UNEARTHING THE BONES OF CONTENTION: The Kaua`i County Council usually has seven committees that, like the full council, meet on alternate Wednesdays with each councilmember chairing one or another.
And pity the poor chair who has a hot-potato or political football dumped in his or her lap. Or pity the poor bill or measure because often it is deferred indefinitely to flounder forever in committee purgatory, usually awaiting a “response” to questions for the administration combined with a committee chair’s reluctance to “rock the boat”.
Such was the case with Bill 2149, which was supposed to allow camping at Lydgate Park when it was introduced in September of 2005.
But when the bill hit the council’s table it turned out that, in the finest “fire, ready, aim” tradition of the administration of the Late Mayor Bryan Baptiste, the campground had already been constructed without the approval- or even knowledge- of just about anyone.
Anyone that is except current Mayor Bernard Carvalho who, in Batiste’s haste to get the area south of the traditional Lydgate area “cleaned up” was appointed to a head a secret “Mayor’s Advisory Task Force” in conjunction with his appointment to a newly created (just to give Carvalho an important job) “Office of Community Assistance”.
The problem was that Carvalho and the handful of county employees who filled out the force failed to check with anyone and even had it built without asking anyone about American with Disabilities Act (ADA) requirement... anyone including the Mayor’s ADA coordinator and the Mayor’s ADA Advisory Council.
It was even worse when it was found that the bathrooms were insufficient to handle the number of campers projected and there were no county employees to clean the place, much less enforce the camping regulations, much less provide 24 hour security for the area, much less a half-a-dozen other things.
At the time it was apparent that a few camping areas that were already built would have to be completely torn out and rebuilt to comply with the ADA. Plus the camp grounds were to become the first “paid” camping area under county administration and the scheme for fees and the number of campers in each area seemed to have been pulled out of someone’s er, sleeve.
After the councilmembers outrage subsided a bit, it became obvious that at least the issues would need to be resolved before anyone started camping in the area.
The last time anyone ever saw the bill it was deferred awaiting Carvalho’s answers to 11 questions posed on January 2006 when, a year or so later he was again asked to answer the questions in March of 2007.
The bill has suddenly resurfaced at the request of Parks and Transportation Committee member Tim Bynum who had chaired the Parks and Public Works Committee at the time and had been snubbed by Carvalho with his 2007 request for info.
Bynum came to the council by way of his leadership of the “Friends of Kamalani”, the citizens group that took up unofficial but de facto leadership of the entire Lydgate Park and bike path project that snakes it’s way through the park until it hits the end of the campgrounds and loops back on itself rather than going on it’s merry way to Nawiliwili where it may, someday- if there’s a lot more money forthcoming- come to a final terminus.
The administration was granted a deferral again last Wed. and has promised to be there next Wed. to answer the 11 questions and probably many more.
But while a select few know what the rush was that caused the campgrounds to rebuilt without any regard to the issues it’s existence raised, most don’t.
So a little history lesson is in order.
It actually goes back to Mayor Maryann Kusaka’s crusade to chase the local gay community from Kuna- aka Donkey- Beach back in the 90’s which itself is intimately tied into the origins of the bike path and the rise of Kusaka’s protégé Baptiste.
Kusaka’s efforts to roust the gays who held weekly campfires at the beach were quite public including calling for their removal at a press conference where she held up apparently used condoms that she said she personally collected in the area.
Then she got a group from her church to cut down trees and brush that shielded the beach from view from the cane road, all without the necessary SMA permits, causing members of the public to call for a criminal investigation.
This effort led to the attempt to receive the “gift” of the beach area from Kealia Kai owner and developer Tom McCloskey who shared Kusaka’s homophobia and tried to attach restriction to the deed to the land that included 24-hour golf-cart-roving security and nighttime closings of the area so as to also create a private beach for those who bought million dollar house sites in his agricultural ocean view subdivision.
And it would relieve him of a taxable yet useless for development parcel and, with the restrictions, still maintain control of who used the park.
Baptiste was the councilmember who introduced the deed for the area declaring the deal to be ready for approval upon submittal. But then Councilmember Gary Hooser saw the Trojan (no pun intended) Horse nature of the deed and delayed it for months until McCloskey gave up on many of the restrictions on the “county park”, angering Kusaka and Baptiste.
When Baptiste was publicly embarrassed by the revelation that, despite his statement that he had “just met” McCloskey at the council meeting, he had had breakfast with him that morning, Baptiste- after meeting with the brains behind the operation, Kusaka- came up with the plan for a Bike Path.
It would begin at the “gift parcel” and go all the way to Lihu`e. It would be paid for with $40 million in a federal “bike path for transportation, not recreation” grant and the 20% county matching share would come from the value of the land “gift” from McCloskey.
Of course that money and match are long since spent and the commitment to finish the transportation bike path remains the county’s responsibility, thus far costing at least another $10-15 million just to complete the chunk that ends at Lydgate- about half of the proposed length.
But the bike path isn’t the only “connection” between Kuna and Lydgate
With the public scrutiny- and many “incidents” of threats and even assaults by other church members who were now alerted to the “’scourge’ of the gay community at Donkey Beach”- they found a new area to congregate... the overgrown area south of Lydgate Park.
That was too much for Kusaka who was now on a new additional crusade- not just to rid the new area of dreaded homosexuals but to do so by extending the “bike path” into the area and then opening up a new campground- even though Lydgate camping was shut down years earlier because of drunken rowdiness and reports of drug dealing in the area up by the “big” pavilion.
When administrations changed and Baptiste replaced Kusaka he put his protégé, Carvalho, in charge of putting in the campgrounds- and to do it quickly.
Baptiste formed a “take force” without telling anyone and before anyone really knew what was happening the campgrounds were planned, built and installed all with no notification of the public or seemingly, many on the council.
They had blindly gone about it without complying with county and state codes for things like facilities and of course ADA compliance. But in a fait accompli they had “developed” the area removing the “undesirable element”.
The bill will be take up at the Wed. June 10, at the Park and Transportation Committee meeting sometime after 9 a.m. in the council chambers at the Historic County Building in Lihu`e.
Showing posts sorted by relevance for query Lydgate. Sort by date Show all posts
Showing posts sorted by relevance for query Lydgate. Sort by date Show all posts
Tuesday, June 2, 2009
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.
Thursday, December 4, 2008
$43 MILLION- CHEAP
$43 MILLION- CHEAP: Tonight’s meeting on the future of the bike path- specifically the proposed segment between Lydgate and the Lihi boat ramp- should be a humdigner especially if a widely distributed email sent by Sierra Club stalwart Judy Dalton has any effect.
Seems she has joined the growing number of people who are upset over one thing or another but still “support the path”,
As we detailed a couple of weeks ago even though almost every single particular aspect of the ribbon of concrete has brought news of illegalities, boondoggles and just plain boneheaded lack of planning or cohesiveness, everyone seems to still be on the conga line to support the illegally conceived and executed costly monstrosity.
The latest absurdity is the proposal to put that path on a wooden boardwalk right ON Wailua Beach.
Dalton writes:
If you care about protecting beaches and would like Wailua Beach preserved in its natural, untouched state, please come to the Department of Public Works public informational meeting Thursday evening, December 4 at 7pm at Lydgate Beach Park.
Public Works will present plans for the multi-use path from Lydgate Beach Park to Kapa`a. One path segment includes a boardwalk to be constructed on Wailua Beach. The public could use the question and answer period to ask them to consider one of the alternate routes....
Since Wailua Beach is eroding and faces challenges due to global warming sea level rise, the boardwalk covering the sand dunes could jeopardize the beach's survival. Beaches are dependent upon sand dunes (dunes are flat there) to replenish lost sand. So, no sand dunes equates to no future for the beach.
To comply with environmental laws, a shoreline certification should be completed within 6 months prior to commencement of construction. The results from an up-dated shoreline survey could possibly preclude the boardwalk from being built on the beach, so we need to get assurance from Public Works that they will comply with the law and not allow the requirement to be waived under any circumstance.
But despite the controversies over shoreline setbacks, new illegally imposed “park rules”, the closing of portions formerly open areas, dog-walkers and a myriad of other results of having the usual gang of idiots in charge, one bit of information has escaped reporting in the local paper or anywhere else- the latest cost projections revealed in the council-required quarterly report presented to the council at their November 19th meeting.
The article in the local paper had plenty of information about the threats from then councilmember now Prosecutor Shaylene Iseri Carvalho’s equating walking on a closed portion of the path to shoplifting a blouse- and the implied threat to treat it as such when she gets such a case- there was nothing about Deputy Parks and Recreation Director Kaylan Dela Cruz’s report on how much more it’s going to cost to “complete” the path- a requirement of the original federal grant
According to Dela Cruz’s report that amount is estimated to be at least $42.431 million more and that is basically just the cost of the path’s planning and construction, not the purchase of the land below it or the condemnation process if the owners won’t sell.
The original $40 million that was supposed to cover the entire path from Kalapaki to Anahola came from a federal program designed to enhance “primarily for transportation, not recreation” bike paths which somehow has illegally morphed into what is now called a “multi-use path” by county workers and the lap-dog local press... making high speed bicycling an impossibility.
But that money is gone and guess what? The path- which was originally said to “not cost the county a penny”- is now going to cost taxpayers a pretty one.
To date the county has spent $347,000 according to Dela Cruz’s report.
According to Dela Cruz there is $7 million we’re trying to wheedle out of the state transportation “STIP” fund- money which, despite the desperate needs for money for highway expansion in the absurdly congested Kapa`a-Wailua corridor will now go to the bike path.
But the big news is that the Parks and Rec Department’s new head- Bernard Carvalho crony Lenny Rapozo- will be asking the council for at least $15 million that the county doesn’t have.
When outgoing councilperson Mel Rapozo- who with his pal Iseri has been the only thing standing between a total lack of transparency and accountability on the path for the last few years- asked where that $15 million was going to come from, Dela Cruz, in archetypical department head fashion answered” I’ll have to get back to you on that”.
Although it’s unclear where the other $21 million is coming from councilmembers added two and two and actually got four for a change, suggesting that perhaps we could tack it onto the upcoming bond float the county has postponed until more favorable conditions for it develop- most likely more than a year from now according to then Council Chair Jay Furfaro.
The bond float- estimated to be more than $100 million- will be going mostly to replace three aging wastewater systems that the federal EPA has told us we have to replace- and soon. It also has been proposed to do everything from fixing county roads to replacing stadium lights that are killing endangered birds (also a federal mandate) along with some other pet projects for which councilmembers don’t want to spend any money they are accountable for, but rather will be putting on the budget for future councils to deal with.
And there no telling whether the feds will wake up to what we did with their $40 million in bike transportation money by turning it into a dog walking path and ask for the money back.
Or whether the state or federal EPA will look at the illegally segmented environmental assessment process that measures only the impact of short segments of the path rather than look at the project as a whole. they could well require us to tear it out and start over again as has happened to projects done with similarly segmented assessments on the mainland.
So let’s get this straight- we’re going to go into debt, not to fix our dilapidated infrastructure and build new stuff to keep up with the lack of Planning Department’s willy-nilly development schemes, not to provide county services to those who will undoubtedly need them in the coming economic depression, not for a hundred other necessities but to finish building an illegal ribbon of concrete (or in the case of Wailua beach a wooden one) at the water’s edge (or in this case through the Safeway-Foodland parking lots and across the busiest highway intersection on the island).... one that has had community opposition to almost every aspect along the way.
