BURN BABY BURN

BURN BABY BURN: Ian Lind used to call it a "two newspaper day" when, first of all Honolulu had two newspapers and, they apparently got different information resulting in a different "lede" in each.

But even after the so-called merger of the two, today's treatment throughout the state on Kaua`i Island Utility Coop's (KIUC) announcement that they're going to try to take money they borrowed for a generation unit and instead build "the largest solar installation in the state," yielded at least two distinctly different stories nonetheless.

The local Kaua`i newspaper's Business Editor Vanessa Van Voorhis started by regurgitating the KIUC press release announcement, writing in her lede

Kaua‘i Island Utility Cooperative on Wednesday announced its intent to pursue the development of a 10-megawatt solar farm, which would be the largest of its kind in the state.

“KIUC would have more solar PV concentration (per capita) than any utility in the U.S., if this project can be successfully developed,” KIUC CEO David Bissell said in a press release.

The co-op intends to construct the integrated PV and Battery Energy Storage System project by reallocating a $68 million previously approved loan from Rural Utility Service. RUS had approved the funding for a 10-MW “Gen X” or “CT2” combustion turbine generator.

But then well into the article she pulls the following fact from, well, apparently nowhere:

KIUC says the combustion turbine was originally hoped to be fueled by renewable bio-diesel, but that technology has not developed quickly enough to realistically use the RUS funds in the approved timeframe.

Who "KIUC" is in this case is unknown since the press release doesn't say a thing about what kind of fuel the "10-MW 'Gen X” or “CT2' combustion turbine generator" uses. Perhaps Van Voorhis was confused by an announcement a year ago that KIUC had signed an agreement to buy bio-diesel for their Ele`ele power plant. But the term "combustion generator" sounds like something quite different from burning bio-diesel. Then again what do we know.

The Honolulu Star-Advertiser wasn’t much help since they apparently didn't even bother to call anyone, re-upchucking the original KIUC chuck.

But, as many have found, there's a new kid on the block.

At the on-line "newspaper" Civil Beat we apparently get the real story from reporter Sophie Cocke. She spoke to KIUC Production Manager Brad Rockwell, before writing the following headline and lede.

Kauai Scraps Biomass Plant for Solar Farm

Biomass is out, solar is in.

The Kauai utility is planning to use $68 million in funds that had originally been allocated for a biomass plant to build the largest photovoltaic array on the island – 10 megawatts.

Jeez- was that so hard? And all in 38 words.

Two different "newspapers of record" and one can't bother to make any phone calls and the other calls only the spokesperson for KIUC and seemingly gets the story wrong.

The usual excuse at the paper on Kaua`i is that, as local people often say to their often FOB reporters, "you ain’t from around here, are ya?". But Cocke isn't exactly from Makaweli either.

Guess it's just another "can't anyone here play this game?" day.

DOIN' A BANG-BANG UP JOB

DOIN' A BANG-BANG UP JOB: Kaua`i police, weapons drawn, descended on the old Lihu`e courthouse today, firing at random.

And they will be all week if they act in accordance with a press release issued by the Kaua`i Police Department (KPD) yesterday afternoon that apparently somehow failed to make it into today's local newspaper.

Although according to the press release it's only an "official training" exercise using "blanks," with the total lack of notification of the populace at large we expect that if all goes as planned, people will be diving under cars or running in circles, hands to cheeks, shrieking at the top of their lungs in fright since no one in KPD thought to issue the release earlier or make sure people were properly informed.

The whole release reads:

Police to conduct training exercise this week

LĪHU`E – The Kaua‘i Police Department (KPD) will be conducting official training today through Thursday, between the hours of 7:45 a.m. and 4:30 p.m., at the former Fifth Circuit Court Building located on Umi Street in Līhu‘e.

The public may see officers in the vicinity of the building with weapons drawn. Please note that this is only training. No live munitions will be used, although the sounds of blank rounds may be heard.

KPD requests the public’s assistance in keeping a distance from, and not interfering with the training exercise.

Of course it would have helped if the Honolulu newspaper's on-line edition wasn't hidden behind their pay wall because in a tiny, buried, somewhat more sensational blurb in their "Newswatch" briefs they told people- well actually they told only their paid subscribers- that:

Police training on Umi Street will involve guns

The Kauai Police Department will be conducting realistic-looking training through Thursday at the former 5th Circuit Court Building on Umi Street in Lihue, the county said in a news release.

The public might see officers in the vicinity of the building with weapons drawn and might hear gunfire, but the rounds will be blank. The exercise began Monday and will run between 7:45 a.m. and 4:30 p.m.

Of course if people drop dead from a heart attack or do something stupid like get hit by a breadtruck after running out into traffic in a panic, there will be plenty of blame to go around since the local newspaper apparently had plenty of time and opportunity to get the news out by press time.

