HOOK, LINE AND STINKER: During the last month we've used the bill (#2149) to allow camping at Lydgate Park as a kind of case study of the long-practiced and well-honed dance of the headless chickens used by the last three Kaua`i administrations- especially in the Department of Public Works (DPW) and the now spun-off Department of Parks and Recreation (DP&R)- to run out the clock on county council oversight of various and sundry mismanagement schhemes.
But the manner in which DP&R Director Lenny Rapozo's final "rope-a-dope" performance yielded a split decision in favor of the bill's passage last Wednesday, gave a whole meaning to "don't ask me- I'm only in charge here."
Of course Rapozo's use of "the fog" and the "I not here" method of administrative oversight could not have been accomplished without council allies willing to look the other way at the misrepresentations and outright lies as well as the lack of any semblance of competency of Rapozo and his underlings.
After months of non-answers to "the eight questions" that had been repeatedly asked, in writing, of Rapozo, the bill was moved out of committee to the full council where last Wednesday despite the fact that there were amendments pending and it was no where near ready for a vote... something that has inflamed Chair Jay Furfaro's hair on many an occasion in the past.
Rapozo appeared after handing in the alleged answers just that morning, claiming he never had the questions- many of which had been sent in writing months ago- until the previous Friday. And, much to Furfaro's chagrin, they hadn’t even been distributed to councilmembers yet.
The old bait and switch made an appearance too. Seems the originator of "the fog" himself, perennial county appointee Ian Costa who now serves as Rapozo's deputy, had unexpectedly shown up instead of Rapozo the week before with Rapozo conveniently on the mainland, allowing Rapozo to claim he had no idea what had happened the previous week.
As we've previously described, it's a classic move Costa developed during the year-long "Developers Gone Wild," grubbing and grading hearings before the council in the 90's which exposed the early misdeeds of Jimmy Pflueger preceding the deadly Ka Loko Dam break for which Pflueger is scheduled to stand trial for murder later this or next year.
The session began with Council Chair Jay Furfaro waving around what a real plan would look like, taken from a Virginia Beach Virginia campground saying "can you kokua me... this is what I'm looking for Lenny."
The questions dealt with almost everything imaginable from lack of a sufficient number of toilets to insufficient staffing for maintenance and security and were seemingly at least partially a result of there being no written plan to make sure the professed "work-class facility" would even be run in an organized and coherent manager.
But try as he might, Furfaro could not get a commitment from Rapozo to put together such a plan by the time camping was scheduled to begin, 60 days after the passage of the bill.
Finally after twenty minutes of trying to get such a commitment from Rapozo, Furfaro demonstrated the council's archetypical part in the avoidance scheme by declaring Rapozo's "no" to be a "yes."
Of course the run-around can't properly function without an administration shill. The role was made for Councilmember Tim Bynum whose "don't confuse me with the facts" rhetoric, previously honed on the issue of the bike path, consisted of declaring the questions to have been answered already- whether they were or not- and calling all criticism of the not-ready-for-prime-time "plan" to be too "meticulous."
This left an opening for Councilmember Mel Rapozo to perform one of his classic ape-like chest beating routines consisting of lines like "That's our job, to be meticulous... guilty as charged."
But perhaps the most Kafkaesque scene in the melodrama played out over the issue of the "fishermen" who have traditionally frequented the area since, well, forever.
As championed by Councilperson Kipukai Kuali`i the council went back and forth, working to make sure fishers could go to the campground and essentially camp out while fishing without really being official campers.
Of course the task was impossible on its face. How do you allow people to stay overnight in the campground, in their tents, as long as they leave their fishing poles stuck in the sand with the line in the water- as described by Kuali`i- and then distinguish who is actually camping without a permit and who is simply fishing.
The council has been asking Lenny Rapozo- and Costa- for the actual metes and bounds of the camping area rather than providing the cruddy little map with dotted lines that had been made part of the bill. Mel Rapozo- an ex-cop- described the absurdity of the prosecution going to court with such a map and how any good attorney could raise enough questions to make it unenforceable.
The answer apparently was simply, as stated by many, that the standard was "we know who is camping and who is fishing."
Oh great. The island isn't sufficiently wracked with charges of "reverse racism" by the increasing number of uptight, malahini mainlanders who can't distinguish between the word "haole" as used descriptively and the more provocative "stupid f-ing haole." Now we have an area where the line between campers and fishermen is going to be- at least in their eyes- as much a factor of the shade of their skin as anything else.
County Attorney Al Castillo didn't really help by hemming and hawing and finally maintaining that it didn't matter what the law said as long as there was "sufficient notice" in the form of signage to tell the users what made a fisherman a fisherman and what made a camper a camper.
As if.
Finally, the answer was to be as ambiguous as possible and the council inserted language that allows "fishermen" to "fish" any place in the campgrounds where there isn't an actual designated camp site.
However all this probably doesn't matter one whit because, it was revealed, the county's park rangers are never there between 10:30 p.m. and 4 a.m. leaving enforcement of the unenforceable provision an academic matter anyway.
The bill passed with Kuali`i and Mel Rapozo voting against it and now it's up to the DP&R to promulgate administrative rules- which promise to be as vague as the bill- in the next two months and decide which parts of the campground to "open for camping" with no real idea of what is going to happen, in a classic Kaua`i County "ready, fire, aim" manner.