Dalton’s plea for community opposition to the boardwalk at tonight’s meeting ends with a plea from a Wailua resident, He says:
I understand the intentions of the Path. I'm just committed to saving this piece of heaven before it's too late. The Path is one thing, the beach is another -- why combine them? Keep them as two wonderful, different things.
Once again schizophrenic Kaua`i speaks out of both sides of our mouth. The question is how can we blame the “What, me worry” county government for doing the same?
Seems she has joined the growing number of people who are upset over one thing or another but still “support the path”,
As we detailed a couple of weeks ago even though almost every single particular aspect of the ribbon of concrete has brought news of illegalities, boondoggles and just plain boneheaded lack of planning or cohesiveness, everyone seems to still be on the conga line to support the illegally conceived and executed costly monstrosity.
The latest absurdity is the proposal to put that path on a wooden boardwalk right ON Wailua Beach.
Dalton writes:
If you care about protecting beaches and would like Wailua Beach preserved in its natural, untouched state, please come to the Department of Public Works public informational meeting Thursday evening, December 4 at 7pm at Lydgate Beach Park.
Public Works will present plans for the multi-use path from Lydgate Beach Park to Kapa`a. One path segment includes a boardwalk to be constructed on Wailua Beach. The public could use the question and answer period to ask them to consider one of the alternate routes....
Since Wailua Beach is eroding and faces challenges due to global warming sea level rise, the boardwalk covering the sand dunes could jeopardize the beach's survival. Beaches are dependent upon sand dunes (dunes are flat there) to replenish lost sand. So, no sand dunes equates to no future for the beach.
To comply with environmental laws, a shoreline certification should be completed within 6 months prior to commencement of construction. The results from an up-dated shoreline survey could possibly preclude the boardwalk from being built on the beach, so we need to get assurance from Public Works that they will comply with the law and not allow the requirement to be waived under any circumstance.
But despite the controversies over shoreline setbacks, new illegally imposed “park rules”, the closing of portions formerly open areas, dog-walkers and a myriad of other results of having the usual gang of idiots in charge, one bit of information has escaped reporting in the local paper or anywhere else- the latest cost projections revealed in the council-required quarterly report presented to the council at their November 19th meeting.
The article in the local paper had plenty of information about the threats from then councilmember now Prosecutor Shaylene Iseri Carvalho’s equating walking on a closed portion of the path to shoplifting a blouse- and the implied threat to treat it as such when she gets such a case- there was nothing about Deputy Parks and Recreation Director Kaylan Dela Cruz’s report on how much more it’s going to cost to “complete” the path- a requirement of the original federal grant
According to Dela Cruz’s report that amount is estimated to be at least $42.431 million more and that is basically just the cost of the path’s planning and construction, not the purchase of the land below it or the condemnation process if the owners won’t sell.
The original $40 million that was supposed to cover the entire path from Kalapaki to Anahola came from a federal program designed to enhance “primarily for transportation, not recreation” bike paths which somehow has illegally morphed into what is now called a “multi-use path” by county workers and the lap-dog local press... making high speed bicycling an impossibility.
But that money is gone and guess what? The path- which was originally said to “not cost the county a penny”- is now going to cost taxpayers a pretty one.
To date the county has spent $347,000 according to Dela Cruz’s report.
According to Dela Cruz there is $7 million we’re trying to wheedle out of the state transportation “STIP” fund- money which, despite the desperate needs for money for highway expansion in the absurdly congested Kapa`a-Wailua corridor will now go to the bike path.
But the big news is that the Parks and Rec Department’s new head- Bernard Carvalho crony Lenny Rapozo- will be asking the council for at least $15 million that the county doesn’t have.
When outgoing councilperson Mel Rapozo- who with his pal Iseri has been the only thing standing between a total lack of transparency and accountability on the path for the last few years- asked where that $15 million was going to come from, Dela Cruz, in archetypical department head fashion answered” I’ll have to get back to you on that”.
Although it’s unclear where the other $21 million is coming from councilmembers added two and two and actually got four for a change, suggesting that perhaps we could tack it onto the upcoming bond float the county has postponed until more favorable conditions for it develop- most likely more than a year from now according to then Council Chair Jay Furfaro.
The bond float- estimated to be more than $100 million- will be going mostly to replace three aging wastewater systems that the federal EPA has told us we have to replace- and soon. It also has been proposed to do everything from fixing county roads to replacing stadium lights that are killing endangered birds (also a federal mandate) along with some other pet projects for which councilmembers don’t want to spend any money they are accountable for, but rather will be putting on the budget for future councils to deal with.
And there no telling whether the feds will wake up to what we did with their $40 million in bike transportation money by turning it into a dog walking path and ask for the money back.
Or whether the state or federal EPA will look at the illegally segmented environmental assessment process that measures only the impact of short segments of the path rather than look at the project as a whole. they could well require us to tear it out and start over again as has happened to projects done with similarly segmented assessments on the mainland.
So let’s get this straight- we’re going to go into debt, not to fix our dilapidated infrastructure and build new stuff to keep up with the lack of Planning Department’s willy-nilly development schemes, not to provide county services to those who will undoubtedly need them in the coming economic depression, not for a hundred other necessities but to finish building an illegal ribbon of concrete (or in the case of Wailua beach a wooden one) at the water’s edge (or in this case through the Safeway-Foodland parking lots and across the busiest highway intersection on the island).... one that has had community opposition to almost every aspect along the way.
Dalton’s plea for community opposition to the boardwalk at tonight’s meeting ends with a plea from a Wailua resident, He says:
I understand the intentions of the Path. I'm just committed to saving this piece of heaven before it's too late. The Path is one thing, the beach is another -- why combine them? Keep them as two wonderful, different things.
Once again schizophrenic Kaua`i speaks out of both sides of our mouth. The question is how can we blame the “What, me worry” county government for doing the same?
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.
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.
Monday, May 12, 2008
AND WHEN I WAS DONE HE PICKED IT UP AND PUT IT IN A BAG
AND WHEN I WAS DONE HE PICKED IT UP AND PUT IT IN A BAG: Despite the lack of any required official provisions designating the coastal bike path as a “county park” the County is apparently ignoring the law and, according to an article by Nathan Eagle in the local paper it “considered a linear park and as such falls under a county ordinance banning animals without permits.”
The article states that “(a)fter a verbal warning process ended in March, the Kaua`i Police Department started issuing citations to owners walking their dogs on the multi-use path.”
It does not say what the outcome of these cases were or even if anyone challenged the citations, as many dog owners promised to do when we detailed the actual law in this space on March 3. We further elicited a promise from councilman Mel Rapozo on March 20 to determine, through the County Attorney, what the law is and how it pertains to the bike path and report back to us, saying “(a)s far as the park question, I can only tell you what we are told by the County Attorney. I have asked for a clarification on this concern, and will post the answer when I receive it".
Our research showed, as we said over two months ago:
The Kaua`i County Charter provides that “(e)very legislative act of the council shall be by ordinance except as otherwise provided”. which is now done now by amending the CZO (unavailable on-line) where “parks” are designated.It also says “The Council also makes all decisions on acquiring land”. And 4.04 says “ No ordinance shall be amended, revised or repealed by the council except by ordinance. No resolution shall be amended, revised or repealed except by resolution, but a resolution may be superseded by a subsequent ordinance”There has never been an ordinance or resolution making even any part of the Bike-Path a county parkAdministratively, the Charter’s 23.09 say that “unless otherwise authorized by law, all rules and regulations ... must first be approved by the mayor prior to going into effect”. The County has not reported public action declaring the bike path a park.
We have not heard anything yet but now, not only have County’s mayor and Council ignored the apparent lack of any legal provisions designating the “bike path” in general a park (where it doesn’t cut through an already designated park such as the Lydgate area) but they are set to compound the blatant disregard of our laws they are sworn to uphold by basing new bills on the existing flaws the County has promulgated.
Though we have asked Eagle to identify who told him they “considered” the path a park or what that means we haven’t gotten an answer to that question.
As we detailed previously, this is most likely another one of those “because I say so” laws that are a remnant of plantation mentality that still has it’s grip on the psyches of Council Chair Kaipo Asing, Mayor Bryan Baptiste and his protégé Bernard Carvalho, the newly deigned head of the Department of Parks and Recreation which many claim was created just to give him a job.
The bike path itself is a bright shining symbol of what many have publicly characterized as the “Fire, Ready, Aim” way of doing things on Kaua`i, especially in the Department of Public Works where the orders of the day routinely include facilitating the gravy-train revolving-door of corruption that costs millions in inflated contracts, a corrupt nepotism-riddled team of inspectors and, many have publicly alleged, kickbacks.
Even though the money for the path required a still non-existent sign-off by the Secretary of the US Department of Transportation that it is indeed not just a bike path but a bike path to be used strictly for transportation and not for recreation, the county has designated it a “mutli-use” path and wants to allow not just every imaginable human and mechanical obstacle to bicycling now they’re adding non-human impediments.
Maybe pet turtles will be next- or pet cockroaches... after all, they need somewhere to exercise. Can we bring our pet llama? What if it’s on a leash? Maybe you goldfish will enjoy the ocean view- bring ‘em on down
Hey, don’t give me a ticket officer- that’s not my chicken... it lives here.”
It’s no wonder the rest of the state shakes it head and repeats the mantra “only on Kaua`i”, the phrase universally used to describe the abject paternalism, authoritarianism and lack rhyme or reason in decision-making that has yielded a top-to-bottom corrupt modus operandi in the executive and legislative branches of so-called democratic governance here at the very end of human occupation (take it either way) of the island chain.
A separate kingdom indeed.
The article states that “(a)fter a verbal warning process ended in March, the Kaua`i Police Department started issuing citations to owners walking their dogs on the multi-use path.”
It does not say what the outcome of these cases were or even if anyone challenged the citations, as many dog owners promised to do when we detailed the actual law in this space on March 3. We further elicited a promise from councilman Mel Rapozo on March 20 to determine, through the County Attorney, what the law is and how it pertains to the bike path and report back to us, saying “(a)s far as the park question, I can only tell you what we are told by the County Attorney. I have asked for a clarification on this concern, and will post the answer when I receive it".
Our research showed, as we said over two months ago:
The Kaua`i County Charter provides that “(e)very legislative act of the council shall be by ordinance except as otherwise provided”. which is now done now by amending the CZO (unavailable on-line) where “parks” are designated.It also says “The Council also makes all decisions on acquiring land”. And 4.04 says “ No ordinance shall be amended, revised or repealed by the council except by ordinance. No resolution shall be amended, revised or repealed except by resolution, but a resolution may be superseded by a subsequent ordinance”There has never been an ordinance or resolution making even any part of the Bike-Path a county parkAdministratively, the Charter’s 23.09 say that “unless otherwise authorized by law, all rules and regulations ... must first be approved by the mayor prior to going into effect”. The County has not reported public action declaring the bike path a park.