You would think with something as important as the fact those cops firing weapons in an apparent assault on a building in the central Lihu`e Civic Center area are, in fact, "only joking" would be something people would actually be informed about.

But noooo- not on Kaua`i. Apparently it's just another one for the "can't anyone here play this game?" file.

A SPLENDID TIME IS GUARANTEED FOR ALL

A SPLENDID TIME IS GUARANTEED FOR ALL: We’ve got to admit severe ambivalence when it comes to Mayor Bernard Carvalho’s administration’s attempts to control its message, especially with the recent ramp-up of command and control.

While we’d like to say we admire the effort purely for it’s Machiavellian efficiency it’s often done with such bumblingly transparent obfuscation and manipulation that it’s bound to infuriate the public to a level in precise one-to-one ratio with the effort to maintain secrecy.

Yesterday’s press release announcing a Thursday “meeting to discuss the county's plans for an adolescent drug treatment center on Kaua`i” quotes Carvalho’s Anti-Drug Coordinator Theresa Koki as saying that:

“After a long search and consideration of many factors, we have narrowed the location of the adolescent drug treatment center down to two proposed sites in central Kaua`i (and w)e invite the community to come to the meeting on Thursday and be a part of this important discussion.”

And where exactly would those two locations be? The release pointedly leaves out that information.

Well if you wanted to make sure that the people who live next door to the proposed center won’t show up to make humbug the best way is to not tell them their neighborhood is targeted.

The problem is that then you’re assured to get them so pissed off at having to read in the paper Friday that they missed the meeting when it was announced it would be in their neighborhood, that they will fight tooth and nail against it

Let’s not forget that the last attempt to site the treatment center at the old dog pound was exacerbated by the fact that many in the Hanapepe community found out about the location only after it was a “done deal.” Adding that factor to the obvious one of putting our kids in a place that was no longer fit for dogs to occupy, put rejection of the plan over the top when residents rose up against former Mayor Bryan Baptiste for his lack of consultation with residents in the area.

And make no mistake- the lack of any indication of the locations was no oversight.

As if to make sure that it’s clear to everyone what the issues are and how they are being intentionally kept in the dark the release says:

“A recent series of meetings focusing on the critical need to provide these services for our youth has made us hopeful that the so-called “NIMBY” issues are behind us and that our community is ready to move forward on behalf of our kids,” said the mayor.

So just to assure that if there is any good will for the project they destroy it by manipulating the process.

Just to make sure though we asked Koki in an email this morning, “Can you tell me where the two adolescent treatment center alternatives are? Or are you refusing to release that information before the meeting?”

Her answer confirmed the flim-flam saying, “You are correct that the two alternatives will be discussed the night of the meeting.”

Apparently Koki couldn’t do more to make sure that this latest effort at siting the facility is a complete and utter failure if she tried.

First of all selecting two sites insures that the two communities will be pitted against each other throughout the process. Just look at the process of siting of the new landfill which, when it went through an “open process” that turned out to be anything but, was a complete bust. But when the administration announced that they had decided to pick a site, give the reasons and be done with it, we’ve heard little to no protest, especially about the way it was selected.

That’s what we elect a leader to do- make decisions. They may not always be popular ones but most people will give the leader credit for making one, especially when a problem like the landfill- or the drug treatment facility- siting has lingered for literally decades.

Just be honest and open about it.

But to hold a meeting where the ultimate “stakeholders” are not even told they have been selected insures a sour taste in their mouths when they learn that they have been picked- and that they missed the meeting where it was discussed.

That’s the way to ensure that this whole process gets off on the wrong foot and that there will be lingering animosity throughout the process.

It would all be funny if it weren’t so pathetic. Can’t anyone here play this game?

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Note: Our copy editor will be off island for the next two week. Now you’ll know how sloppy we really are. We apologize in advance for any typos or errors.

ROOT ROOT ROOT FOR THE HOME TEAM

ROOT ROOT ROOT FOR THE HOME TEAM: Government is really not that hard. Even for the ego-centric demagogue or the power seeking crook, the people aren’t really watching too carefully and if you can avoid major gaffs and blunders that evoke ridicule you’ll probably pass the test at the next election.

But on Kaua`i our leaders and institutions are so buffoonish sometimes that we have developed a special category for their foibles and blunders taken from a line spoken by the manager of dismally inept the 1962 NY Mets, Casey Stengle.

But because our editor thinks it’s dumb and nobody gets it, we’ve generally avoided the “Can’t anyone here play this game?” tagline lately.

But when the county’s civil defense telephones everyone on the island to tell them that “The Sky Is Falling” we have trouble thinking of anything more apropos.

Because while many ask “how could they send that out” we’ve gotta ask how someone could have even made that recording and then placed or left it in the system where if the wrong button were to be pushed it was capable of being distributed via the emergency notification system.