But whatever happens you can bet dollars to donuts that we haven't heard the end of the seven-year saga, especially when the first "you're not fishing, you're camping- I can tell by the color of your skin" ticket is issued.
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Note- We're working with a new editor whose schedule is malleable so, although we intend to keep to the 1 p.m. press time, there may be days when it is decidedly later.
Showing posts with label Lydgate. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Lydgate. Show all posts
Thursday, September 15, 2011
Wednesday, August 31, 2011
PERMITS? WE DON'T NEED NO STINKIN' PERMITS
PERMITS? WE DON'T NEED NO STINKIN' PERMITS: It's hard to know what goes on between those "world class" ears of Councilmember Dickie Chang sometimes but his attempt last Wednesday to defend the administration's vision of Lydgate Park didn't do much to help matters.
At last week's committee meeting council watchdog Ken Taylor delivered a scathing attack on the Department of Parks and Recreation's (P&R) contention that the camping facility described in Bill 2149 would be "world class" despite the lack of bathrooms and other facilities along with insufficient training, supervision and equipment- not to mention numbers of park maintenance workers- to keep it clean and safe.
Without mentioning P&R's head, Lenny Rapozo, or his deputy Ian Costa, Taylor made the mistake of saying that "where I come from" or anywhere else in the world for that matter, the department's leadership would be fired for the present conditions in the area even before camping is offered to visitors as a "first class" camping experience.
Chang's "rebuttal" was jaw-dropping, telling Taylor that "local people are not that hard to please," continuing with an implied and thinly-disguised racially-charged rant telling Taylor how local people don't want to hear "where I come from."
We can only surmise that in Chang's mind "local people" apparently enjoy bathrooms with perennially stuffed up toilets and sewage-tainted standing water, along with overflowing trash cans.
T'ank you massah fo' any small kindness. Just give us an ocean and a fishing pole and we's as happy as pigs in s**t, eh Dickie?
Well at least one "local" was more than offended.
In a letter to the editor in today's local newspaper our friend Camellia Ditch-Crosby of Lawa`i wrote directly to "Mr. Chang" saying:
We don’t know what locals you are talking to that say they are not hard to please regarding the parks’ condition because most of our `ohana and friends are not pleased at all.
It’s the worst condition it’s been in the 65+ years we’ve lived here. We are seven generations on Kaua`i. Yes, the lawn has been cut short and raked, but the bathrooms are filthy. The Kapa`a restroom, next to the police substation is a good example. The Po`ipu, Salt Pond and Nawiliwili restrooms too.
Some of my ‘ohana said the volunteers are now taking charge of cleaning and painting the pavilions and restrooms. Why? Please don’t generalize and say locals are not hard to please; that’s not true. We want to know where our tax dollars are being spent. Or are we going backwards and eventually the county will be using “out houses” the way we grew up.
The fact is that "local people" don't need an official "campground" to spend a couple of days at the beach. But we're all damn tired of disgusting bathrooms and the lack of enough toilets that's resulted from the county's creation of "beach parks" and then promoting them to visitors.
We as a community have to decide whether we want to keep creating "parks" and installing facilities at formerly "wild" places, making what used to be "local" spots suddenly attractive to visitors. Because then we not only essentially lose the ability to just pick up and camp there without permits but, as taxpayers, we have to pay for the resulting need to keep the places clean.
The "south Lydgate" area where the proposed campground sits is just such an place. If it weren't for Councilmember Kipukai Kuali`i demanding an amendment to define the campground area so that theoretically beach "fishing" could still take place, we'd have lost it entirely... although it's a crap shoot as to what will happen when the park ranger comes across a family that has just shown up, sans permit, and set up for a night of fishing on the beach- just outside the "official" campgrounds where tourists are paying $25 a night.
The schizophrenic vision of the "world class" facility with, according to Councilmember JoAnn Yukimura, design flaws that cause the ponding in the showers and bathrooms is not just a product of the usually muddled thinking Chang exhibits. The rest of the councilmembers present also voted to move the bill to the full council while Kuali`i and Councilmember Mel Rapozo- who have tried to hold Lenny Rapozo's and Costa's feet to the fire on the bill- were away on council business.
Despite the fact that nothing has changed since the bill was shelved years ago it will certainly pass next Wednesday. And then we'll have lost another beach due to the actions of the "park" developers- aka, the "world class" imbeciles in elective county office.
At last week's committee meeting council watchdog Ken Taylor delivered a scathing attack on the Department of Parks and Recreation's (P&R) contention that the camping facility described in Bill 2149 would be "world class" despite the lack of bathrooms and other facilities along with insufficient training, supervision and equipment- not to mention numbers of park maintenance workers- to keep it clean and safe.
Without mentioning P&R's head, Lenny Rapozo, or his deputy Ian Costa, Taylor made the mistake of saying that "where I come from" or anywhere else in the world for that matter, the department's leadership would be fired for the present conditions in the area even before camping is offered to visitors as a "first class" camping experience.
Chang's "rebuttal" was jaw-dropping, telling Taylor that "local people are not that hard to please," continuing with an implied and thinly-disguised racially-charged rant telling Taylor how local people don't want to hear "where I come from."