We have not heard anything yet but now, not only have County’s mayor and Council ignored the apparent lack of any legal provisions designating the “bike path” in general a park (where it doesn’t cut through an already designated park such as the Lydgate area) but they are set to compound the blatant disregard of our laws they are sworn to uphold by basing new bills on the existing flaws the County has promulgated.
Though we have asked Eagle to identify who told him they “considered” the path a park or what that means we haven’t gotten an answer to that question.
As we detailed previously, this is most likely another one of those “because I say so” laws that are a remnant of plantation mentality that still has it’s grip on the psyches of Council Chair Kaipo Asing, Mayor Bryan Baptiste and his protégé Bernard Carvalho, the newly deigned head of the Department of Parks and Recreation which many claim was created just to give him a job.
The bike path itself is a bright shining symbol of what many have publicly characterized as the “Fire, Ready, Aim” way of doing things on Kaua`i, especially in the Department of Public Works where the orders of the day routinely include facilitating the gravy-train revolving-door of corruption that costs millions in inflated contracts, a corrupt nepotism-riddled team of inspectors and, many have publicly alleged, kickbacks.
Even though the money for the path required a still non-existent sign-off by the Secretary of the US Department of Transportation that it is indeed not just a bike path but a bike path to be used strictly for transportation and not for recreation, the county has designated it a “mutli-use” path and wants to allow not just every imaginable human and mechanical obstacle to bicycling now they’re adding non-human impediments.
Maybe pet turtles will be next- or pet cockroaches... after all, they need somewhere to exercise. Can we bring our pet llama? What if it’s on a leash? Maybe you goldfish will enjoy the ocean view- bring ‘em on down
Hey, don’t give me a ticket officer- that’s not my chicken... it lives here.”
It’s no wonder the rest of the state shakes it head and repeats the mantra “only on Kaua`i”, the phrase universally used to describe the abject paternalism, authoritarianism and lack rhyme or reason in decision-making that has yielded a top-to-bottom corrupt modus operandi in the executive and legislative branches of so-called democratic governance here at the very end of human occupation (take it either way) of the island chain.
A separate kingdom indeed.
Monday, August 27, 2012
A MAN, A PLAN, A DEBACLE- RAPOZO
A MAN, A PLAN, A DEBACLE- RAPOZO: After decades of problems keeping the rain off the Kilauea Gym floor, the Director of the Kaua`i Parks and Recreation (P&R) Department, Lenny Rapozo, has finally come up with what many in the administration are calling a "brilliant" multi-pronged approach to fixing the structure which includes covering the current leaky roof with pili grass and moving the whole building 90 degrees to aviod the wet, easterly winds.
"A pili grass roof was good enough for the ancient Hawaiians so it should be good enough for us" said Rapozo, "especially if it's not raining."
The roof has never in human memory actually kept water out- which is thought by many in the Buildings Division of the Department of Public Works to be the main function of a roof- despite 137 attempts to replace it based on 373 different consultants' plans.
Rapozo also had a plan for the leaky door that faces into the rainy trade winds.
"We have hundreds of balloons and dozens of tanks of helium left over from the mayor's last campaign so we can just fill them up and float the building. And the beauty of it is that we can use all those political appointees and mayoral-approved civil servants who owe their jobs to him to turn the whole building, moving the door to a more desirable orientation... whichever way, after trial and error, that turns out to be."
According to Rapozo his own recent research has apparently shown that the current structure sits on the footprint and is a renovated version of the ancient "Kilauea Himanekium" where "pre-western-contact kanaka would go for drink beer." But, Rapozo said he discovered that during a 19th century renovation the building was inadvertently spun around sideways by witches, who were brought over for just such jobs by missionaries who were seeking to allow the structure to receive bigger shipments of bibles they could exchange for surrounding farms and home-sites.
"We're excited by the discovery" said Rapozo whose engineering expertise goes back to his days at Kapa`a High School where he lettered in "Pick-up Sticks" and "Tiddlywinks." He also studied basket-weaving, a skill he said may prove useful in the pili roofing project.
"I think I've got something here that nobody else could- or would- have come up with," Rapozo boasted with a straight face.
There are also plans to replace the wooden basketball floor with concrete and then put down lauhala mats in order to absorb any rainwater in case the pili grass leaks. "But the mats are only for when it rains because no one plays basketball in the rain anyway," said Rapozo. "Besides, the plan is all up here," Rapozo said pointing to his head "so we can save money on design consultants if the pili grass has to be replaced. Since everyone is used to paying over and over for consultants every year or so, we have an unending source of funding for the project, 'cause grass stay cheap, eh?"
Rapozo did not at first indicate where the cheap pili grass would come from since it is an all but extinct species but when asked of his plans for future recreational projects Rapozo said he's thinking of a Youth Program where students grow can pili grass on county land, then sell the product to the county for other roofing projects.
His boss, Mayor Bernard Carvalho applauded Rapozo's ingenuity. "That's why I hired him- since he has no expertise in any one particular area, he tends to think, not just outside the box but outside the entire realm of human endeavor and experience."
Rapozo also talked about- but didn't explain- either using the remaining balloons and helium to actually move Moran Pond at Lydgate or filling the balloons with the mud that now befouls the once popular swimming pools after a previous Rapozian plan to dredge the pools want awry... for some unfathomable reason.
"Then maybe the mud balloons will just float away," he said wistfully
Council Chair Jay Furfaro was cautiously enthusiastic over the plan saying "it wouldn't be the absolute stupidest thing we've ever approved- but it'd be close."
Councilperson JoAnn Yukimura was apparently skeptical but said she would have to see the plans in writing before she could really comment and recommend a thorough study of the project.
But Councilmember Mel Rapozo was both for it and against it, making sure that he didn't state a position until he figured out what the political implications were.
Blogger Andy Parx but did manage to wake up long enough to backhandedly mumble an ambiguous complement saying "it sound just like something Lenny would come up with since no one in the county is smarter or more suited to his job than he is."
"A pili grass roof was good enough for the ancient Hawaiians so it should be good enough for us" said Rapozo, "especially if it's not raining."
The roof has never in human memory actually kept water out- which is thought by many in the Buildings Division of the Department of Public Works to be the main function of a roof- despite 137 attempts to replace it based on 373 different consultants' plans.
Rapozo also had a plan for the leaky door that faces into the rainy trade winds.
"We have hundreds of balloons and dozens of tanks of helium left over from the mayor's last campaign so we can just fill them up and float the building. And the beauty of it is that we can use all those political appointees and mayoral-approved civil servants who owe their jobs to him to turn the whole building, moving the door to a more desirable orientation... whichever way, after trial and error, that turns out to be."
According to Rapozo his own recent research has apparently shown that the current structure sits on the footprint and is a renovated version of the ancient "Kilauea Himanekium" where "pre-western-contact kanaka would go for drink beer." But, Rapozo said he discovered that during a 19th century renovation the building was inadvertently spun around sideways by witches, who were brought over for just such jobs by missionaries who were seeking to allow the structure to receive bigger shipments of bibles they could exchange for surrounding farms and home-sites.
"We're excited by the discovery" said Rapozo whose engineering expertise goes back to his days at Kapa`a High School where he lettered in "Pick-up Sticks" and "Tiddlywinks." He also studied basket-weaving, a skill he said may prove useful in the pili roofing project.
"I think I've got something here that nobody else could- or would- have come up with," Rapozo boasted with a straight face.
There are also plans to replace the wooden basketball floor with concrete and then put down lauhala mats in order to absorb any rainwater in case the pili grass leaks. "But the mats are only for when it rains because no one plays basketball in the rain anyway," said Rapozo. "Besides, the plan is all up here," Rapozo said pointing to his head "so we can save money on design consultants if the pili grass has to be replaced. Since everyone is used to paying over and over for consultants every year or so, we have an unending source of funding for the project, 'cause grass stay cheap, eh?"
Rapozo did not at first indicate where the cheap pili grass would come from since it is an all but extinct species but when asked of his plans for future recreational projects Rapozo said he's thinking of a Youth Program where students grow can pili grass on county land, then sell the product to the county for other roofing projects.
His boss, Mayor Bernard Carvalho applauded Rapozo's ingenuity. "That's why I hired him- since he has no expertise in any one particular area, he tends to think, not just outside the box but outside the entire realm of human endeavor and experience."
Rapozo also talked about- but didn't explain- either using the remaining balloons and helium to actually move Moran Pond at Lydgate or filling the balloons with the mud that now befouls the once popular swimming pools after a previous Rapozian plan to dredge the pools want awry... for some unfathomable reason.
"Then maybe the mud balloons will just float away," he said wistfully
Council Chair Jay Furfaro was cautiously enthusiastic over the plan saying "it wouldn't be the absolute stupidest thing we've ever approved- but it'd be close."
Councilperson JoAnn Yukimura was apparently skeptical but said she would have to see the plans in writing before she could really comment and recommend a thorough study of the project.
But Councilmember Mel Rapozo was both for it and against it, making sure that he didn't state a position until he figured out what the political implications were.
Blogger Andy Parx but did manage to wake up long enough to backhandedly mumble an ambiguous complement saying "it sound just like something Lenny would come up with since no one in the county is smarter or more suited to his job than he is."
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?
Wednesday, December 9, 2009
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.
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.
Wednesday, June 11, 2008
DAWG, YOU GOTTA CARRY THAT WEIGHT
DAWG, YOU GOTTA CARRY THAT WEIGHT: One has to wonder whether this is now being done on purpose or whether Tom Iannucci is just lacks all judgment and discretion.
Another rant from the head of the Police Commission appears in today’s paper replete with a similar tone to, and the type of ridicule you’d expect from, some crazy rabid reporter but not from the top civilian official in the Kaua`i Police Department (KPD).
Whatever one thinks of Juan Wilson’s research or the points he makes in trying to get KPD to consider community policing policies and possibly get officers out of their cars, Iannucci seemingly doesn’t want to discuss anything. Apparently his new “style” is to just ridicule Wilson personally rather than actually argue the points of community policing and it’s applicability to Kaua`i.
Iannucci seems to have fun trying to make his points by using condescending and patronizing ridicule of Wilson personally with such ditties as:
“I appreciate your attempt to”,
“Nice attempt, but it just doesn’t work.”.
“So which Kansas City were you relating us to?”
“That’s why they have the little blue lights on the tops of their cars, with the little “woo woo” sound”,
“Look, here is the reality”
ending with
“It seems like you just got a problem with KPD and this is the real issue. After all the fuss, Wilson, I hope you are driving in an electric cart, or riding a horse yourself. That would only be right.”
But even when it comes to the subject at hand he argues against getting officers out on foot, bike, horse or even Segway by ridiculing anyone he can who would suggest that this is even possible in what he claims is a totally rural area.
His silly, non-analogous, un-visionary professings include such drivel as
Hey, I’m all for the Mayberry RFD lifestyle, where you, me, Barney Fife and Sheriff Andy are strolling down Rice Street talking about the Friday night football game and we stop by Aunt Bee’s house for some apple pie, or Portuguese bean soup. Where the biggest problem the town is facing is that Opey is cutting class to go fishing and they have a town drunk. I want that, Wilson, but the reality is, it’s not where we are at, nor does anyone believe we’re at that place either.
and
Your “Harvard” sociologist police officer, who wrote a book, is just one of over 800,000 officers across our country. Writing a book and going to Harvard does not make one an “expert” by any means.