It’s bad enough that, in the middle of trying to hold back the flood waters, Auntie had to run into the house to answer the phone. But to think that, depending on her level of sophistication, her next move might be to make like chicken little, running down the street and screaming about the imminent collision of heaven and earth...

But of course it takes more than one head-scratcher to make a true CAHPTG moment.

The next day we were all greeted with a headline in the local newspaper announcing that

Civil Defense’s ‘sky is falling’ message sent in error

No kidding? We thought maybe they meant to do that to see if anyone was paying attention.

Of course Beth Tokioka, the fount of all county information- who has made it known that she and she alone is responsible for all county announcements- was the first to blame it on someone else, telling the paper

“We are in contact with Connect CTY to diagnose what went wrong to insure it does not happen again,” she said. “We sincerely apologize for the error.”

We’d normally sense a “heads will roll” moment in the making. Unfortunately this is Kaua`i and so that’s doubtful... and if anyone is fired you can bet it most certainly won’t be Tokioka.

Because in a place where, when it comes to hiring practices, competency is secondary to loyalty, you can expect anything but crackerjack proficiency at the old ball game.

SAME TIME, SAME CHANNEL, SAME OLD STORY

SAME TIME, SAME CHANNEL, SAME OLD STORY: Like ships that pass in the night or some such analogy- maybe ask (or more likely mercilessly badger) and ye shall receive- no sooner did we posted our six millionth kvetch (at 3:04) about the lack of live streaming council meetings, the county announced (at 4:33:25 p.m.) that today’s meeting would indeed be streaming live on line.

And so it came to pass, promptly at 9 a.m. this morning we went to the spanking new Kaua`i County Webcast Meetings page and found an In Progress and a View Event button.

With Pavlovian salvation we clicked on the first listed destination of a 20 year dream.

Up came the page.. downloading... downloading.... Done.

And no council meeting.

So we tried the second and were shocked-shocked to get the same response.

And sure enough when we looked for the “Properties” of each button we saw

Protocol: Unknown Protocol
type: Not available
address: javascript:void(0);

Curses- foiled again. It’s just another of those ‘is it malfeasance or is it malpractice” (it sure ain’t Memorex) moments only Kaua`i County can dish up with such panache... and regularity.

As our partner asked with a quizzical look while leaving for work as we mumbled streaming obscenities: “I’d have been shocked if it was there”

There’s a TV talk show where a guy comes out and plays video clips, asking the host “who’s the jackass here”. Invariably the host guesses the obvious only to be told it’s not as apparent as it seemed.

No, the jackass isn’t the county for once again screwing up the un-screw-up-able but apparently it’s us for actually thinking we’d actually see this week’s council meeting live.

GRANDFATHERING, WHAT BIG TEETH YOU LACK

GRANDFATHERING, WHAT BIG TEETH YOU LACK: Tomorrow could well be a black-letter day in the history of land use on Kaua`i and that’s saying a lot.

The stripping of the guts of the Transient Vacation Rentals (TVR) ordinance passed in 2008 and moreover the lifting of the total ban on TVRs on agriculturally zoned land is poised for passage once again.

But the so called “facts” that have led to the current bill are apparently the result of a council that’s incapable of independent legislative thought and rather rely on County Attorney Al Castillo’s inept legal constructions to write legislation.

That construction relies on the infamous “Kobayashi opinion” which supposedly caused those who were operating TVRs to “rely” on that opinion saying TVRs in non visitor destination areas (VDA) were not illegal. But, as we, along with Caren Diamond and Barbara Robeson have asked more than a few times of councilmembers if these people honestly relied on that opinion, why didn’t any of them file for a required “use permit” with the planning department.

Recently a state attorney general’s opinion from August of 2009 has come to light which says that allowing TVRs on ag land are at least not something the county can deal with and that the decision rests with the state land use commission. And it says that even if the land use commission said yes it they would have to be part of a “ag tourism plan” for a “working farm”.

So which is correct? Well a recent post on attorney Charley Foster’s “Planet Kauai” blog from Professor Carl Christensen- who, according to Foster teaches Federal Indian Law, Historic Preservation Law, and Legal Practice at William R. Richardson School of Law- sheds some light on the subject.

First Christensen says that:

The problem with the "reliance" argument you offer is that no county official has the authority to issue a definitive interpretation of Chapter 205 that would be binding on the State or on members of the public, and under Brescia a landowner can't "reasonably rely" on assurances from an official who lacked the authority to make those assurances. The whole purpose of Chapter 205 was to CONSTRAIN the ability of county officials to approve land uses forbidden by the Legislature.

That agrees with the attorney general opinion but the next comment by Professor Christensen blows the Kobayashi opinion out of the water.