We can only surmise that in Chang's mind "local people" apparently enjoy bathrooms with perennially stuffed up toilets and sewage-tainted standing water, along with overflowing trash cans.
T'ank you massah fo' any small kindness. Just give us an ocean and a fishing pole and we's as happy as pigs in s**t, eh Dickie?
Well at least one "local" was more than offended.
In a letter to the editor in today's local newspaper our friend Camellia Ditch-Crosby of Lawa`i wrote directly to "Mr. Chang" saying:
We don’t know what locals you are talking to that say they are not hard to please regarding the parks’ condition because most of our `ohana and friends are not pleased at all.
It’s the worst condition it’s been in the 65+ years we’ve lived here. We are seven generations on Kaua`i. Yes, the lawn has been cut short and raked, but the bathrooms are filthy. The Kapa`a restroom, next to the police substation is a good example. The Po`ipu, Salt Pond and Nawiliwili restrooms too.
Some of my ‘ohana said the volunteers are now taking charge of cleaning and painting the pavilions and restrooms. Why? Please don’t generalize and say locals are not hard to please; that’s not true. We want to know where our tax dollars are being spent. Or are we going backwards and eventually the county will be using “out houses” the way we grew up.
The fact is that "local people" don't need an official "campground" to spend a couple of days at the beach. But we're all damn tired of disgusting bathrooms and the lack of enough toilets that's resulted from the county's creation of "beach parks" and then promoting them to visitors.
We as a community have to decide whether we want to keep creating "parks" and installing facilities at formerly "wild" places, making what used to be "local" spots suddenly attractive to visitors. Because then we not only essentially lose the ability to just pick up and camp there without permits but, as taxpayers, we have to pay for the resulting need to keep the places clean.
The "south Lydgate" area where the proposed campground sits is just such an place. If it weren't for Councilmember Kipukai Kuali`i demanding an amendment to define the campground area so that theoretically beach "fishing" could still take place, we'd have lost it entirely... although it's a crap shoot as to what will happen when the park ranger comes across a family that has just shown up, sans permit, and set up for a night of fishing on the beach- just outside the "official" campgrounds where tourists are paying $25 a night.
The schizophrenic vision of the "world class" facility with, according to Councilmember JoAnn Yukimura, design flaws that cause the ponding in the showers and bathrooms is not just a product of the usually muddled thinking Chang exhibits. The rest of the councilmembers present also voted to move the bill to the full council while Kuali`i and Councilmember Mel Rapozo- who have tried to hold Lenny Rapozo's and Costa's feet to the fire on the bill- were away on council business.
Despite the fact that nothing has changed since the bill was shelved years ago it will certainly pass next Wednesday. And then we'll have lost another beach due to the actions of the "park" developers- aka, the "world class" imbeciles in elective county office.
Tuesday, August 16, 2011
ACCEPT NO SUBSTITUTES
ACCEPT NO SUBSTITUTES: It's hard to know which is worse lately- Wednesday's befuddled and buffoonish rerun of the previous council Public Works Committee meeting on the Lydgate camping bill or the ill-informed and equally befuddled and buffoonish coverage and editorial of it in the local Kaua'i newspaper.
Two weeks ago we wrote:
The bill was snatched from the jaws of passage out to the full council at last Wednesday's Public Works Committee meeting by Councilperson Mel Rapozo's request for a deferral for two weeks after the rest of the council didn't seem to care about the myriad lies and coverups from Parks and Recreation Department Director Lenny Rapozo.
And the only thing that changed this time was that Rapozo, after promising answers in two weeks, had taken an extremely convenient and unannounced "vacation." And in his stead he sent the island's own roving flack-catcher, Ian "Waldo" Costa.
Like the striped shirted traveler, Costa seems to show up everywhere. Despite being canned from many county positions over the years- ranging from a stint as deputy county engineer during the "Developers Gone Wild" days when he looked the other way at Jimmy Pflueger's grading and grubbing violations, to his recent stint as Planning Director which ended with an FBI investigation and his resignation under fire- Costa is back, this time taking shrapnel for Rapozo over the seemingly inept attempt to get the camping operations going.
Costa is the champion of what council-watchers have called "the fog" which entails speaking in an almost whisper and lulling questioners to sleep with frustratingly vague answers. When pinned, he conveniently is unable to answer but promises that the person who can answer will come by in two weeks... at which time they send a different person who says only Costa or someone else can answer that.
So the most bizarre moment of the meeting had to be a seemingly out of the blue statement from Councilperson Nadine Nakamura who greeted Costa by noting he "happens to be a very good dodge ball player."
Sometimes the set-ups don't even need punchlines.
The meeting itself progressed, as expected, with the same staffing questions we described two weeks ago being the predominant topic of discussion. Despite the fact that the council and administration agree that they want to build a "world class" facility, with the current staffing levels- not to mention the lack of toilets- we're more libel to get third-world class campgrounds.
One new and revealing fact came out at the meeting and that is that the current staffing levels- which were increased when the plans for the campground were first floated in 2005- were based on a consultant’s report that estimated the maximum number of campers at 92- not the 300 the county plans on allowing initially - much less the 700 that could potentially be camping when all 31 campsites are in use.
Add that to the new soccer fields, the bike path and other expansions that weren't accounted for at the time and, according to the union, the current staff can barely keep up with the current usage. The toilets age constantly clogged, according to one councilmember and the trash cans overflow right now- without camping.
