshine law does allow two and only two councilmembers to meet and discuss council matters as long as they don’t use that exception to achieve inclusion of three or more members in the discussion by first talking to each individually then using serial one on one communications to “spread the word”.

But even in a two person discussion any commitment to voting certain way on any matter- including even asking directly whether the other supports specific legislation amendments, or any other official council action- is strictly prohibited.

The law is designed to prevent deals from being made anywhere but in a duly called meeting of a subject body, in front of the public where all deliberations toward decisions and all decision-making is supposed to be done.

Oh and the law states that in every case the sunshine law is to be “liberally construed toward openness”.

Kawahara’s attempts to resolve these issues in memos and make them part of the public record is exactly the way things are supposed to happen under the sunshine law.

But as actually described by Chang, Kaneshiro, and rookie Councilperson Derek Kawakami (who left the meeting at one point) and intimated by Furfaro, for those seeking admission to the Kaua`i County Council Club the way that business is conducted is in a backroom office where the script is written and violations of the law go undetected.

Wannabe old boy Chang is just clueless enough to think that meeting face to face in a back room is preferable to the professionalism that Bynum and Kawahara use in doing their job.

Chang made a point that he does government business the same way he does business in the schmooze-o-rama, glad-handing world of the visitor’s industry and in his promotional television program Wala`ua.

He treats his official duties as if he were “playing the game” and “cutting a deal” with his resort-manager and tourism promotion crowd and actually thinks that’s a good thing. oblivious to the difference and, in fact, laws designed to prevent that very type of deal making.

We were surprised by one conversation we had over the weekend with one voter who supports open government but told us of concerns that Kawahara hadn’t “played the game the right way” perhaps because she is a political neophyte who just hasn’t learned to cut a deal yet.

We suggested that perhaps she simply has principles, “gets” the open government and prefers to lead by example by refusing to bow down to the illegal back-room methodology, hoping that others will eventually get the message and stop their secret dealings.

Or that voters will understand that and vote out those who continue to think skulking in the labyrinth is ok and vote in people who will do a professional, transparent job of governing.

One other thing should be pointed out- Kaipo Asing is almost impossible to communicate with much less to meet with. He doesn’t send or receive email. He doesn’t now how to gather information on-line.

He does not “get” email or computers, in either sense of the word.

But he also does not take phone calls when he is at the county building– and he almost never returns any of the resulting messages unless it’s from someone internal to the county or someone else with whom he wants or needs to communicate.

His office door is anything but open- as a matter of fact few even know where it is. He has refused to take the great big “fish bowl” office designated for the council chair that’s right next to the entrance to the council chamber. Nor is he in one the offices in the mutli-office room in the front end of the building.

As a matter of fact the only way to find his office is to go through the council services section where no members of the public are allowed without invitation.

One more note for today- much was made by Asing at the meeting that there is an ongoing “investigation” because he believes that “someone tampered with the county web site”- a charge he made numerous times and was apparently used by County Attorney Al Castillo to successfully shut down much of the discussion.

But apparently, it was the recent institution of a new email address, counciltestimony@kauai.gov that was at issue.

One of the mail problems Kawahara and Bynum had was, as we reported Friday, getting email at the council@kauai.gov address that was supposed to go to all councilmembers in email format but, in actuality, was distributed via a print-out, without the return address and delayed- sometimes by a week or more.

So, since Asing and Nakamura refused to send all councilmembers constituent mail going to the “council” address, County IT director Erik Knutzen set up the new "counciltestimony" address that automatically sends copies to each councilperson with no intermediary.

Our understanding is that this is what Asing is objecting to calling it “tampering with the county web site” without of course understanding that email is not the same as a “web site” and so understanding that simply forwarding mail for an entirely new address “tampering”.

Bizarre.

We still haven’t written about the section of the meeting dealing with the “resolution” to form an advisory committee- comprised of three charter old-boy-club members- to study council rules.

We’re waiting until tomorrow because of the usual total incompetence- which we presume it was despite widespread conspiracy theories in the community- of Ho`ike Community Television and its chief, J Robertson..

On Saturday we called to report that at the end of Friday’s cablecast of the meeting the last crucial moments of the vote to go into an executive session were deleted. On it two voices can be heard voting “aye” before the tape end moments later.