Primary responsibility for the interpretation of the statute lies with the LUC, not the counties. To oversimplify a bit: "Construction of a general statute by officials of a particular locality carries little weight since the construction must be general and uniform to be binding on all those affected by the law. So, where state laws are administered by separate local agencies in different communities, interpretation by such agencies carries little weight." 2B Sutherland Statutory Construction s. 49:5 (footnotes omitted). If the LUC says TVRs are legal on Ag District lands, that would carry weight with a reviewing court; a county official's opinion, not so much. And the case is even weaker where a landowner seeks not just to obtain judicial deference for a local official's interpretation of a statewide statute, but instead actually to estop enforcement of the statute by the government or the public (and today's decision by the Hawaii Supreme Court in the Ala Loop case emphatically refutes any claim that the public lacks the power to enforce Chapter 205). The counties have never liked Chapter 205 because its very purpose was to prevent them from allowing locally favored land uses that the Legislature has chosen to prohibit; giving preclusive effect to a county official's interpretation of Chapter 205 would allow the counties to ignore state law with impunity.

But the council has been relying on a section of Hawai`i Revised Statutes (HRS) that deals specifically with grandfathering and “amortization or phasing out of nonconforming uses”.

Although HRS 46-4 itself isn’t a lot of help, the case notes state that:

Grandfather protections afforded a property owner under this section and land use ordinance intended to prohibit new zoning ordinances from interfering with an owner's lawful uses of a building or premises under an existing zoning ordinance. 86 H. 343 (App.), 949 P.2d 183.

"Lawful use" and "previously lawful", as used in this section and land use ordinance, respectively, refer to compliance with previous zoning laws, not the building codes or other legal requirements that may be applicable to the construction or operation of a structure. 86 H. 343 (App.), 949 P.2d 183.

Now while the current TVR ordinance does include a section calling for TVRs to comply with building codes in order to have been lawfully operating and that section is apparently inoperable, the case note also states specifically that “(l)awful use... refer(s) to compliance with previous zoning laws”.

Since there is no record of anyone even filing for much less receiving a special use permit for a TVR, there aren’t any that were ever in “compliance with previous zoning laws”.

That means that when the current TVR ordinance banned all “new” TVRs, there actually were no “old” ones since none were legally existing at the time

Therefore there are none that are or were ever eligible for grandfathering, 46-4 being irrelevant to zoning violations.

And one more note- there is really no need to remove the “building violations” section from the ordinance since the standard “severability clause”- which says that if one section of the law is found to be illegal the others still apply- is part of the ordinance.

What is most galling about this simple analysis is that the public has been prevented from discussing any legalities on any matters before the council due to Castillo’s insistence that whenever pubic policy intersects with whatever Castillo decides are “legal issues” they be discussed behind closed doors- especially this issue which has had at least a dozen executive sessions since the first bill- now the ordinance- was introduced.

It’s become a theater of the absurd where the council refers to vague legalities and in fact are unceremoniously cut off by Castillo when anything like a rational discussion of the meat of the claimed “legal issues” comes up. And likewise the public has been forbidden from mentioning them under Castillo’s warped use of the sunshine law to stop discussion of public policy in open session.

The council under Castillo- because in essence he has appointed himself chair, interrupting anyone, including councilmembers, for any reason without recognition from the chair- has become a “Star Chamber” where we are not entitled to know the issues that have gone into the deliberations of the council and are not only not allowed to bring them up but the council is forbidden to answer them for fear of violating the secrecy of the executive sessions where the issues were actually aired.

The irony is that this very process of deliberating in executive session during the formulation of the original TVR bill is what led to the council-perceived need to revisit the issues because the legal issues were never aired in public where the people might have been able to know what the council was being told and raise the very issues that led to the supposedly flawed ordinance.

We gotta ask again- can’t anyone here play this game?

DISBELIEVING IS SEEING

DISBELIEVING IS SEEING: We actually enjoy ridiculing the all too easy to mock Kaua`i administration and council for their ability to keep us guessing whether they are just totally incompetent or simply so addicted to secrecy that it just seems that way.

Once again the ability to play the game of public policy and related public relation has taken a pie in the face with the county’s press release announcing “County Charter now available online”

Actually it’s always been there but as anyone who has gone to the now defunct- without a redirect- on-line version of the charter knows it’s been woefully out of date with recent charter amendments not just missing from the charter but unavailable anywhere at the county’s web site.

So it was with hope we that we read:

In response to numerous requests, the codified version of the County Charter is now available online.

To access the charter, please go to www.kauai.gov/CountyCharter.
Originally adopted by voters in 1969, there have been many amendments to the County Charter over the years.

Codified? Sounds good. Sounds like it might just be the actual words passed by the voters- all of them up through those passed in 2008.