Not to mention the caretakers' daily, morning doggie doo pickup since the council decided to allow dogs on that portion of the bike path.
But of course Costa knew nothing about that except that Rapozo was seeming standing pat on the number of workers, despite concerns of the union that making the place "like a hotel" was going to take a lot more people to staff, especially with talk of "concierge service".
Apparently those concierges will be showing the guests to the port-a-potties that, the administration says, are going to have to suffice until new facilities are planned, paid for and constructed.
But even though all these problems were left unaddressed most councilmembers were ready to approve the bill.
What actually caused the deferment- although you wouldn't know from the newspaper coverage or editorial- was a comment from Councilmember Kipukai Kuali`i.
He simply asked Costa about what was going to happen to the slews of local fishers and their families who have frequented the area for decades, if not centuries. Are they now going to be ticketed and fined $100 for bringing their families and setting up their campsite for a night of fishing?
With that the council went bonkers and even though just moments before they seemed poised to pass the bill out of committee it was now back to the drawing board at least to define the boundaries of where the campground actually was- and wasn't- and what to do about the fishing families.
Despite all this we were greeted with an editorial from the newspaper demanding that camping begin "yesterday."
It was bad enough that they claimed that there was now going to be a two month delay when the bill was actually deferred for two weeks. But they apparently are demanding that all 31 campsites be opened immediately- something even the administration knows can't be done with facilitates and staffing at their current levels.
But ignoring those two issues they pooh-poohed any "enforcement" problems, quite possibly because whomever wrote the editorial only read the newspaper's story on the meeting which failed to mention the fishing situation. Or perhaps more likely, because the cultural malahini at the paper have no idea how important fishing- especially at that spot- is to local culture and tradition.
"Ready, fire, aim" has been the Kaua`i governmental mantra that drives real watchdogs crazy. But when the lapdog local paper decides that planning should be a victim of expediency how can we expect any more from our local officials?
Two weeks ago we wrote:
The bill was snatched from the jaws of passage out to the full council at last Wednesday's Public Works Committee meeting by Councilperson Mel Rapozo's request for a deferral for two weeks after the rest of the council didn't seem to care about the myriad lies and coverups from Parks and Recreation Department Director Lenny Rapozo.
And the only thing that changed this time was that Rapozo, after promising answers in two weeks, had taken an extremely convenient and unannounced "vacation." And in his stead he sent the island's own roving flack-catcher, Ian "Waldo" Costa.
Like the striped shirted traveler, Costa seems to show up everywhere. Despite being canned from many county positions over the years- ranging from a stint as deputy county engineer during the "Developers Gone Wild" days when he looked the other way at Jimmy Pflueger's grading and grubbing violations, to his recent stint as Planning Director which ended with an FBI investigation and his resignation under fire- Costa is back, this time taking shrapnel for Rapozo over the seemingly inept attempt to get the camping operations going.
Costa is the champion of what council-watchers have called "the fog" which entails speaking in an almost whisper and lulling questioners to sleep with frustratingly vague answers. When pinned, he conveniently is unable to answer but promises that the person who can answer will come by in two weeks... at which time they send a different person who says only Costa or someone else can answer that.
So the most bizarre moment of the meeting had to be a seemingly out of the blue statement from Councilperson Nadine Nakamura who greeted Costa by noting he "happens to be a very good dodge ball player."
Sometimes the set-ups don't even need punchlines.
The meeting itself progressed, as expected, with the same staffing questions we described two weeks ago being the predominant topic of discussion. Despite the fact that the council and administration agree that they want to build a "world class" facility, with the current staffing levels- not to mention the lack of toilets- we're more libel to get third-world class campgrounds.
One new and revealing fact came out at the meeting and that is that the current staffing levels- which were increased when the plans for the campground were first floated in 2005- were based on a consultant’s report that estimated the maximum number of campers at 92- not the 300 the county plans on allowing initially - much less the 700 that could potentially be camping when all 31 campsites are in use.
Add that to the new soccer fields, the bike path and other expansions that weren't accounted for at the time and, according to the union, the current staff can barely keep up with the current usage. The toilets age constantly clogged, according to one councilmember and the trash cans overflow right now- without camping.
Not to mention the caretakers' daily, morning doggie doo pickup since the council decided to allow dogs on that portion of the bike path.
But of course Costa knew nothing about that except that Rapozo was seeming standing pat on the number of workers, despite concerns of the union that making the place "like a hotel" was going to take a lot more people to staff, especially with talk of "concierge service".
Apparently those concierges will be showing the guests to the port-a-potties that, the administration says, are going to have to suffice until new facilities are planned, paid for and constructed.
But even though all these problems were left unaddressed most councilmembers were ready to approve the bill.
What actually caused the deferment- although you wouldn't know from the newspaper coverage or editorial- was a comment from Councilmember Kipukai Kuali`i.
He simply asked Costa about what was going to happen to the slews of local fishers and their families who have frequented the area for decades, if not centuries. Are they now going to be ticketed and fined $100 for bringing their families and setting up their campsite for a night of fishing?
With that the council went bonkers and even though just moments before they seemed poised to pass the bill out of committee it was now back to the drawing board at least to define the boundaries of where the campground actually was- and wasn't- and what to do about the fishing families.