According to the article by reporter Michael Levine in Friday’s local paper:

The motion to go into the late-night executive session garnered only two votes — Bynum’s and Kawahara’s — causing Kawahara to yell angrily and slam her papers on the table.

However this correction appeared in the paper on Saturday.

The... story... should say the final motion to go into executive session at the end of the meeting garnered three votes — Lani Kawahara’s, Tim Bynum’s and Jay Furfaro’s — failing 3-3.

Although the tape seems to indicate only two votes, it does end there.

Email attempts seeking clarification from Levine as to how his original observation came to be “corrected” drew no response at press time.

Back to Ho`ike, we were told Saturday that only Mr. Robertson could “fix” the apparent glitch and despite our repeated attempts to communicate the urgency we were told he couldn’t be disturbed until Monday.

Then for the rest of the weekend instead of the last two plus hours of the meeting- including the entire resolution discussion- viewers watched a black screen.

Seems they could fix it- they “fixed it good”.

The executive session was requested by Kawahara but everyone was mum as to the reason although many who were there believe it directly related to whatever happened to upset Kawahara during the first recess and something that happened between her and “someone” other than Castillo, as we mentioned above.

Interestingly, Castillo illegally called for the “unanticipated” ES saying it was to “discuss the councils privileges, liabilities, power and duties” using the language of exemption from open meetings #4 under HRS 95-5(a) of the sunshine law.

But according to a long standing opinion from the Office of Information Practices (OIP) which administers the sunshine law, all agenda items including ES’ must have a detailed, specific (not general) purpose listed for the ES in addition to the cited exemption.

MUTINY AT THE COUNTY

MUTINY AT THE COUNTY: All that was missing in Chair Kaipo “Captain Queeg” Asing’s defense of his iron fisted managerial style at yesterday’s council kafuffle was a couple of steel balls and repetitious claims that “it was the strawberries” that were at the heart of all the simple demands for fair equitable and transparent treatment from Councilmembers Tim Bynum and Lani Kawahara.

Well, actually the steel balls were present, not rolling around in the Chair’s hands but between his legs symbolizing his gall in using every misdirection and misinformation trick in the book in vainly grasping at any straw to keep the council labyrinth under the sole domain of the Minotaur.

By now most have read the coverage of the 9 a.m. to 9 p.m. emotion-packed council meeting but only a viewing of the tapes can give a sense of the gradual descent into madness exhibited by Asing as he tried everything he could to not address the issues and instead attack the two reformers and defend an archaic set of whole cloth polices with a “who, sweet little me?” routine .

Most everyone knows by now the three simple reforms demanded by Bynum and Kawahara – that they actually receive mail addressed to them (imagine such nerve) , that their right to place matters on the agenda is assured and that they and the public have timely and equitable access to council documents.

So we won’t rehash them or the long and sordid history of their attempts to work toward resolving them internally. They’re all available at their kauaiinfo.org web site.

The meeting began with dozens of members of the public filing up to demand their rights as constituents- to allow their representatives to do their work. Then Bynum and Kawahara essentially tried to tell the same story they had told at their web site and in op-ed articles in the newspaper.

That’s when the going got weird and weird got going, in the person of not Asing but County Attorney (CA) Al Castillo. He apparently had been instructed by Asing to stop discussion of the particulars of how mail was distributed if Bynum and Kawahara were doing the accusing.

He seemed hell bent on stopping any nitty-gritty discussions of some of the manipulations and machinations, not giving any reason why other than to essentially read the sunshine law that allows the council to go into executive session (ES) to discuss their duties, liabilities privileges and the like.

From what we could glean from Castillo’s continual, cryptic, guarded and severely parsed interruptions of Bynum’s and Kawahara’s “presentations”, apparently the contention that the council routinely ignores the sunshine law, that Asing and his staff obstruct justice and interfere with access to public document by councilmembers and misdirect their mail- as well as who knows what they were about to reveal- involved exposing illegal activity.

And, in addition, since the charges involved activities of “staff”- specifically and presumably County Clerk Peter Nakamura- Castillo interpreted that as discussing “personnel” matters.

The open discussion of the subject essentially ended with a new catch-22 of Castillo’s design. If the councilmembers detailed matters of illegal activity such as document manipulation, interference with the US mail or who knows what, they would be “exposing the county to liability”. But of course if they don’t detail what they know they’d be colluding in the crimes.