So will the real charter final please stand up? Will we be able to cease having to do a search of our own files in order to find the language of, oh say, the seemingly forgotten, still unenforced, citizen-petitioned, general plan enforcement amendment and others passed recently?

Yeah, right- just read the penultimate line for a clue:

The official document remains in the County Clerk’s office.

And it was worse when we went to the new and improved posting where it says

Disclaimer: This is the Unofficial Charter of the County of Kaua`i, and as such MAY NOT represent the law in its current form (no warranties are made regarding its accuracy or completeness). It is being provided as a courtesy while the official edition is being finalized.

Please Note: This information is being provided as a public service. Users should confirm the accuracy of the information with the handcopy available at the Office of the County Clerk. While the County of Kaua`i will strive to keep this material accurate and up-to-date, those people needing an official, accurate, and up-to-date edition of the Charter will be able to obtain hard copies of those documents and other pertinent information from the Office of the County Clerk.

So the first result of the change is that no one who previously bookmarked the charter and never saw the release or the newspaper regurgitation story will be able to find it without jumping through who knows how many hoops.

But if you do find it what you’ll find is the long missing index (inaccurate when used with the pdf pages) but just the same tired old lack of amendments- with the exception of the addition of the “County Auditor” amendment but without any of the other 2008 changes and sans some earlier ones- notable the general plan amendment.

It’d be nice if it was even one step forward two steps backward with these dolts now and again but instead we have three steps sideways with a moonwalk thrown in to boot.

No wonder we ask so often “can’t anyone here play this game?”

THEIR MASTER’S VOICE

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

THE BITE IN THE BARK

THE BITE IN THE BARK: About 10-plus years ago when the various electric companies started a state-backed program offering low or even zero-percent interst loans to install solar hot water heaters we started asking around at every opportunity with state legislators what the possibility was of doing the same for the then-nescient photovoltaic systems.

Just like the hot water systems the loans would be designed to pay for themselves in electricity savings over the life of the systems and eventually produce “free” power.

Every year it was a no-go mostly we found, after a few years of persistence, due to the seemingly counterintuitive opposition of the solar installation companies that reasoned that the small number of existing companies already had cornered the market and that an influx of state money would spur endless new competition.

This past fall though we heard the scuttlebutt that a plan for a $50 million program would be introduced in this year’s legislature.

So the article in today’s local newspaper noting the program came as little surprise.

But not so those almost absurdly devilish details.

Rather than channel the loans through the various eclectic companies- KIUC here and HELCO in the other counties- like the proven solar hot water heater program, the scheme will try to force the counties to insure the state will get their money back by tacking the repayment onto participants’ property tax bills.

Though the bill- the one that survives at this point- doesn’t say so in so many words it’s obvious who will get stuck holding the bag should repayment not be forthcoming- the counties, who are solely given the right to tax property in Hawai`i.

We presume the state is selling this as a way to insure that the loans are more likely to get repaid since people are subject to losing their property if they don’t pay their property tax and individuals would have to be taken to court to collect loans. But of course the state, through the electric companies- could also loan to individual homeowners with a provision that the property serve as collateral and a lien could then be placed with non-payment.

What the counties are being asked to do though is take on the responsibility for repayment when and if an owner who has taken out one of these loans falls into arrears on their property tax, even if it’s for unrelated reasons.

The state is assuming that the counties are a collectively a bunch of idiots here, especially when being asked to do a favor for a legislature that is threatening to take way 10% of their budgets with proposed stealing of the counties’ share of the transient accommodations tax (TAT). which is supposed to pay for the impact of tourism on our state-mandated and county-paid infrastructure including police, fire and many other services.

While the program- which will include other alternative non-fossil fueled energy systems like wind as well as energy efficient home improvements- is a long ignored no-brainer whose time came years ago, the way the state is going about it is a dishonest attempt to screw whomever they can for their shortsightedness over the years now that the sh-t has hit the fan.

We’ll see how stupid and subservient our county leaders are here. Will county governments be the ones left holding the bag when defaults comes? Or will they be able to leverage not only a guarantee from the state that they won’t be responsible should the owner fail to pay but maybe in addition that the state will guarantee our share of the TAT for the foreseeable future?

Can anyone here play this game? We’ll soon find out. The bill’s status is that it was up for decision-making in committee this morning but further action will depend on whether the game the county plays is hardball.

ANOTHER STEAMING PILE ON THE BIKE PATH

ANOTHER STEAMING PILE ON THE BIKE PATH: When confronted with government snow-jobs we’ve often asked “what are we- a bunch of freakin’ idiots”.

The answer this weekend is apparently yes because somehow many if not most of the people opposing putting the bike path on a boardwalk on Wailua Beach are apparently convinced that the “new alignment”- craftily announced by Mayor Bernard Carvalho and his “brains”, Beth Tokioka- will no longer be on the beach but on the highway.