Despite all this we were greeted with an editorial from the newspaper demanding that camping begin "yesterday."
It was bad enough that they claimed that there was now going to be a two month delay when the bill was actually deferred for two weeks. But they apparently are demanding that all 31 campsites be opened immediately- something even the administration knows can't be done with facilitates and staffing at their current levels.
But ignoring those two issues they pooh-poohed any "enforcement" problems, quite possibly because whomever wrote the editorial only read the newspaper's story on the meeting which failed to mention the fishing situation. Or perhaps more likely, because the cultural malahini at the paper have no idea how important fishing- especially at that spot- is to local culture and tradition.
"Ready, fire, aim" has been the Kaua`i governmental mantra that drives real watchdogs crazy. But when the lapdog local paper decides that planning should be a victim of expediency how can we expect any more from our local officials?
Monday, August 1, 2011
YOU GOTTA BELIEVE- YOU JUST GOTTA
YOU GOTTA BELIEVE- YOU JUST GOTTA: Kaua`i Council Chair Jay Furfaro probably regrets saying many things but none more than his indictment of the county's various administrations- their oft-cited penchant "ready, fire, aim" management.
It's looking like another fiasco is in the making as the council once again considers an eight-year-old bill to re-establish camping at the popular Lydgate Park despite the fact that nothing has really changed- at least for the better- since the bill was shelved back in 2005.
Back in the 70's Lydgate was thought by haoles to actually be spelled "Lid-gate" where mainlanders could easily purchase a "lid" of pakalolo from one of the locals' back-yard "money trees," leading to a wild-west milieu and eventually a murder that ended camping there.
The bill was snatched from the jaws of passage out to the full council at last Wednesday's Public Works Committee meeting by Councilperson Mel Rapozo's request for a deferral for two weeks after the rest of the council didn't seem to care about the myriad lies and coverups from Parks and Recreation Department Director Lenny Rapozo.
Lenny Rapozo was aided and abetted by Furfaro who, as usual, put public testimony up front before Rapozo was questioned by the council, making sure that no one but the council itself could point out the naked nature of the emperor.
The biggest dirty little secret of the whole camping at Lydgate venture- other than that virtually no one thinks it's a good idea- is that there is one, count 'em' one, regular men's toilet for the whole campgrounds.
When camping is in full swing it is expected to accommodate up to 400 campers and that doesn't include those using the nearby three soccer fields who are also expected to use the same facilities.
Oh, and by the way, that toilet is broken.
But when council watcher and "nitpicker" Glenn Mickens asked Furfaro about the fact that the number of toilets didn't come anywhere near the state Department of Health (DOH) standards for people-per-potty, Furfaro tried to go into one of his classic misdirectional spiels about how the bathrooms were now American with Disabilities Act (ADA) compliant.
When Mickens tried to clarify what he was asking Furfaro threw one of his puffy-chested hissy-fits chiding Mickens for interrupting his non-responsive answer and refusing to not answer further until later in the meeting when no one was there to stop him from not answering.
The obfuscation didn't really get going until Rapozo took the hot seat, but first the United Public Workers union rep told the council that the three workers that were agreed to back in 2003 were no longer sufficient. With the additional soccer fields and the 150% increase in usage of the park now, even without camping they could barely keep the park clean, especially after picking up dog poop from the dog path first thing every morning.
Even worse were their concerns about workers' security and enforcement issues with overnight drinking permitted in county parks, not to mention the location of the park- snuggled between resorts in the middle of the visitor destination area, directly adjacent to the town of Wailua- and the lack of park rangers after 10 p.m.
The bottom line is apparently that Lenny Rapozo won't budge on the number of maintenance workers- an obstacle which councilmembers also tried to play down so the bill could be passed and the increase in cost for running the campgrounds could be dealt with later, no doubt as a "surprise" to the council.
One of the great moments came when Furfaro was finally free to do his "chronology" without Mickens there. First he told the union rep about the ADA compliance of the bathrooms- failing to mention how the whole campground had to be ripped out and rebuilt in '04 under then "Community Assistance" Director, current Mayor Bernard Carvalho.
Carvalho had authorized putting in the ADA campsites without any clearance or even consultation with either the state disabilities board or the mayor's ADA coordinator, whose office was just down the hall from Carvalho's.
The way they were constructed, people would have had to get out of their wheelchairs and crawl on their bellies to get onto the camping platforms, according to testimony at the time.
Furfaro was describing how the now-almost-rebuilt pavilion in the campground had burned down. The union rep asked "when was that?"
Furfaro responded "at night."
Anyway Rapozo was questioned by Councilmember JoAnn Yukimura whose first question was whether the ADA requirements were done and whether they "satisfied (and were) approved" by the DOH.
Rapozo answered that the "retrofits" were "done."
"Done?" asked Yukimura, seeming perhaps to have differing information.
"Well, in process," said Rapozo, who now admitted that they are still doing the "modifications" and, in answer to when they would be done told the assembled that the pavilion would be done "next week" and finally, after further prodding, that the ADA retrofits would be done "soon thereafter."
Following that little tooth-extraction Yukimura continued asking about the DOH requirements to which Rapozo responded that the bathrooms were indeed "clean."