Iannucci’s “can’t do” attitude seem to preclude all use of non-vehicular policing. His only true argument that addresses the issue is this:
Kaua‘i is a rural and very spread out island. We simply don’t have the manpower or the finances to support one or two officers per neighborhood, per shift, per week, island-wide with substations and equipment. But you’re more than welcome to petition the mayor or the County Council about your request.
Either Iannucci is the most disingenuous person on the island or he doesn’t get out much. Maybe he’s never been to the strip malls and towns, the shopping complexes and beach areas where bikes or horses might be appropriate since, looking that the police blotter, half of the crime seems to takes place in these areas.
How about putting a little thought into it Tom? Are you telling us it’s impossible to include bikes and electric cart patrols in our core areas? Are you saying it’s impractical to have daytime patrols in the makai areas say between Kawaihau Road and Lydgate Park patrolling the streets and beaches rather than doing the current drive-bys? How about the Lihu`e area from the hospital down to the airport up Rice Street and maybe over to Kukui Grove?
Only an idiot would think that we need to have a walking patrol up and down Papalina and Waha and over to Kua road in Kalaheo or put someone on a Segway up Olohena across Kamalu and down to Wailua.
But guess what- to conflate the idea of doing it where people congregate daily with putting an officer on foot atop Wai`ale`ale is just as idiotic- and besides making up such wild misrepresentational projections is OUR job Tom.
In dismissing the getting-out-of-the-car idea entirely, Iannucci has us laughing at him, not Wilson by putting up any straw man in a storm rather than trying to look at the places where community policing might make sense- yes Tom, like through Hanapepe town and down to Salt Pond up to ‘Ele`ele and down to Port Allen.
The Password today Tom is Disingenuity- when you say you’re
“wondering if the beat cop can make it from Salt Pond to Hanapepe Heights in time to stop a fight or a robbery”
you don’t mention of course that the same officer in a patrol car could be in Waimea when he gets the call and take even longer.
Or that the officer could be actually sitting there witnessing the car break-in or mugging without drawing attention to himself through the presence his police cruiser. Those examinations of the logistics of patrolling are the same whether you’re on foot on bike or in a car in that each has advantages and disadvantages.
But it is obviously easier to make up absurdities based on the worst way to distribute resources such as riding a Segway up the Hanapepe- Ele`ele hill instead of thinking about innovative ways to make better use of our policing resources.
Would it take that much to equip some patrol cars to carry bikes and get officers out of them when they’re not responding to calls from the boonies? Or is that too hard to imagine Tom- does it huwt yaw widdle bwane to try to figure out how to do it?
You apparently strained your neurons to the breaking point to figure out all the misrepresentations and excuses in the world for not even considering where community policing might be appropriate. It might not be appropriate.
But you’d never know due to your rejection of the concept out of hand which is even more dismaying than the dismissive, pejorative and downright disrespectful attitude you display in dealing with the suggestions from someone you are supposed to represent in sitting on the Police Commission..
People expect broad brush spoofing derision, scorn and mirth out of this mangy mutt. But we don’t expect either the attitude nor the disingenuous distractions and misrepresentation from the top civilian official in our the paramilitary operation of our police force.
I hear they’re selling clues down in town Tom - maybe you need to get out of your car, climb in the bathroom window and trade in some of that Viagra for one. Or quit the police department and get yourself a steady job... like blogging.
Another rant from the head of the Police Commission appears in today’s paper replete with a similar tone to, and the type of ridicule you’d expect from, some crazy rabid reporter but not from the top civilian official in the Kaua`i Police Department (KPD).
Whatever one thinks of Juan Wilson’s research or the points he makes in trying to get KPD to consider community policing policies and possibly get officers out of their cars, Iannucci seemingly doesn’t want to discuss anything. Apparently his new “style” is to just ridicule Wilson personally rather than actually argue the points of community policing and it’s applicability to Kaua`i.
Iannucci seems to have fun trying to make his points by using condescending and patronizing ridicule of Wilson personally with such ditties as:
“I appreciate your attempt to”,
“Nice attempt, but it just doesn’t work.”.
“So which Kansas City were you relating us to?”
“That’s why they have the little blue lights on the tops of their cars, with the little “woo woo” sound”,
“Look, here is the reality”
ending with
“It seems like you just got a problem with KPD and this is the real issue. After all the fuss, Wilson, I hope you are driving in an electric cart, or riding a horse yourself. That would only be right.”
But even when it comes to the subject at hand he argues against getting officers out on foot, bike, horse or even Segway by ridiculing anyone he can who would suggest that this is even possible in what he claims is a totally rural area.
His silly, non-analogous, un-visionary professings include such drivel as
Hey, I’m all for the Mayberry RFD lifestyle, where you, me, Barney Fife and Sheriff Andy are strolling down Rice Street talking about the Friday night football game and we stop by Aunt Bee’s house for some apple pie, or Portuguese bean soup. Where the biggest problem the town is facing is that Opey is cutting class to go fishing and they have a town drunk. I want that, Wilson, but the reality is, it’s not where we are at, nor does anyone believe we’re at that place either.
and
Your “Harvard” sociologist police officer, who wrote a book, is just one of over 800,000 officers across our country. Writing a book and going to Harvard does not make one an “expert” by any means.
Iannucci’s “can’t do” attitude seem to preclude all use of non-vehicular policing. His only true argument that addresses the issue is this:
Kaua‘i is a rural and very spread out island. We simply don’t have the manpower or the finances to support one or two officers per neighborhood, per shift, per week, island-wide with substations and equipment. But you’re more than welcome to petition the mayor or the County Council about your request.
Either Iannucci is the most disingenuous person on the island or he doesn’t get out much. Maybe he’s never been to the strip malls and towns, the shopping complexes and beach areas where bikes or horses might be appropriate since, looking that the police blotter, half of the crime seems to takes place in these areas.
How about putting a little thought into it Tom? Are you telling us it’s impossible to include bikes and electric cart patrols in our core areas? Are you saying it’s impractical to have daytime patrols in the makai areas say between Kawaihau Road and Lydgate Park patrolling the streets and beaches rather than doing the current drive-bys? How about the Lihu`e area from the hospital down to the airport up Rice Street and maybe over to Kukui Grove?
Only an idiot would think that we need to have a walking patrol up and down Papalina and Waha and over to Kua road in Kalaheo or put someone on a Segway up Olohena across Kamalu and down to Wailua.
But guess what- to conflate the idea of doing it where people congregate daily with putting an officer on foot atop Wai`ale`ale is just as idiotic- and besides making up such wild misrepresentational projections is OUR job Tom.
In dismissing the getting-out-of-the-car idea entirely, Iannucci has us laughing at him, not Wilson by putting up any straw man in a storm rather than trying to look at the places where community policing might make sense- yes Tom, like through Hanapepe town and down to Salt Pond up to ‘Ele`ele and down to Port Allen.
The Password today Tom is Disingenuity- when you say you’re
“wondering if the beat cop can make it from Salt Pond to Hanapepe Heights in time to stop a fight or a robbery”
you don’t mention of course that the same officer in a patrol car could be in Waimea when he gets the call and take even longer.
Or that the officer could be actually sitting there witnessing the car break-in or mugging without drawing attention to himself through the presence his police cruiser. Those examinations of the logistics of patrolling are the same whether you’re on foot on bike or in a car in that each has advantages and disadvantages.
But it is obviously easier to make up absurdities based on the worst way to distribute resources such as riding a Segway up the Hanapepe- Ele`ele hill instead of thinking about innovative ways to make better use of our policing resources.
Would it take that much to equip some patrol cars to carry bikes and get officers out of them when they’re not responding to calls from the boonies? Or is that too hard to imagine Tom- does it huwt yaw widdle bwane to try to figure out how to do it?
You apparently strained your neurons to the breaking point to figure out all the misrepresentations and excuses in the world for not even considering where community policing might be appropriate. It might not be appropriate.
But you’d never know due to your rejection of the concept out of hand which is even more dismaying than the dismissive, pejorative and downright disrespectful attitude you display in dealing with the suggestions from someone you are supposed to represent in sitting on the Police Commission..
People expect broad brush spoofing derision, scorn and mirth out of this mangy mutt. But we don’t expect either the attitude nor the disingenuous distractions and misrepresentation from the top civilian official in our the paramilitary operation of our police force.
I hear they’re selling clues down in town Tom - maybe you need to get out of your car, climb in the bathroom window and trade in some of that Viagra for one. Or quit the police department and get yourself a steady job... like blogging.
Wednesday, July 1, 2009
WRIT LARGE
WRIT LARGE: We’re now in possession of a “quotable” text copy of the Office of Information Practice (OIP) application for “writ of certiorari” (mahalo to Larry Geller for the excellent conversion work) regarding the infamous ES (executive session) 177 the Kaua`i County Council held in January 2005 (we mistakenly said 2006 yesterday).
If the Hawai`i Supreme Court accepts the writ they will hear an appeal of an Intermediate Court of Appeal’s (ICA) decision upholding a 5th circuit court ruling denying the access to the minutes of the meeting.
According to the brief
The ICA decision concerns an OIP administrative determination that certain council meeting minutes be disclosed under the State public records law, chapter 92F, FIRS, the Uniform Information Practices Act (Modified) (the - UIPA"). I The ICA affirmed the lower court's ruling that this action was properly brought under chapter 92, HRS, because that chapter's statutory scheme controls the disclosure of minutes.`' The ICA also affirmed the lower court's conclusion that the minutes were properly withheld in their entirety because of the compelling reasons for respecting and preserving the attorney-client privilege also afforded public agencies and because the privileged portions of the minutes were so intertwined with non-privileged portions that redaction would be impractical.
But let’s start at the beginning.
In January 2005 a new county council had just taken office with two new members- Mel Rapozo and Shaylene Iseri-Carvalho. Both were avowed political enemies of newly selected Police Chief KC Lum who was the Lieutenant on duty when the “lap dancer incident” took place and Rapozo by all accounts claimed Lum “turned in” Rapozo after another officer told Lum what was going on in the room next door that night.
Rapozo held Lum responsible for his ouster from the Kaua`i Police Department in the infamous “lap dancer” incident as detailed in the book “KPD Blue” (see left rail to read the book in it’s entirety). Iseri was married to Destry Carvalho, a KPD officer who was part of a faction that opposed Lum. She also, according to multiple sources, hald a grudge against Lum stemming from an incident when Lum was an officer and he tried multiple times to break up a loud party Iseri- at the time a deputy county prosecutor- was hosting at Lydgate Pavilion.
At the time Democratic Party members of the council also didn’t like the two members of the Police Commission who installed Lum- Chair Michael Ching, a prominent independent Hanalei business owner and commissioner Carol Furtado, a Republican.
So they called for an executive session to talk about either, for the first time ever invoking a charter provision, (3.17) that allows the council to investigate administrative departments, and/or finding out what the Board of Ethics was doing regarding their own investigation of the appointment.