Apparently that is a bunch of shibai.

The only thing that has changed is that the path will now be a permanent strip of concrete rather than the “removable boardwalk” that was originally put in place because a permanent sidewalk on the beach would have been considered a “hardening of the shoreline” requiring an almost impossible to obtain Army Corps of Engineers permit.

The first step in the misdirection came in the form of the local newspaper’s Friday article faithfully rehashing the carefully written county release.

The headline falsely stated “Mayor shifting path from beach to highway” and the article doesn’t refute that statement.

A careful examination of the county press release shows that it never actually states that the new “alignment” will not be on the beach. And actually, if you read between the lines, it says it will.

The relevant portions of the release says:

(T)he proposed alignment for the Wailua Beach section will be shifted from the beach to the right-of-way on the makai side of Kūhi‘ō Highway...

(T)he mayor told the groups (he met with Friday), “As a result of all of the input we’ve received, I’ve decided to move forward on a makai alignment, keeping the path within the Kūhiō Highway right-of-way.”...

In the new design, the existing rock wall will be removed and a replacement barrier will be constructed as an integral part of the path.

“We are hopeful that this adjustment addresses many of the concerns raised by the community,” said the mayor...

In aligning the path within the highway right-of-way, the path will be constructed of concrete at a depth of just 18 inches, even shallower than that of the adjacent roadway.

“There will be no additional drilling or ‘augers’ required,” said Building Division Superintendent Doug Haigh.

Notice how it sounds like it is going to be where the highway pavement and wall are currently located. Nowhere does it say it will not be on the beach anymore, only that “there will be no additional drilling or ‘augers’ required”.

The article in the local newspaper is careful not to say what the headline does and does not make clear where exactly it will be but it does contain the first hint that all may not be as it appears.

Way down towards the end Mike Levine- who may or may not have written the headline but was not at the Friday meeting where the Mayor announced the “change”, according to participants- reports:

(I)t’s still on the beach,” Judy Dalton said Friday evening.“As long as it’s still on the beach, we feel that the alternate route described in the environmental assessment as one of the three alternatives ... on the canal behind Coco Palms would be the least impactful, environmentally and culturally,” Dalton said.

According to some who attended the meeting Friday at which Carvalho “met with representatives of several Hawaiian groups” according to the county release, the issue of exactly where the path would be was presented in a manner seemingly designed to make the matter “as clear as mud”.

Some of the confusion centered around the use of the word “shoulder” which many took to mean the paved shoulder off the highway itself but still on the paved portion- a “shoulder” currently used for a “bike lane”.

But upon questioning it became apparent that the shoulder the officials were talking about was the “soft” shoulder adjacent to the paved portion defining the “shoulder” they were talking about as “where the pavement ends”.

Another key in the misdirection is that it may well be that the state’s “right of way” is not limited to the paved highway itself with part of it extending onto the beach. Although the exact location is not addressed in either the article or the press release, the “on the right of way” statement has led many to believe that the “right of way” mentioned as the location of the realignment was on the paved highway itself.

Looking at two maps on the county web site is a joke. Both are crisscrossed with seemingly meaningless, unlabeled lines all over the place with no clearly marked “new alignment” much less the old one.

As if to prove the extent to which the public has been duped, a letter to the editor appeared over the weekend from one of those who has been calling on the mayor to change the alignment to get it off the beach.

What with the headline in the paper and the carefully parsed county release it’s understandable that Jimmy Trujillo wrote:

The mayor’s decision to stay off the sand but stay on the roadside is a compromise that warrants support.

It may be one of the few times in the short time I’ve lived on Kaua`i that a government leader has demonstrated any kind of respect to the kupuna leaders and cultural practitioners of the host culture.

The first irony in all this is that a perfectly good bike path exists right now on the makai side of the highway on the pavement- the spot many are erroneously thinking the “new alignment” would put the path.

The problem is that there’s only so much room to put the new four lane highway and for some reason the county has never pursued acquiring land on the mauka “Coco Palms” side of the highway despite the countless permits and extensions issued to the land owners

The second is that the concept of a “removable” boardwalk came about precisely because a permanent concrete sidewalk on the beach would have been an approval nightmare with not just the Army Corp but various state and county agencies who were sold the idea on the basis of a removable boardwalk, not a permanent concrete ribbon.

The county recently passed a bill exempting itself from our “strictest in the nation” shoreline setback laws under some circumstances. Changes in the path should trigger a new “certified shoreline” especially considering that waves commonly deposit sand on the highway during large storms.

Going back to the original unacceptable concrete-on-the-beach idea reminds us of the joke about the guy who eats at Luigi’s Italian restaurant every day and with his meal he is served two slices of Italian bread.