When Yukimura finally asked specifically about the number of toilets per user and whether the DOH had signed off on that, she was confronted by what now has become a classic "Rapozoism."
"I'm gonna say yes," said Rapozo, "because I've gotta believe that when this concept first came," somebody must have checked with DOH and it was "done right."
Finally he admitted, under more questioning, that "the site hasn’t been changed since its inception."
But apparently no one bothered to go back and look at the minutes of the meetings in 2003 when the original bill was passed allowing camping and 2005 when the current bill revising the first one was introduced.
Because the fact that there weren't enough bathrooms was the reason why then Council Chair Kaipo Asing lit his hair on fire, finally "permanently" deferring the bill until that and a bunch of other matters were addressed by the administration of then-Mayor Bryan Baptiste and his "parks" guy, Carvalho.
Another indication of just how clueless Rapozo is came up when they were discussing the state-mandated administrative or "ad" rules that would have to be "promulgated" once the bill was passed under HRS Chapter 91.
During a discussion of whether the three workers currently employed for the park's maintenance were enough, Rapozo once again told the council that "I gotta believe that" the then-administration thought that there were enough for camping.
Then when Yukimura mentioned that the ad rules would require a public hearing, Rapozo actually responded by saying "not these."
Well Kaua`i does have its own way of doing things and in Lenny Rapozoland perhaps HIS ad rules don't require hearings. But in the state of Hawai`i they do.
Finally, as it looked like the bill just might be sent to the full council with the committee's approval Mel Rapozo- no relation- told the council that "there's one toilet and it's broken," calling for a deferral until they asked the DOH to provide, in writing, what the requirements actually were.
That, Mel Rapozo said, is because he remembered back in both '03 and '05 when one of Asing's famous PowerPoint presentations showed DOH documents stating that the bathrooms did not in fact meet the DOH requirements... they didn't even come close.
And that was just for the campgrounds- without the soccer fields or the pavilion which where not included in the original plans.
"That park is not ready for camping" said Mel before asking for and getting a deferral after embarrassing the rest of the councilmembers who previously had been poised to look the other way at all the same problems that had caused the bill to sit in committee for six years.
On Kaua`i if you want to be "made" in county government and be assured that no matter what kind of scandal you’re involved in- even if you're fired from one job for anything from incompetence to malfeasance- you'll always have an appointed job somewhere, you need to show all that you can sit there an lie to the council with "that's my story and I'm sticking to it" aplomb.
Lenny Rapozo's bonefides for appointment were apparently solely that he was Carvalho's campaign manager. But his ready, fire, aim hall of fame performance last Wednesday, has apparently assured us that we'll have him around to entertain us for years to come.
It's looking like another fiasco is in the making as the council once again considers an eight-year-old bill to re-establish camping at the popular Lydgate Park despite the fact that nothing has really changed- at least for the better- since the bill was shelved back in 2005.
Back in the 70's Lydgate was thought by haoles to actually be spelled "Lid-gate" where mainlanders could easily purchase a "lid" of pakalolo from one of the locals' back-yard "money trees," leading to a wild-west milieu and eventually a murder that ended camping there.
The bill was snatched from the jaws of passage out to the full council at last Wednesday's Public Works Committee meeting by Councilperson Mel Rapozo's request for a deferral for two weeks after the rest of the council didn't seem to care about the myriad lies and coverups from Parks and Recreation Department Director Lenny Rapozo.
Lenny Rapozo was aided and abetted by Furfaro who, as usual, put public testimony up front before Rapozo was questioned by the council, making sure that no one but the council itself could point out the naked nature of the emperor.
The biggest dirty little secret of the whole camping at Lydgate venture- other than that virtually no one thinks it's a good idea- is that there is one, count 'em' one, regular men's toilet for the whole campgrounds.
When camping is in full swing it is expected to accommodate up to 400 campers and that doesn't include those using the nearby three soccer fields who are also expected to use the same facilities.
Oh, and by the way, that toilet is broken.
But when council watcher and "nitpicker" Glenn Mickens asked Furfaro about the fact that the number of toilets didn't come anywhere near the state Department of Health (DOH) standards for people-per-potty, Furfaro tried to go into one of his classic misdirectional spiels about how the bathrooms were now American with Disabilities Act (ADA) compliant.
When Mickens tried to clarify what he was asking Furfaro threw one of his puffy-chested hissy-fits chiding Mickens for interrupting his non-responsive answer and refusing to not answer further until later in the meeting when no one was there to stop him from not answering.
The obfuscation didn't really get going until Rapozo took the hot seat, but first the United Public Workers union rep told the council that the three workers that were agreed to back in 2003 were no longer sufficient. With the additional soccer fields and the 150% increase in usage of the park now, even without camping they could barely keep the park clean, especially after picking up dog poop from the dog path first thing every morning.
Even worse were their concerns about workers' security and enforcement issues with overnight drinking permitted in county parks, not to mention the location of the park- snuggled between resorts in the middle of the visitor destination area, directly adjacent to the town of Wailua- and the lack of park rangers after 10 p.m.
The bottom line is apparently that Lenny Rapozo won't budge on the number of maintenance workers- an obstacle which councilmembers also tried to play down so the bill could be passed and the increase in cost for running the campgrounds could be dealt with later, no doubt as a "surprise" to the council.