The two were incredulous at this as was the crowd which expressed its anger with screams, cat calls and boos when Castillo called for an executive session to discuss the charges.

But rather than holding an ES, Kawahara asked to speak to Castillo during a recess and after an apparently long recess where, according to witnesses Castillo badgered Kawahara in an animated conversation, Kawahara, choking back tears of frustration told the assembled that somehow it had evolved to the point where “it’s a matter of how long I want to be a councilmember” saying that now she wanted an executive session to apparently discuss some of the threats Castillo made.

But now it was Asing who refused to go into ES even though Castillo asked for one causing Bynum to point out how a couple of weeks ago Asing has admonished him for not following the CA’s advice to go into ES.

Anyway the ES didn’t happen and Kawahara did manage to get out some of her presentation detailing and demonstrating how email that was addressed to her was distributed by printing it out, without the return address and explaining how things addressed to “the chair and all councilmembers” were either long delayed or sometimes never reached her.

“This is exactly what should go on the public record, not in executive session” she said in describing her presentation.

It was then time for Asing’s defense.

“I could refute every allegation (Bynum) made- you’ve heard things that are false, half the truth, maybe not even that” said Asing.

And although he was belligerent in personally attacking Bynum and Kawahara- after they had simply tried to stick to the issues- and promised to refute every point, as he addressed each he did anything but, answering unrelated changes he seemed to make up on the spot as if to appear to address the issues the two raised while actually ranting on about unrelated and irrelevant information on almost every point.

In classic “are you going to believe me or your lyin' eyes” manner he conveniently disregarded Bynum’s attempts to place a rules change on the June 3 agenda, as an agitated Asing showed Bynum’s signature on the “current” council rules passed last December 1 saying Bynum wasn’t truthful in claiming he was not able to introduce a rule change.

Asing charged that Bynum didn’t suggest changes “even though you had every opportunity to do so.”

Problem was he was talking, not about the June 3 meeting or any of the numerous internal requests both Bynum and Kawahara had made to put rule changes on the agenda but about the ceremonial and scripted inaugural meeting at the convention hall.

The fact is that this “first council meeting” after each election takes place in the back room before hundred of dignitaries and is the “real” swearing in ceremony. It is anything but an opportunity to address the rules.

This year for example when we and activist Bruce Pleas wanted to speak about aspects of the rules we literally had to disrupt the meeting and had the people present squirming in their seats and giving us stink eye for daring to interrupt the script, which usually calls for unanimous votes on a few matters- including appointing the clerk which of course means the council never got to address the rules of that appointment at a regular council meeting unless the chair allows it onto the agenda.

By daring to speak we were also holding up the “fake” swearing in that was about to happen in the auditorium where 1000 plus people were looking at their watches wanting to know what the holdup was.

Asing then went on to try to disprove that Bynum’s charges that they didn’t have the ability to place items on the agenda as the council rules require (although they did say the chair must initial all agenda items).

Bynum has cited years of attempts to put a bill before the council appropriating $400,000 to study beach erosion at Po`ipu Beach and Asing’s refusal to allow it.

But instead of addressing the years of attempts and his refusal Asing went into a long diatribe about how there was a potential budget deficit in January at the time of Bynum’s last attempt due to the possibility the legislature would take away the county’s share of the transient accommodations tax.

That, Asing claimed, made him reject the bill and rather put the money in the following year’s budget saying ”it’s the same thing” supposedly showing his wisdom.

He tried to parse the dustup as a young and out of control Bynum trying to spend money we didn’t have while he, the older cool head had found a better way to do it.

But later in explanation Bynum pointed out that the real story was that due to Asing’s stonewalling of his bill he had gathered many in the community to lobby the administration for the money and it was the administration, not Asing, that included it in the budget.

He also told Bynum he wouldn’t introduce it because “you don’t have three other votes”.

And indeed both councilperson Darryl Kaneshiro and Dickie Chang confirmed that they had discussed it and would support the chair in his denial- a commitment that is a blatant violation of the sunshine law and exemplifies Asing’s back-room dealing modus operandi.

Chang would later, during what passed for a brief Kumbaya moment in the meeting, revealed a plethora of sunshine law violations including commitments on votes made by at least three councilmembers as well as other backroom deals he had been involved in through serial one-on-one communications.

Bynum was floored by the attitude and the blatant violation of the law saying that it was his understanding that the way a open and democratic legislative body works is that you discuss the bill in public by putting it on the council agenda and have a public hearing.