“Luigi” he asks “What’s with the two slices- how come your so stingy with the beard every day”.

The next day Luigi serves him four slices and the man still isn’t happy and wants more. The next day Luigi gives him six and the man still complains.

Finally the next day Luigi takes the whole Italian loaf and slices it down the center the long way and serves it to his customer.

The man looks at Luigi and says “What, Luigi- you’re back to the two slices. eh?”

Can’t anyone here play this game?

CAUSE IT’S ONE, TWO, THREE STRIKES YOUR OUT

CAUSE IT’S ONE, TWO, THREE STRIKES YOUR OUT: The joke is probably a lot older than 35 years but on the “original” Saturday Night Live there was a sketch right after the Three Mile Island nuclear power plant leak that has always been one of our favorites especially when watching the machinations of government.

Seems the only guy who knows anything about the local nuke plant system is going on vacation and won’t be able to be reached. He leaves the crew with one instruction: “Remember you can’t put too much water in the reactor.”

After he leaves the crew starts to talk about the instruction and of course there evolves a split as to what exactly he meant by that cryptic order.

One faction assumes he meant that they should be careful not too put too much water in the reactor. The other says “no”- it means that it impossible to put too much water in so they should keep putting in more and more.

After much irrational discussion the dunderheads decide that rather than picking one interpretation they should do the one thing guaranteed to cause problems and they simply drain all the water from the reactor.

We bring this up because of news that the mental midgets in the legislature have decided that, what with budget matters coming up in a non-budget year- potentially pushing aside consideration of the usual second-session-of-the-cycle legislative matters- rather than either extending the session or using the shortened recess they announced the other day to deal with all the work, they will indeed actually cut the session short by a week because "we want people to focus on the major issues and not be distracted" according House Democratic leader to Blake Oshiro (D, Aiea-Halawa).

Obviously you can’t put too much time into legislating.

Of course this would have nothing to do with the fact that this is an election year with Senate President Coleen Hamabusa running for the open congressional seat in a special election, to be scheduled, most likely, for shortly after the session ends.

Just buy yourself some peanuts and Cracker Jacks and enjoy the show. Be it SNL, the ’62 Mets or the Hawai`i State Legislature, like Casey Stengel we gotta ask once again - “can’t anyone here play this game?”.

TIME FLIES

TIME FLIES: We’ve been perhaps hyper-critical of Police Chief Darryl Perry’s administration and haven’t had many kind words for the local newspaper’s KPD-beat reporter Paul Curtis who’s served more like a stenographer for Perry’s PR efforts than a reporter.

But Curtis’ Sunday’s entry is almost as baffling as the amazing revelation regarding what most thought were the ongoing, concerted efforts focusing on one of Perry’s stated “top priorities” upon taking office.

After “burying the lede” with six paragraphs and 157 words evoking an image of the entire department scurrying for no-place-in-particular if “a terrorist attack, gas leak or act of nature” were to hit the new KPD headquarters, Curtis talks about the status of Perry’s accreditation efforts.

At the top of the list (of goals) is departmental accreditation, something Perry has been talking about since he became the county’s seventh police chief in October 2007.

Oh, good- let’s see where we are.

“It’s going to take years,” he said of the process. He is advocating appointment of a full-time accreditation manager to guide the department down the rigorous road to accreditation with the Commission on Accreditation for Law Enforcement Agencies.

That manager would also be responsible for attaining periodical re-accreditation, he said. KPD is the state’s only county police department lacking CALEA accreditation.

Well, we knew it was a long process. Apparently we are already at the stage where we need a manager for completing the process.

The appointing of the manager will need to happen as phase one of the department’s accreditation process begins, as he or she will liaison with CALEA, he said.

Huh? Phase 1? Begins? Yes folks, “as phase 1... begins”. Two years later we find out there have been approximately zero efforts toward accreditation and the chief is just now proposing to fund a full time position.

As Curtis then reports, now 11 paragraphs into his piece and five on the subject of accreditation:

Phase one includes contacting CALEA, assessing KPD, establishing a timeline for accreditation completion, and determining roadblocks and obstacles to successful accreditation, according to the single-page 2010 KPD goals list.

You’ve gotta be freakin’ kidding. Contacting them?

Let us be of assistance.

According to CALEA’s “Getting Started and Enrollment” section- which at least Curtis, if not Perry has apparently visited:

Agencies can obtain information, view/print fee schedules and required documents, or purchase any CALEA Publication, including the CALEA Accreditation Compliance Express (CACE) software, directly from the CALEA website or by contacting CALEA (800-368-3757).

We presume they have computers and telephones. Now they have the web site and number to call. And there’s a handy-dandy list of “suggestions... for agencies interested in finding out more about the Law Enforcement Accreditation Program”... two years late being better than never.