Here’s the notice as it appeared on the agenda on Jan 20, 2005
Pursuant to Haw. Rev. Stat. §§92-4, 92-5(a)(4 and 92-5(a)(6), the purposes of this executive session are (1) to deliberate and decide whether an investigation of the Kaua`i Police Department should be conducted pursuant to §3.17 of the Kaua`i County Charter and the process to be used in the investigation (2) to consult with the County's legal counsel on legal issues regarding these matters. This consultation involves consideration of the powers, duties, privileges, immunities, and/or liabilities of the Council and the County as they relate to this agenda item.
According to OIP’s “Statement of the Case” there’s probably more than you wanted to know about what happened next.
(After the meeting) OIP was initially asked by then chairperson of the Kauai Police Commission, Mr. Michael Ching, to investigate whether the meeting had complied with the Sunshine Law, including whether the executive meeting purposes cited applied to the matters discussed by the Council in the ES-177 Meeting.
OIP reviewed the ES-177 Meeting transcript (the "ES-177 Minutes") in camera, and considered the Council's stated justification for the executive meeting. By letter dated April 14, 2005 (the "April 14 opinion"), OIP found that a limited portion of the ES-177 meeting in fact consisted of protected attorney-client consultation under the standard for the open meeting exception at § 92-5(a)(4). (ES-177 Minutes filed under seal). However, OIP found that the remainder of the Council's discussion did not fall within the cited exceptions, and thus found that the remainder of the ES-177 Meeting should have been open to the public. Accordingly, O1P advised the Council to make the minutes of those portions of the ES-177 Meeting public (the "Public ES-177 Minutes").
OIP subsequently received UIPA appeals from Mr. Ching and another member of the public (the "Requesters"), who stated that they had made record requests to the Council in April 2005 for copies of the ES-177 Minutes, but had not received any response. Prior to and after those appeals, the Council asked for reconsideration of the underlying
Sunshine Law issue, and cited to three additional executive meeting purposes. OIP found no basis for reconsideration of the Sunshine Law question because the ES-177 Meeting discussions did not fall within any of the newly cited purposes. Accordingly, OIP determined that the UIPA required the Council to give the Requesters access to the Public ES-177 Minutes (the "May 20 determination").
Note here that the matter was no longer just whether or not there should have been an “open meeting” under the Sunshine Law (HRS- §92) but whether the minutes to the meeting were open records under the Uniform Information Practices Act (HRS- §92F).
The writ continues:
OIP agreed by letter dated June 9, 2005, to allow the Council a final opportunity to supplement its position. However, OIP could not agree to a "commitment of confidentiality" regarding that position, OIP only reviewed Council's subsequently offered general discussion of the attorney-client privilege and desire to discuss investigations in closed meetings, which OIP again determined insufficient to warrant reconsideration of its April 14 opinion and May 20 determination. On June 22, 2005, the Council again provided a generalized discussion of the attorney-client privilege and the Council's desire to discuss investigations in closed meetings, which OIP had previously determined was insufficient to warrant reconsideration of its April 14 opinion and May 20 determination. On July 14, 2005, the Council filed its action seeking declaratory and injunctive relief from OIP's determination that the Public ES-177 Minutes must be disclosed.
There are basically four arguments for why the ICA erred in upholding the 5th circuit court decision. We’ll list them with partial excerpts excluding much of the case law but including the pertinent statutory language and citations for those that want to understand the case the OIP is presenting and why it’s implications go far beyond ES-177, affecting the very future of the OIP itself.
I. The ICA gravely erred by affirming that Chapter 92 authorizes Council's action challenging an OIP decision to disclose a record, given chapter 92F's plain language, clear statutory scheme and legislative history that denies an agency the right to bring a court action for that purpose.
OIP believes that the ICA committed grave error in affirming circuit court jurisdiction to hear the Council's original action under chapter 92 without then limiting its review to determining applicability of that chapter. Rather, the court went further, applying its Sunshine Law interpretation to determine disclosure of a government record under both the Sunshine Law and the UIPA. Allowing an agency to bring a court action to challenge an OIP decision to disclose a government record in this matter conflicts with the plain language of § 92F-15.5, and circumvents the UIPA's underlying policy and remedial scheme and stated legislative intent clearly disallowing such agency action. In effect, the ICA decision now allows agencies to utilize the court system, delaying for years any resolution on disclosure and circumventing the legislative intent to provide the public with efficient resolution of records disputes. Given the Legislature's stated purpose of the UIPA and the policy of this state in § 92F-2, it is clear that in denying agencies the right to sue each other, the Legislature found the rights of the public to scrutinize and participate in government to outweigh an agency's ability to judicially contest disclosure of a government record.
Where a government agency denies a person access to any record, that person may appeal by judicial action under § 92F-15 or, alternatively, by administrative appeal to OIP under § 92F-15.5 (without prejudice to the right to seek judicial review). Where appeal to OIP is made, § 92F-15.5(b) directs in full as follows:
(b) If the decision is to disclose, the office of information practices shall notify the person and the agency, and the agency shall make the record available. If the denial of access is upheld, in whole or in part, the office of information practices shall, in writing, notify the person of the decision, the reasons for the decision, and the right to bring a judicial action under section 92F-15(a). (emphasis added).
OIP believes that this unambiguous language must mean that when a person appeals to OIP and OIP's decision is to disclose, an agency must generally be bound by that decision... Further, any possible ambiguity is extinguished by the Legislature's clear intent to bar agency suits against OIP over its record decision:
Your Committee wishes to emphasize that while a person has a right to bring a civil action in circuit court to appeal a denial of access to a government record, a government agency dissatisfied with an administrative ruling by the OIP does not have the right to bring an action in circuit court to contest the OIP ruling. The legislative intent for expediency and uniformity in providing access to government records would be frustrated by agencies suing each other. Conf Comm. Rep. No. 17, Haw. S. J. 763-64 (1989) (emphasis added).
Thus, the ICA's affirmation based upon a right of action arising outside of chapter 92F, despite the plain language of § 92F-15.5(b), appears to "completely ignore the obvious meaning and intent of the statute."
But the ICA did not recognize any of that and, as the OIP then says,
The Sunshine Law, in contrast to the UIPA, which provides for no agency actions (including by OIP), has a general "any person may commence an action" standard, for the purpose of requiring compliance, preventing violations, or determining applicability of part I of chapter 92. Compare HRS § 92-12(c) with § 92F-15 and -15.5(b). However, the Council here did not solely seek the court's application of a Sunshine Law provision. Its action went further, directly seeking to invalidate OIP's decision under the UIPA to disclose the ES-177 Minutes. Given the foregoing, OIP believes that finding the Sunshine Law to allow court adjudication of OIP's determination regarding the minutes cannot be reconciled with the language of § 92-15.5, its legislative history, or the UIPA's purpose and remedial scheme.
The second argument is one that shows how persistence pays off. A couple of years back, what has been called the “secret sunshine law” was “discovered”. Since then council watchdog Glenn Mickens has told the council of HRS 92-71 part of Section II of the part that contains the Sunshine Law. It states
"in the event that any political subdivision of the State shall provide by charter, ordinance or otherwise, more stringent requirements relating to mandating the openness of meetings, the more stringent provisions of said charter, ordinance, or otherwise, shall apply."
Well as fate would have it, the Kaua`i County charter has a provision 3.07(e) that says. according to the brief that “restricts the Council's use of closed meetings to (1) deliberations to confirm appointees or (2) ‘consultations with the county attorney on claims.’ (emphasis added)”
Though the charter was changed this past November by tricking people into voting to delete it under the guise of assuring that the charter “conform” with the Sunshine Law, it was in effect when ES-177 was held and a ruling releasing those minutes could also free up many of the minutes of ES meetings held before the provision took effect.
Mickens and later open government advocate Ken Taylor hounded the OIP with this matter, at first being rejected because OIP only administers Part 1 of the Sunshine Law (92-71 is in part two) but through his persistence the argument is included in the Supreme Court brief.
OIP asked
2. Assuming this action may properly be heard, the ICA gravely erred by not giving effect to the Kauai County Charter's more restrictive standard for closing a council meeting, given the plain language of § 92-71 that directs that a more stringent county standard "shall apply."
OIP did not have reason to address § 3.07E in its UIPA decision because OIP found that the Sunshine Law required the minutes to be public. OIP raised this provision to the circuit court and to the ICA to show that the Council's broadly applied attorney-client privilege to protect all its discussions with its counsel was not only contrary to the legislative intent underlying § 92- 5(a)(4) and other judicial opinions limiting to varying degrees the extent of the privilege for government attorneys, but also directly contradicted its own charter provision.
The third is really the meat of the appeal for those who object to the Kaua`i council’s penchant for going into executive session for public policy matters disguising them under a provision (HRS 92-5(a)4) that allows them to “consult with the board's attorney on questions and issues pertaining to the board's powers, duties, privileges, immunities, and liabilities” and it’s relationship to the standard “attorney client privilege” which, the OIP says, is limited by overriding state law in the case of boards and commissions covered by the Sunshine Law.
The OIP says
3. The ICA gravely erred by failing to consider the legislative history indicating that he Legislature intentionally narrowed the attorney-client executive meeting purpose to cover only specified types of consultation between a board and its attorney.
As discussed in OIP's Opening Brief at 25-27, in 1985 the Legislature deliberately narrowed § 92-5(a)(4), the attorney-client executive meeting purpose, to apply to only limited types of consultation between a board and its attorney. As further discussed in OIP's Opening Brief at 23-30, this limitation of the attorney-client executive meeting purpose is consistent with the narrower scope of the attorney-client privilege generally when applied to government attorneys and clients in both this State and in other jurisdictions, as well as with the Sunshine Law's and the UIPA's general purpose and intent. See, e.g., HRS §§ 28-3, 92-1, and 92F-2. The ICA gravely erred by failing to consider the legislative history of § 92-5(a)(4) in deciding its scope. See Decision at 19-22. Instead, contrary to the legislative intent expressed in the 1985 amendment to § 92-5(a)(4) and the legislative mandate expressed in § 92-1 that exceptions to open meetings shall be strictly construed against closed meetings, the ICA interpreted the attorney-client executive meeting purpose broadly to encompass all discussion between the Council and its attorney in the meeting in question.
Lastly the OIP basically says "what are we here for if not this kind of determination since our oversight is plainly stated in the law and legislative intent". They say
4. The ICA gravely erred by failing to defer to OIP's interpretation of the breadth of the Sunshine Law's attorney-client executive meeting purpose under the "palpably erroneous" standard and to OIP's UIPA determination under the "abuse of discretion" standard.
One other thing of note is contained in a separate brief – the one filed by the county and upheld by the ICA. It contains a brief description of what went on in ES-177.
OIP's review of the ES[-]177 Minutes indicate[s] that the ongoing investigations discussed were limited to (1) an investigation being conducted by the County of Kauai, Board of Ethics, (2) a police investigation which had been turned over to the County of Kauai Prosecutor and (3) a proposed investigation into the termination of a KPD recruit. It is the opinion of OIP that the matters considered by the Council in ES[-]177 do not constitute "sensitive matters related to public safety or security."
Many believe that what went on was that Rapozo “went off” on Lum, Ching and/or Furtado and aired long held gripes against the department. Some of that was intimated in some of the correspondence between OIP and the county following the OIP’s review of the minutes and determination that they were public records.