If you get four votes there you get your bill. You don’t block it from even being discussed and do so in a back room through arm twisting and vote trading alliances.

Asing then went on to the subject of minutes and other documents being placed on the web site repeating many of the fabrications that were made in a June administration press release (as PNN reported) saying that he and the administration had been “working on it for years” and claiming absurd delays got in the way such as the death of Mayor Baptiste and the elections and other unrelated items.

And he chose to focus of a statement made by Bynum that it was almost impossible to find a jurisdiction that didn’t post important documents and other things like video of meetings, yelling over and over that the Big Island didn’t post “minutes’.

The fact is that the Big Island site does not post minutes but has slews of documents the Kaua`i site doesn’t including the whole county code, all the councilmember public disclosure reports (which aren’t even available on paper on Kaua`i as PNN has detailed) and even streaming video along with other documents.

And the fact is that the administration has, according to Bynum, now apologized to him for the fabrications in the press release admitting that any delays in posting the minutes- the only thing currently available on Kaua`i along with so-called recap memo from each meeting that no one even knew existed- were purely at Asing's demand, a matter that IT manager Erik Knutzen told us and many others last year, saying all he needed to do that and other things on line for the council was the chair’s say so.

The announcement” came only after two contentious meetings and the publicizing of the lack of on-line council documents by Bynum and Kawahara. And the administration had been posting minutes for many months when the press release was sent two weeks ago.

Yet the chair insisted “the system works- there’s no need to change the rules. I've done a good job of administering the rules. I’ve administered the rules the way it was intended to be”.

Then came one of the bigger misdirections. Bynum and Kawahara, as we mentioned above, had figured out that mail- including email and other snail mail and other correspondence- that is addressed to the “chair and all councilmembers” does not reach them in a timely manner sometimes taking days or even weeks and sometimes not getting to them at all.

But Asing insisted it wasn’t true saying that if something is addressed to a specific councilmember it goes directly to them. Problem is that that isn’t what the two had asked for.

Asing seemingly admitted not forwarding mail addressed to him and all councilmembers, going into a convoluted description of how “agenda” mail- whatever he decides that is- goes to staff for what he called “sanitizing”.

Then, ducking one of the prime issue, he astoundingly said “I wont be discussing electronic mail”.

Bynum and Kawahara have revealed how until last month they couldn’t even get email for all councilmembers in email form with at their council@kauai.gov addresses rather being printed out and put in their mailbox... with the return address deleted.

This has led to the institution at their demand of a new counciltestimony@kauai.gov address which is sent to them now by email even though other email is still printed out.

However, although the other email and electronic correspondence now has a return address it’s still not available as email, only on paper.

Another obtuse charge by Asing was that Bynum was doing what he accused Asing of doing- not distributing communications to all councilmembers when they come in from the administration saying Bynum didn’t forward a CA letter on a bill Bynum was working on to Asing and the rest of the council.

But that wasn’t the issue- Bynum’s memo from the CA was a personal request for information on a working draft of a document, not something that came into council services addressed to all councilmembers.

Another revelation was that Asing blocked a bill that Bynum tried to introduce requiring posting of minutes by the administration and council. But Asing blocked it at every point because apparently that would have revealed that the county was not complying with the law by getting the minutes for boards and commissions “done” in 30 days.

Rather than having the administration be “embarrassed” according to Asing, he blocked the bill.

After a few more of these, the meeting really got hot and heavy with Asing still trying to use his obfuscations and even outright fabrication when Bynum got a chance to respond.

It was then that, as the newspaper described it, it turned into a marriage counseling session.

Later, even while refusing to admit there was anything wrong with the rules or his actions or any council processes over which he presides, Asing promised massive changes will be instituted "on Monday" after which he went right back to his Captain Queeg routine.

That’s enough for today. We’ll most likely report more on the rest of the meeting soon- we haven’t even seen the end which we hear was a humdinger.

No matter what we write we can’t possibly do justice to the events and Asing’s absolute jaw-dropping stonewalling along with some cryptic mentions about someone “tampering with the county web site”, the involvement at one point of the police and the constant unexplained interruptions from Castillo which went on intermittently throughout the meeting.

Take a gander at the meeting, playing on channel 53 throughout the weekend- it’s so long it will probably be the only thing on.