One of the great moments came when Furfaro was finally free to do his "chronology" without Mickens there. First he told the union rep about the ADA compliance of the bathrooms- failing to mention how the whole campground had to be ripped out and rebuilt in '04 under then "Community Assistance" Director, current Mayor Bernard Carvalho.
Carvalho had authorized putting in the ADA campsites without any clearance or even consultation with either the state disabilities board or the mayor's ADA coordinator, whose office was just down the hall from Carvalho's.
The way they were constructed, people would have had to get out of their wheelchairs and crawl on their bellies to get onto the camping platforms, according to testimony at the time.
Furfaro was describing how the now-almost-rebuilt pavilion in the campground had burned down. The union rep asked "when was that?"
Furfaro responded "at night."
Anyway Rapozo was questioned by Councilmember JoAnn Yukimura whose first question was whether the ADA requirements were done and whether they "satisfied (and were) approved" by the DOH.
Rapozo answered that the "retrofits" were "done."
"Done?" asked Yukimura, seeming perhaps to have differing information.
"Well, in process," said Rapozo, who now admitted that they are still doing the "modifications" and, in answer to when they would be done told the assembled that the pavilion would be done "next week" and finally, after further prodding, that the ADA retrofits would be done "soon thereafter."
Following that little tooth-extraction Yukimura continued asking about the DOH requirements to which Rapozo responded that the bathrooms were indeed "clean."
When Yukimura finally asked specifically about the number of toilets per user and whether the DOH had signed off on that, she was confronted by what now has become a classic "Rapozoism."
"I'm gonna say yes," said Rapozo, "because I've gotta believe that when this concept first came," somebody must have checked with DOH and it was "done right."
Finally he admitted, under more questioning, that "the site hasn’t been changed since its inception."
But apparently no one bothered to go back and look at the minutes of the meetings in 2003 when the original bill was passed allowing camping and 2005 when the current bill revising the first one was introduced.
Because the fact that there weren't enough bathrooms was the reason why then Council Chair Kaipo Asing lit his hair on fire, finally "permanently" deferring the bill until that and a bunch of other matters were addressed by the administration of then-Mayor Bryan Baptiste and his "parks" guy, Carvalho.
Another indication of just how clueless Rapozo is came up when they were discussing the state-mandated administrative or "ad" rules that would have to be "promulgated" once the bill was passed under HRS Chapter 91.
During a discussion of whether the three workers currently employed for the park's maintenance were enough, Rapozo once again told the council that "I gotta believe that" the then-administration thought that there were enough for camping.
Then when Yukimura mentioned that the ad rules would require a public hearing, Rapozo actually responded by saying "not these."
Well Kaua`i does have its own way of doing things and in Lenny Rapozoland perhaps HIS ad rules don't require hearings. But in the state of Hawai`i they do.
Finally, as it looked like the bill just might be sent to the full council with the committee's approval Mel Rapozo- no relation- told the council that "there's one toilet and it's broken," calling for a deferral until they asked the DOH to provide, in writing, what the requirements actually were.
That, Mel Rapozo said, is because he remembered back in both '03 and '05 when one of Asing's famous PowerPoint presentations showed DOH documents stating that the bathrooms did not in fact meet the DOH requirements... they didn't even come close.
And that was just for the campgrounds- without the soccer fields or the pavilion which where not included in the original plans.
"That park is not ready for camping" said Mel before asking for and getting a deferral after embarrassing the rest of the councilmembers who previously had been poised to look the other way at all the same problems that had caused the bill to sit in committee for six years.
On Kaua`i if you want to be "made" in county government and be assured that no matter what kind of scandal you’re involved in- even if you're fired from one job for anything from incompetence to malfeasance- you'll always have an appointed job somewhere, you need to show all that you can sit there an lie to the council with "that's my story and I'm sticking to it" aplomb.
Lenny Rapozo's bonefides for appointment were apparently solely that he was Carvalho's campaign manager. But his ready, fire, aim hall of fame performance last Wednesday, has apparently assured us that we'll have him around to entertain us for years to come.
Monday, July 11, 2011
CRETINS FORM THE BLACK LAGOON
CRETINS FORM THE BLACK LAGOON: It doesn't take an engineer to know that the county's effort to dredge and restore the Morgan's Pond's at Lydgate has resulted in a mammoth mess of suspended silt permeating the once pristine pools.
Perhaps the fact that there wasn't one there at last Wednesday's meeting is why Kaua`i County Council members and administration officials took it upon themselves to decide to do nothing about it and kick the can down the road for at least four months.
But that's what happens when you appoint your otherwise-unqualified, former campaign manager to head up the Parks and Recreation Department- as Mayor Bernard Carvalho did with Lenny Rapozo- and then fail to consult the engineers in the Department of Public Works (DPW) on a project like this.
It's no wonder County Engineer Larry Dill wasn't the the one sent in response to the council's "request... for the Administration to provide the Council with a status report on the Lydgate Pond Restoration Project" and Rapozo showed up- because Dill, who is new to the county, might have told the truth- that the ponds could be screwed up for years due to county ineptitude and negligence in allowing the project to proceed the way it did.
Rapozo tried to paint a picture of a normal result of the project, telling the council that it will only take six months to get rid of the "turbidity"- a fancy word for the mud and muck suspended in the pool- if we "let mother nature take it's course" and do nothing.