It was thought by many political observers that Chair Kaipo Asing then “protected” Rapozo by fighting the release of the minutes, giving him a political Sword of Damocles to hang over Rapozo’s head should Rapozo try to maintain his rebel and maverick image, cultivated during the previous campaign
We’ll try to keep up with the case when and if it is granted review by the Supreme Court of Hawai`i. If anyone wants a copy of both documents- the OIP’s appeal and the ICA ruling- let us know at gotwindmills(at)gmail.com and we’ll get them to you.
-----------
The powers that be will be happy to know that we’ll be taking the occasional day off during the next two months while entertaining ka mo`opuna, who’s here for the summer. We’ll try to make up for it by being twice as caustic when we do post.
If the Hawai`i Supreme Court accepts the writ they will hear an appeal of an Intermediate Court of Appeal’s (ICA) decision upholding a 5th circuit court ruling denying the access to the minutes of the meeting.
According to the brief
The ICA decision concerns an OIP administrative determination that certain council meeting minutes be disclosed under the State public records law, chapter 92F, FIRS, the Uniform Information Practices Act (Modified) (the - UIPA"). I The ICA affirmed the lower court's ruling that this action was properly brought under chapter 92, HRS, because that chapter's statutory scheme controls the disclosure of minutes.`' The ICA also affirmed the lower court's conclusion that the minutes were properly withheld in their entirety because of the compelling reasons for respecting and preserving the attorney-client privilege also afforded public agencies and because the privileged portions of the minutes were so intertwined with non-privileged portions that redaction would be impractical.
But let’s start at the beginning.
In January 2005 a new county council had just taken office with two new members- Mel Rapozo and Shaylene Iseri-Carvalho. Both were avowed political enemies of newly selected Police Chief KC Lum who was the Lieutenant on duty when the “lap dancer incident” took place and Rapozo by all accounts claimed Lum “turned in” Rapozo after another officer told Lum what was going on in the room next door that night.
Rapozo held Lum responsible for his ouster from the Kaua`i Police Department in the infamous “lap dancer” incident as detailed in the book “KPD Blue” (see left rail to read the book in it’s entirety). Iseri was married to Destry Carvalho, a KPD officer who was part of a faction that opposed Lum. She also, according to multiple sources, hald a grudge against Lum stemming from an incident when Lum was an officer and he tried multiple times to break up a loud party Iseri- at the time a deputy county prosecutor- was hosting at Lydgate Pavilion.
At the time Democratic Party members of the council also didn’t like the two members of the Police Commission who installed Lum- Chair Michael Ching, a prominent independent Hanalei business owner and commissioner Carol Furtado, a Republican.
So they called for an executive session to talk about either, for the first time ever invoking a charter provision, (3.17) that allows the council to investigate administrative departments, and/or finding out what the Board of Ethics was doing regarding their own investigation of the appointment.
Here’s the notice as it appeared on the agenda on Jan 20, 2005
Pursuant to Haw. Rev. Stat. §§92-4, 92-5(a)(4 and 92-5(a)(6), the purposes of this executive session are (1) to deliberate and decide whether an investigation of the Kaua`i Police Department should be conducted pursuant to §3.17 of the Kaua`i County Charter and the process to be used in the investigation (2) to consult with the County's legal counsel on legal issues regarding these matters. This consultation involves consideration of the powers, duties, privileges, immunities, and/or liabilities of the Council and the County as they relate to this agenda item.
According to OIP’s “Statement of the Case” there’s probably more than you wanted to know about what happened next.
(After the meeting) OIP was initially asked by then chairperson of the Kauai Police Commission, Mr. Michael Ching, to investigate whether the meeting had complied with the Sunshine Law, including whether the executive meeting purposes cited applied to the matters discussed by the Council in the ES-177 Meeting.
OIP reviewed the ES-177 Meeting transcript (the "ES-177 Minutes") in camera, and considered the Council's stated justification for the executive meeting. By letter dated April 14, 2005 (the "April 14 opinion"), OIP found that a limited portion of the ES-177 meeting in fact consisted of protected attorney-client consultation under the standard for the open meeting exception at § 92-5(a)(4). (ES-177 Minutes filed under seal). However, OIP found that the remainder of the Council's discussion did not fall within the cited exceptions, and thus found that the remainder of the ES-177 Meeting should have been open to the public. Accordingly, O1P advised the Council to make the minutes of those portions of the ES-177 Meeting public (the "Public ES-177 Minutes").
OIP subsequently received UIPA appeals from Mr. Ching and another member of the public (the "Requesters"), who stated that they had made record requests to the Council in April 2005 for copies of the ES-177 Minutes, but had not received any response. Prior to and after those appeals, the Council asked for reconsideration of the underlying
Sunshine Law issue, and cited to three additional executive meeting purposes. OIP found no basis for reconsideration of the Sunshine Law question because the ES-177 Meeting discussions did not fall within any of the newly cited purposes. Accordingly, OIP determined that the UIPA required the Council to give the Requesters access to the Public ES-177 Minutes (the "May 20 determination").
Note here that the matter was no longer just whether or not there should have been an “open meeting” under the Sunshine Law (HRS- §92) but whether the minutes to the meeting were open records under the Uniform Information Practices Act (HRS- §92F).
The writ continues:
OIP agreed by letter dated June 9, 2005, to allow the Council a final opportunity to supplement its position. However, OIP could not agree to a "commitment of confidentiality" regarding that position, OIP only reviewed Council's subsequently offered general discussion of the attorney-client privilege and desire to discuss investigations in closed meetings, which OIP again determined insufficient to warrant reconsideration of its April 14 opinion and May 20 determination. On June 22, 2005, the Council again provided a generalized discussion of the attorney-client privilege and the Council's desire to discuss investigations in closed meetings, which OIP had previously determined was insufficient to warrant reconsideration of its April 14 opinion and May 20 determination. On July 14, 2005, the Council filed its action seeking declaratory and injunctive relief from OIP's determination that the Public ES-177 Minutes must be disclosed.
There are basically four arguments for why the ICA erred in upholding the 5th circuit court decision. We’ll list them with partial excerpts excluding much of the case law but including the pertinent statutory language and citations for those that want to understand the case the OIP is presenting and why it’s implications go far beyond ES-177, affecting the very future of the OIP itself.
I. The ICA gravely erred by affirming that Chapter 92 authorizes Council's action challenging an OIP decision to disclose a record, given chapter 92F's plain language, clear statutory scheme and legislative history that denies an agency the right to bring a court action for that purpose.
OIP believes that the ICA committed grave error in affirming circuit court jurisdiction to hear the Council's original action under chapter 92 without then limiting its review to determining applicability of that chapter. Rather, the court went further, applying its Sunshine Law interpretation to determine disclosure of a government record under both the Sunshine Law and the UIPA. Allowing an agency to bring a court action to challenge an OIP decision to disclose a government record in this matter conflicts with the plain language of § 92F-15.5, and circumvents the UIPA's underlying policy and remedial scheme and stated legislative intent clearly disallowing such agency action. In effect, the ICA decision now allows agencies to utilize the court system, delaying for years any resolution on disclosure and circumventing the legislative intent to provide the public with efficient resolution of records disputes. Given the Legislature's stated purpose of the UIPA and the policy of this state in § 92F-2, it is clear that in denying agencies the right to sue each other, the Legislature found the rights of the public to scrutinize and participate in government to outweigh an agency's ability to judicially contest disclosure of a government record.
Where a government agency denies a person access to any record, that person may appeal by judicial action under § 92F-15 or, alternatively, by administrative appeal to OIP under § 92F-15.5 (without prejudice to the right to seek judicial review). Where appeal to OIP is made, § 92F-15.5(b) directs in full as follows:
(b) If the decision is to disclose, the office of information practices shall notify the person and the agency, and the agency shall make the record available. If the denial of access is upheld, in whole or in part, the office of information practices shall, in writing, notify the person of the decision, the reasons for the decision, and the right to bring a judicial action under section 92F-15(a). (emphasis added).
OIP believes that this unambiguous language must mean that when a person appeals to OIP and OIP's decision is to disclose, an agency must generally be bound by that decision... Further, any possible ambiguity is extinguished by the Legislature's clear intent to bar agency suits against OIP over its record decision:
Your Committee wishes to emphasize that while a person has a right to bring a civil action in circuit court to appeal a denial of access to a government record, a government agency dissatisfied with an administrative ruling by the OIP does not have the right to bring an action in circuit court to contest the OIP ruling. The legislative intent for expediency and uniformity in providing access to government records would be frustrated by agencies suing each other. Conf Comm. Rep. No. 17, Haw. S. J. 763-64 (1989) (emphasis added).
Thus, the ICA's affirmation based upon a right of action arising outside of chapter 92F, despite the plain language of § 92F-15.5(b), appears to "completely ignore the obvious meaning and intent of the statute."
But the ICA did not recognize any of that and, as the OIP then says,
The Sunshine Law, in contrast to the UIPA, which provides for no agency actions (including by OIP), has a general "any person may commence an action" standard, for the purpose of requiring compliance, preventing violations, or determining applicability of part I of chapter 92. Compare HRS § 92-12(c) with § 92F-15 and -15.5(b). However, the Council here did not solely seek the court's application of a Sunshine Law provision. Its action went further, directly seeking to invalidate OIP's decision under the UIPA to disclose the ES-177 Minutes. Given the foregoing, OIP believes that finding the Sunshine Law to allow court adjudication of OIP's determination regarding the minutes cannot be reconciled with the language of § 92-15.5, its legislative history, or the UIPA's purpose and remedial scheme.
The second argument is one that shows how persistence pays off. A couple of years back, what has been called the “secret sunshine law” was “discovered”. Since then council watchdog Glenn Mickens has told the council of HRS 92-71 part of Section II of the part that contains the Sunshine Law. It states
"in the event that any political subdivision of the State shall provide by charter, ordinance or otherwise, more stringent requirements relating to mandating the openness of meetings, the more stringent provisions of said charter, ordinance, or otherwise, shall apply."
Well as fate would have it, the Kaua`i County charter has a provision 3.07(e) that says. according to the brief that “restricts the Council's use of closed meetings to (1) deliberations to confirm appointees or (2) ‘consultations with the county attorney on claims.’ (emphasis added)”
Though the charter was changed this past November by tricking people into voting to delete it under the guise of assuring that the charter “conform” with the Sunshine Law, it was in effect when ES-177 was held and a ruling releasing those minutes could also free up many of the minutes of ES meetings held before the provision took effect.
Mickens and later open government advocate Ken Taylor hounded the OIP with this matter, at first being rejected because OIP only administers Part 1 of the Sunshine Law (92-71 is in part two) but through his persistence the argument is included in the Supreme Court brief.
OIP asked
2. Assuming this action may properly be heard, the ICA gravely erred by not giving effect to the Kauai County Charter's more restrictive standard for closing a council meeting, given the plain language of § 92-71 that directs that a more stringent county standard "shall apply."
OIP did not have reason to address § 3.07E in its UIPA decision because OIP found that the Sunshine Law required the minutes to be public. OIP raised this provision to the circuit court and to the ICA to show that the Council's broadly applied attorney-client privilege to protect all its discussions with its counsel was not only contrary to the legislative intent underlying § 92- 5(a)(4) and other judicial opinions limiting to varying degrees the extent of the privilege for government attorneys, but also directly contradicted its own charter provision.