But between Rapozo's "don't worry be happy" message he also described what actually happened.
Seems that the idea was to dredge the "sand" that had accumulated over the last almost 50 years and use it to replenish the beach. But instead what happened instead, and "surprised" the county according to Rapozo, was that the "sand" only went about three feet deep and below that was pure silt and muck.
Not only that but the sand itself was so full of trash and mixed with the silt that the state Department of Health won't let them use it on the beach so it sits in a pile now- replete with "coke cans" and "cigarette butts" according to testimony- with no one knowing quite what to do with the mess.
And, according to many who have actually been in the pond, anyone attempting to stand up in it will sink at a foot or more into the bottom "like quicksand," as it was described.
So in other words despite a decade-and-a-half of planning and obtaining the permits no one bothered to take a core sample to see what was there and just assumed it would all be pristine sand, not the garbage-strewn silt-sand mix that was actually present.
The real problem in fixing it is that when they dug up the giant boulders that had fallen into the pool from the barrier "wall" that created the ponds, and piled them back on it, it created a situation where all that 50 years of silt that had come from the adjacent Wailua River mouth and flowed into the ponds is now "sealed in."
And of course it will keep out any sand needed to cover the quicksand.
The Lydgate ponds are, of course, one of the "jewels" of the island- a must see attraction for tourists and a mainstay for local parents and their keiki. It also is- or was- one of the most recommended snorkeling locales in Kapa`a/Wailua where, according to many, the Kapa`a area snorkel rental outlets are still sending their customers.
As a matter of fact the whole mess has resulted in a new activity for many local people- standing around and watching what happens when the tourists- especially those with rented snorkels and fins- come out covered in muck after 30 second dip in the muddy mess.
Apparently the project was done without involvement of the DPW building and engineering divisions and may be one of the reasons why Carvalho has recently ordered all capital improvement projects be run through DPW.
But that won't change the past or clean up the mess at Lydgate, the perusal of which was deferred without action until November by the council.
Meanwhile, for those that claim there's nothing to do on Kaua`i, there's a new show down at Lydgate... watching the pissed-off, muck-caked tourists struggle to free themselves from the quicksand.
Perhaps the fact that there wasn't one there at last Wednesday's meeting is why Kaua`i County Council members and administration officials took it upon themselves to decide to do nothing about it and kick the can down the road for at least four months.
But that's what happens when you appoint your otherwise-unqualified, former campaign manager to head up the Parks and Recreation Department- as Mayor Bernard Carvalho did with Lenny Rapozo- and then fail to consult the engineers in the Department of Public Works (DPW) on a project like this.
It's no wonder County Engineer Larry Dill wasn't the the one sent in response to the council's "request... for the Administration to provide the Council with a status report on the Lydgate Pond Restoration Project" and Rapozo showed up- because Dill, who is new to the county, might have told the truth- that the ponds could be screwed up for years due to county ineptitude and negligence in allowing the project to proceed the way it did.
Rapozo tried to paint a picture of a normal result of the project, telling the council that it will only take six months to get rid of the "turbidity"- a fancy word for the mud and muck suspended in the pool- if we "let mother nature take it's course" and do nothing.
But between Rapozo's "don't worry be happy" message he also described what actually happened.
Seems that the idea was to dredge the "sand" that had accumulated over the last almost 50 years and use it to replenish the beach. But instead what happened instead, and "surprised" the county according to Rapozo, was that the "sand" only went about three feet deep and below that was pure silt and muck.
Not only that but the sand itself was so full of trash and mixed with the silt that the state Department of Health won't let them use it on the beach so it sits in a pile now- replete with "coke cans" and "cigarette butts" according to testimony- with no one knowing quite what to do with the mess.
And, according to many who have actually been in the pond, anyone attempting to stand up in it will sink at a foot or more into the bottom "like quicksand," as it was described.
So in other words despite a decade-and-a-half of planning and obtaining the permits no one bothered to take a core sample to see what was there and just assumed it would all be pristine sand, not the garbage-strewn silt-sand mix that was actually present.
The real problem in fixing it is that when they dug up the giant boulders that had fallen into the pool from the barrier "wall" that created the ponds, and piled them back on it, it created a situation where all that 50 years of silt that had come from the adjacent Wailua River mouth and flowed into the ponds is now "sealed in."
And of course it will keep out any sand needed to cover the quicksand.
The Lydgate ponds are, of course, one of the "jewels" of the island- a must see attraction for tourists and a mainstay for local parents and their keiki. It also is- or was- one of the most recommended snorkeling locales in Kapa`a/Wailua where, according to many, the Kapa`a area snorkel rental outlets are still sending their customers.
As a matter of fact the whole mess has resulted in a new activity for many local people- standing around and watching what happens when the tourists- especially those with rented snorkels and fins- come out covered in muck after 30 second dip in the muddy mess.
Apparently the project was done without involvement of the DPW building and engineering divisions and may be one of the reasons why Carvalho has recently ordered all capital improvement projects be run through DPW.
But that won't change the past or clean up the mess at Lydgate, the perusal of which was deferred without action until November by the council.
Meanwhile, for those that claim there's nothing to do on Kaua`i, there's a new show down at Lydgate... watching the pissed-off, muck-caked tourists struggle to free themselves from the quicksand.
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