The third is really the meat of the appeal for those who object to the Kaua`i council’s penchant for going into executive session for public policy matters disguising them under a provision (HRS 92-5(a)4) that allows them to “consult with the board's attorney on questions and issues pertaining to the board's powers, duties, privileges, immunities, and liabilities” and it’s relationship to the standard “attorney client privilege” which, the OIP says, is limited by overriding state law in the case of boards and commissions covered by the Sunshine Law.
The OIP says
3. The ICA gravely erred by failing to consider the legislative history indicating that he Legislature intentionally narrowed the attorney-client executive meeting purpose to cover only specified types of consultation between a board and its attorney.
As discussed in OIP's Opening Brief at 25-27, in 1985 the Legislature deliberately narrowed § 92-5(a)(4), the attorney-client executive meeting purpose, to apply to only limited types of consultation between a board and its attorney. As further discussed in OIP's Opening Brief at 23-30, this limitation of the attorney-client executive meeting purpose is consistent with the narrower scope of the attorney-client privilege generally when applied to government attorneys and clients in both this State and in other jurisdictions, as well as with the Sunshine Law's and the UIPA's general purpose and intent. See, e.g., HRS §§ 28-3, 92-1, and 92F-2. The ICA gravely erred by failing to consider the legislative history of § 92-5(a)(4) in deciding its scope. See Decision at 19-22. Instead, contrary to the legislative intent expressed in the 1985 amendment to § 92-5(a)(4) and the legislative mandate expressed in § 92-1 that exceptions to open meetings shall be strictly construed against closed meetings, the ICA interpreted the attorney-client executive meeting purpose broadly to encompass all discussion between the Council and its attorney in the meeting in question.
Lastly the OIP basically says "what are we here for if not this kind of determination since our oversight is plainly stated in the law and legislative intent". They say
4. The ICA gravely erred by failing to defer to OIP's interpretation of the breadth of the Sunshine Law's attorney-client executive meeting purpose under the "palpably erroneous" standard and to OIP's UIPA determination under the "abuse of discretion" standard.
One other thing of note is contained in a separate brief – the one filed by the county and upheld by the ICA. It contains a brief description of what went on in ES-177.
OIP's review of the ES[-]177 Minutes indicate[s] that the ongoing investigations discussed were limited to (1) an investigation being conducted by the County of Kauai, Board of Ethics, (2) a police investigation which had been turned over to the County of Kauai Prosecutor and (3) a proposed investigation into the termination of a KPD recruit. It is the opinion of OIP that the matters considered by the Council in ES[-]177 do not constitute "sensitive matters related to public safety or security."
Many believe that what went on was that Rapozo “went off” on Lum, Ching and/or Furtado and aired long held gripes against the department. Some of that was intimated in some of the correspondence between OIP and the county following the OIP’s review of the minutes and determination that they were public records.
It was thought by many political observers that Chair Kaipo Asing then “protected” Rapozo by fighting the release of the minutes, giving him a political Sword of Damocles to hang over Rapozo’s head should Rapozo try to maintain his rebel and maverick image, cultivated during the previous campaign
We’ll try to keep up with the case when and if it is granted review by the Supreme Court of Hawai`i. If anyone wants a copy of both documents- the OIP’s appeal and the ICA ruling- let us know at gotwindmills(at)gmail.com and we’ll get them to you.
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The powers that be will be happy to know that we’ll be taking the occasional day off during the next two months while entertaining ka mo`opuna, who’s here for the summer. We’ll try to make up for it by being twice as caustic when we do post.
Wednesday, October 19, 2011
OCCUPY THIS
OCCUPY THIS: One of the stranger aspects of the Occupy Kaua`i "rally" (for lack of a better term) last Saturday was the presence of Kaua`i Police Department (KPD) Chief Darryl Perry. But stranger than his mere presence is the way he has taken advantage of the local version of the movement to pump up his image in the media.
Not just his presence but his statements- that essentially he was there to protect the participants- were widely reported although he and his officers just stood by during the one thus-far-unreported incident. Just after the 11 a.m. start two state trucks came by packed with contra-flow "cone-droppers" who yelled at "protesters" to, among other slightly nastier things, stay out of the street, even though no one was obstructing traffic.
And obviously Perry's fellow officers didn't seem to care.
But Perry wasn't done with his use of the rally for personal PR purposes after Sunday's and Monday's TV and print offense.
Today a piece in the online "newspaper" Civil Beat appeared in the form of an "interview" with the Chief although it had Perry's own byline making it unclear if the "questions" were Civil Beat's (as the first question intimated) or Perry's own.
Anyway he took advantage to of the opportunity to say things like:
The “occupy” movement and civil unrest in general is a means to express displeasure and/or dissatisfaction with the current state of the political climate as it relates to government or corporate policy.
Growing up in the 1960s during the Vietnam Era, and being witness to local protest movements concerning Native Hawaiians, I can understand the frustration of individuals who feel that they are disadvantaged through no fault of their own or they need to stand up for others who are not able to do so on their own.
But don't for a minute think he was supporting the confrontational aspect of the movement pitting the "99%" of the people against the 1% that control most of the wealth in this country and county.
He went on to say:
This frustration appears to be global, but I believe what is unique about Hawaii in their appeal to the silent majority via demonstrations, is that we have great respect for each other which is based in our up-bringing of being pono. I want to make it clear, that this respect for one another is not racial and specific to one ethnicity, it is more culturally based, and as you know, Hawaii is a mixture of all races coming together and believing that we don’t check our values at the door for a cause or circumstances; that our integrity is always at the forefront of our actions.
Ah, the old plantation mentality appeal, essentially saying that we 99%ers just love to be exploited by the 1% and are too laid back to do anything but have our say and go back to our cruddy, exploitative, starvation-wage jobs.
Well we wonder how Perry and his KPD officers are going to react if a plan by the group "Occupy Kaua`i" comes to fruition.
According to a widely circulated email, members of the group met Monday evening and
after much thought and even more deliberation, we decided that we would do an actual "occupation" at the park near the county building beginning this Friday. We are going to have a meeting at the pavilion at Lydgate park on Thursday Oct. 20th at 7pm. We are going to go over our goals, concerns (we have somebody looking into legal issues), planning, logistics...etc. We will be having a potluck, so please bring something to share, but no big deal if you don't. Please inform anybody you know who may be interested in standing with the 99%.
Assuming the "legal" issues can be worked out, it will be interesting to see how Chief Perry and his force respond to the only actual "occupation" in the islands- what with the respect and permissiveness he's been expressing toward the group in the media this week.
Not just his presence but his statements- that essentially he was there to protect the participants- were widely reported although he and his officers just stood by during the one thus-far-unreported incident. Just after the 11 a.m. start two state trucks came by packed with contra-flow "cone-droppers" who yelled at "protesters" to, among other slightly nastier things, stay out of the street, even though no one was obstructing traffic.
And obviously Perry's fellow officers didn't seem to care.
But Perry wasn't done with his use of the rally for personal PR purposes after Sunday's and Monday's TV and print offense.
Today a piece in the online "newspaper" Civil Beat appeared in the form of an "interview" with the Chief although it had Perry's own byline making it unclear if the "questions" were Civil Beat's (as the first question intimated) or Perry's own.
Anyway he took advantage to of the opportunity to say things like:
The “occupy” movement and civil unrest in general is a means to express displeasure and/or dissatisfaction with the current state of the political climate as it relates to government or corporate policy.
Growing up in the 1960s during the Vietnam Era, and being witness to local protest movements concerning Native Hawaiians, I can understand the frustration of individuals who feel that they are disadvantaged through no fault of their own or they need to stand up for others who are not able to do so on their own.
But don't for a minute think he was supporting the confrontational aspect of the movement pitting the "99%" of the people against the 1% that control most of the wealth in this country and county.
He went on to say:
This frustration appears to be global, but I believe what is unique about Hawaii in their appeal to the silent majority via demonstrations, is that we have great respect for each other which is based in our up-bringing of being pono. I want to make it clear, that this respect for one another is not racial and specific to one ethnicity, it is more culturally based, and as you know, Hawaii is a mixture of all races coming together and believing that we don’t check our values at the door for a cause or circumstances; that our integrity is always at the forefront of our actions.
Ah, the old plantation mentality appeal, essentially saying that we 99%ers just love to be exploited by the 1% and are too laid back to do anything but have our say and go back to our cruddy, exploitative, starvation-wage jobs.
Well we wonder how Perry and his KPD officers are going to react if a plan by the group "Occupy Kaua`i" comes to fruition.
According to a widely circulated email, members of the group met Monday evening and
after much thought and even more deliberation, we decided that we would do an actual "occupation" at the park near the county building beginning this Friday. We are going to have a meeting at the pavilion at Lydgate park on Thursday Oct. 20th at 7pm. We are going to go over our goals, concerns (we have somebody looking into legal issues), planning, logistics...etc. We will be having a potluck, so please bring something to share, but no big deal if you don't. Please inform anybody you know who may be interested in standing with the 99%.
Assuming the "legal" issues can be worked out, it will be interesting to see how Chief Perry and his force respond to the only actual "occupation" in the islands- what with the respect and permissiveness he's been expressing toward the group in the media this week.
Thursday, September 15, 2011
HOOK, LINE AND STINKER
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.
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.
Friday, March 5, 2010
GLAD WE DIDN’T STEP IN IT
GLAD WE DIDN’T STEP IN IT: Abso-freakin’-lutely bizarre.
What else can you possibly say about the county’s decision that, after all these years of putting everyone through convoluted conniptions so they could run the “coastal” bike path across the busiest highway intersection on the island and through the Safeway and Foodland parking lots, they’ve decided to start from scratch and do what they said was impossible- run the path along a makai route where it belonged in the first place.
Or, maybe not so bizarre.
The brief announcement from the county was pretty vague- and buried to boot. After a comparatively long and final “screw you” to those who want the path entirely off Wailua Beach, way at the end it says:
The mayor also noted that due to the cost and safety reasons, phase three of the multi-use path, from Lydgate to Lihi Park, will be aligned makai to avoid crossing Kūhi`ō Hwy. and the mauka leg will be postponed until a later date.
This change will require several additional steps including: land acquisition; a supplemental Environmental Assessment, a special management permit; and design work.
Even reporter Mike Levine of the local newspaper- who presumably hasn’t been around long enough to know a tenth of the background of the various scams that caused the mauka route to be chosen- wasn’t buying county’s obfuscation and wrote his own lede stressing the “new alignment”.
After apparently obtaining a county map he writes:
The new leg would head makai from Papaloa Road where it meets Coconut Marketplace, between the Kaua`i Sands Hotel and the Aston Islander on the Beach, before turning north and staying behind the Kaua`i Coast Resort at the Beachboy and the Aston Kaua`i Beach at Makaiwa, a county map shows.
Those who have followed the long and winding corridor’s saga will remember that it became obvious through testimony before the county council by Department of Public Works Building Division Chief Doug Haigh- going back to the Maryanne Kusaka administration and continuing through Bryan Baptiste’s reign- that the mauka alignment was chosen after a convoluted deal was struck with Safeway and Foodland to give the county land for the path in exchange for concessions from the county over the infamous “Safeway Bridge”.
For those that don’t remember, in 1979 when the Foodland and Safeway shopping centers were granted their commercial zoning one of the requirements in the ordinance was that they build a pedestrian bridge connecting the two stores so as to divert at least some traffic from the highway.
Citizens demanded a vehicular bridge but those were the days when corruption was even more rampant than today and public input meant diddly-squat when countered by developer’s demands.
But even the “compromise” condition was never satisfied and in the late 90’s the two owners tried to get the council to throw out the conditions because it was holding up a lot consolidation the Safeway owners needed to sell the shopping center.
It was supposed to be a done deal until a member of the public, Tracy Murakami, came forward at the public hearing on the bill and objected saying she wanted the bridge so she didn’t have to drive every time she wanted to shop at both stores.
That started a groundswell of support for the bridge especially from council regulars and set off the Battle of the Safeway Bridge.
People were outraged that the condition was ignored for 20 years and both sides started coming before the council over a period of months, the public with evidence of cover-ups and lies by the two corporate owners and the owners, with the backing of the state DOT, trying first to say the narrow, four-foot walkway on the highway bridge- with no guard rail and traffic whizzing by inches away- was good enough (even for a stroller with her newborn baby in it when Murakami brought it up), then saying there was nowhere to put the bridge- which Murakami and others pictorially showed just wasn’t true.
But after Kaipo Asing- then still a champion of the people- went out, tape measure in hand, and did his own investigative work and one of his famous “Kaipo Explains It All” presentations, the council refused to remove the requirement and even passed an ordinance saying “build it now... or else”.
But the “or else” wasn’t really specified. So cut to almost a decade later when Councilpersons Mel Rapozo and Shaylene Iseri-Carvalho got wind of the lack of enforcement.
The council then went through the whole thing again- and again said build it “or else... and we mean it this time”.
Then cometh the bike path and Haigh, the county’s chief cook and bottlewasher on the project, came up with a plan that would both fund his bike path and settle the bridge controversy.
The main appropriation for the bike path- the original $40 million in “transportation, not recreation” federal funds needed matching funds from the county. The Kusaka administration had worked a deal to use the “gift” of the Kealia Kai mauka region land to offset a good chunk of it.
But they still needed more.
The deal was that in exchange for rights to a strip of land for the bike path to run through their valuable commercially-zoned land, Safeway and Foodland would only have to pay a nominal amount for the actual bridge itself and the county would maintain it as part of the “coastal” bike path which would now cross the highway and wend its way through the busy parking lots.
Haigh told the council that it would be impossible to get all the land for the path to go through the Coconut Marketplace and all the hotels in the makai area and detailed other physical barriers. There was no choice but to go west.
But as everyone knew the county couldn’t just decide not to build that portion because “the path must go on” to make sure that it would be “continuous” from Kealia to Lihu`e- a requirement since a “transportation” path couldn’t very well have breaks in it.
So why the change? Or more to the point why the change now after buckets of money and time have been invested in the mauka alignment and other plans are already in place along the canal- having been piggy-backed onto the bike path- for things like the Pouli Road connectors to ease vehicular traffic?
For one possible explanation you might look at the agenda for the February 17 council meeting under “Legal Documents”. There you’ll find this:
C 2010-46 Communication (01/15/2010) from the Director of Parks & Recreation, requesting Council approval to secure a shared-use path easement at the Kaua`i Shopping Village (TMK 4-4-3-08:14) in exchange for a parking and pedestrian access easement at Waipouli Drainage Canal.
This is apparently the land deal that finalizes all the previous contortions and now that all is in place the county has it’s “value” to be able to reap more of the matching funds required for the federal grant.
Of course the actual time and money the county has put into this now apparently defunct portion of the bike path is probably quite staggering although the real accounting is still in limbo.
The actual figure for cost to date was one of those “29 questions” that the council asked and which the administration has yet to answer regarding the bike path. The questions were left unanswered when Rapozo and Iseri left the council and no one else - especially original bike path zealot Tim Bynum who now chairs the Parks/Public Works Committee and has no interest in the questions, having said they were “all answered” as far as he was concerned- seems concerned about where the money went and where it’s going in the future.
Of course the county says the mauka portion is being “postponed” but when in the heck do we need an unconnected-to-anything bike path through a parking lot for now. In Kaua`i government parlance postponed usually means when hell freezes over. And of course they have to say that or it would make all efforts to secure the mauka route the farce it really was... apparently all along.
If that isn’t the answer what exactly changed so dramatically in the couple of weeks since the council approved the land deal? Either way they go some ‘splainin’ to do although no one is holding their breath.
Egad- we feel like Paul Harvey.
Correction: Tim Bynum is the Chair of Public Works and Elderly Affairs Committee, not Public Works and Parks. Lani Kawahara is the Chair of Parks and Transportation.
What else can you possibly say about the county’s decision that, after all these years of putting everyone through convoluted conniptions so they could run the “coastal” bike path across the busiest highway intersection on the island and through the Safeway and Foodland parking lots, they’ve decided to start from scratch and do what they said was impossible- run the path along a makai route where it belonged in the first place.
Or, maybe not so bizarre.
The brief announcement from the county was pretty vague- and buried to boot. After a comparatively long and final “screw you” to those who want the path entirely off Wailua Beach, way at the end it says:
The mayor also noted that due to the cost and safety reasons, phase three of the multi-use path, from Lydgate to Lihi Park, will be aligned makai to avoid crossing Kūhi`ō Hwy. and the mauka leg will be postponed until a later date.
This change will require several additional steps including: land acquisition; a supplemental Environmental Assessment, a special management permit; and design work.
Even reporter Mike Levine of the local newspaper- who presumably hasn’t been around long enough to know a tenth of the background of the various scams that caused the mauka route to be chosen- wasn’t buying county’s obfuscation and wrote his own lede stressing the “new alignment”.
After apparently obtaining a county map he writes:
The new leg would head makai from Papaloa Road where it meets Coconut Marketplace, between the Kaua`i Sands Hotel and the Aston Islander on the Beach, before turning north and staying behind the Kaua`i Coast Resort at the Beachboy and the Aston Kaua`i Beach at Makaiwa, a county map shows.
Those who have followed the long and winding corridor’s saga will remember that it became obvious through testimony before the county council by Department of Public Works Building Division Chief Doug Haigh- going back to the Maryanne Kusaka administration and continuing through Bryan Baptiste’s reign- that the mauka alignment was chosen after a convoluted deal was struck with Safeway and Foodland to give the county land for the path in exchange for concessions from the county over the infamous “Safeway Bridge”.
For those that don’t remember, in 1979 when the Foodland and Safeway shopping centers were granted their commercial zoning one of the requirements in the ordinance was that they build a pedestrian bridge connecting the two stores so as to divert at least some traffic from the highway.
Citizens demanded a vehicular bridge but those were the days when corruption was even more rampant than today and public input meant diddly-squat when countered by developer’s demands.
But even the “compromise” condition was never satisfied and in the late 90’s the two owners tried to get the council to throw out the conditions because it was holding up a lot consolidation the Safeway owners needed to sell the shopping center.
It was supposed to be a done deal until a member of the public, Tracy Murakami, came forward at the public hearing on the bill and objected saying she wanted the bridge so she didn’t have to drive every time she wanted to shop at both stores.
That started a groundswell of support for the bridge especially from council regulars and set off the Battle of the Safeway Bridge.
People were outraged that the condition was ignored for 20 years and both sides started coming before the council over a period of months, the public with evidence of cover-ups and lies by the two corporate owners and the owners, with the backing of the state DOT, trying first to say the narrow, four-foot walkway on the highway bridge- with no guard rail and traffic whizzing by inches away- was good enough (even for a stroller with her newborn baby in it when Murakami brought it up), then saying there was nowhere to put the bridge- which Murakami and others pictorially showed just wasn’t true.
But after Kaipo Asing- then still a champion of the people- went out, tape measure in hand, and did his own investigative work and one of his famous “Kaipo Explains It All” presentations, the council refused to remove the requirement and even passed an ordinance saying “build it now... or else”.
But the “or else” wasn’t really specified. So cut to almost a decade later when Councilpersons Mel Rapozo and Shaylene Iseri-Carvalho got wind of the lack of enforcement.
The council then went through the whole thing again- and again said build it “or else... and we mean it this time”.
Then cometh the bike path and Haigh, the county’s chief cook and bottlewasher on the project, came up with a plan that would both fund his bike path and settle the bridge controversy.
The main appropriation for the bike path- the original $40 million in “transportation, not recreation” federal funds needed matching funds from the county. The Kusaka administration had worked a deal to use the “gift” of the Kealia Kai mauka region land to offset a good chunk of it.
But they still needed more.
The deal was that in exchange for rights to a strip of land for the bike path to run through their valuable commercially-zoned land, Safeway and Foodland would only have to pay a nominal amount for the actual bridge itself and the county would maintain it as part of the “coastal” bike path which would now cross the highway and wend its way through the busy parking lots.
Haigh told the council that it would be impossible to get all the land for the path to go through the Coconut Marketplace and all the hotels in the makai area and detailed other physical barriers. There was no choice but to go west.
But as everyone knew the county couldn’t just decide not to build that portion because “the path must go on” to make sure that it would be “continuous” from Kealia to Lihu`e- a requirement since a “transportation” path couldn’t very well have breaks in it.
So why the change? Or more to the point why the change now after buckets of money and time have been invested in the mauka alignment and other plans are already in place along the canal- having been piggy-backed onto the bike path- for things like the Pouli Road connectors to ease vehicular traffic?
For one possible explanation you might look at the agenda for the February 17 council meeting under “Legal Documents”. There you’ll find this:
C 2010-46 Communication (01/15/2010) from the Director of Parks & Recreation, requesting Council approval to secure a shared-use path easement at the Kaua`i Shopping Village (TMK 4-4-3-08:14) in exchange for a parking and pedestrian access easement at Waipouli Drainage Canal.
This is apparently the land deal that finalizes all the previous contortions and now that all is in place the county has it’s “value” to be able to reap more of the matching funds required for the federal grant.
Of course the actual time and money the county has put into this now apparently defunct portion of the bike path is probably quite staggering although the real accounting is still in limbo.
The actual figure for cost to date was one of those “29 questions” that the council asked and which the administration has yet to answer regarding the bike path. The questions were left unanswered when Rapozo and Iseri left the council and no one else - especially original bike path zealot Tim Bynum who now chairs the Parks/Public Works Committee and has no interest in the questions, having said they were “all answered” as far as he was concerned- seems concerned about where the money went and where it’s going in the future.
Of course the county says the mauka portion is being “postponed” but when in the heck do we need an unconnected-to-anything bike path through a parking lot for now. In Kaua`i government parlance postponed usually means when hell freezes over. And of course they have to say that or it would make all efforts to secure the mauka route the farce it really was... apparently all along.
If that isn’t the answer what exactly changed so dramatically in the couple of weeks since the council approved the land deal? Either way they go some ‘splainin’ to do although no one is holding their breath.
Egad- we feel like Paul Harvey.
Correction: Tim Bynum is the Chair of Public Works and Elderly Affairs Committee, not Public Works and Parks. Lani Kawahara is the Chair of Parks and Transportation.
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