Purchase a copy of the Standards for Law Enforcement Agencies and carefully review and compare the CALEA Standards to your existing written directives. By doing this you should be able to determine: 1. what additions or changes will need to be made to policies and procedures; 2. how long this might take; and 3. what additional costs will be involved to include in budget.

Download the CALEA Accreditation Compliance Express (CACE) Help File. The CACE Program provides an agency with a powerful tool in completing the steps necessary to achieve accredited status and serves as a valuable assistant in the overall management of the accreditation process. Click here to begin the download process.

And maybe instead of sending commissioners to attending those mainland pep talks about how to fight against sick people receiving their medical marijuana they might just spend some money to send someone to:

Attend a CALEA Conference. Who should attend? Key council members; managers; mayor; law enforcement entity CEO; command staff; or designated accreditation manager. You will receive the training needed to begin the process and to successfully complete your accreditation goals; network with other public safety personnel and gain insight into the program; and consult with other CALEA Agencies for “flagship examples.”

Or they could just

Arrange to visit with a nearby CALEA Accredited Agency to view accreditation files and written directives.

Attend and/or join the local PAC (Police Accreditation Coalition), if available to you. This is another resource for information and accreditation process training. Click here to check on a PAC in your area.

Among the goals of accreditation, according to the web site and Curtis’ article are to “establish fair and nondiscriminatory personnel practices”. Given the millions paid in attorney fees and awards in discrimination lawsuits over the years it seems incredible that we’re only now getting started on accreditation.

And given the state of community relations after the publication of “KPD Blue” perhaps another stated purpose of “increas(ing) community and staff confidence in the agency” accreditation might be demand a little more immediacy.

One of the first things a student learns in journalism school is “how to write a lead”- or lede in the written lingo. It’s supposed to be the most important “news” in your “story” in 25 words or less.

A real reporter might have written story with a lede that evoked a headline of “Chief’s says accreditation process still not begun”. The fact that Perry could depend on Curtis to cryptically bury the bad news- and try to portray it as “good news” in the middle of an otherwise ho-hum article- speaks volumes.

What Curtis is doing at a newspaper that has moved so far is so short a time with two real newspeople- Mike Levine and Nathan Eagle- in charge, combined with the news that the accreditation process hasn’t begun after two more years has us once again asking “can’t anyone here play this game?”

DOGGIE SEE DOGGIE DO

DOGGIE SEE DOGGIE DO: In these times of idiotic penny-wise pound-foolish cut-off-your-nose-to-spite-your-face decision-making designed to avoid the politically distasteful raising of taxes to pay for the state services that we all need and expect, Kaua`i County has managed to somehow avoid similar slash-and-burn cuts in services despite the 10% across-the-board departmental diminutions ordered by Mayor Bernard Carvalho.

But apparently there’s enough lack of forethought to go around as evidenced by yesterday’s county press release announcing “County to end subsidy of online payment user fees”.

It says:

Due to budget constraints, the County will soon stop subsidizing online payment user fees for county services.

Starting January 1, 2010 anyone opting to pay their sewer bill, real property taxes or motor vehicle registration fee online will also have to pay user fees as they do in all other Hawai`i counties.

“Unfortunately, in these difficult economic times we aren’t able to continue to subsidize this cost and feel it’s appropriate to bring our policies in line with the rest of the state,” said Finance Director Wallace Rezentes, Jr.

When someone makes an e-payment with an electronic check, the user fee will be $1 plus an additional $2.50 transaction fee.

Those paying with a credit card will be charged 2.2 percent of the transaction amount and an additional $2.50 per transaction.

Well, all things being equal and assuming it’s all true and has been well thought out, who can argue with that?

The problem is that the release goes on to say:

In addition to online payments, residents and businesses can also pay their sewer bills, real property taxes, and motor vehicle registration fees by mailing a check or going to the appropriate county office to pay. No user fees are charged for these forms of payment. For more information, please call 241-4269 or 241-4271.

So let’s get this straight. The presumably automatic computer-driven method of payment that needs little or no additional actual work by the county to process is now going to cost customers but they can either go down to the office and take up the time of a county worker to process the payment and forward it to the bank- or mail their payment in where an employee has to open the envelope and do the same- is going to be free while we’re going to be nickeled and dimed to use the easy. cost-free method.

Now we’re not ones to demand that government work more like a business. Government, by definition, is there to take on collective tasks for the common good- ones that business cannot accommodate. That’s why by it’s nature, government cannot really be run like a business.

But in this case we’re simply dealing with a time and energy saving, ubiquitous technology that virtually all money-transacting ventures can and do use in a most contrary manner.

Have you tried to buy an airplane ticket or order items from a business lately? Invariably you’ll find a fee for picking up a telephone and talking to an customer service rep who will instruct you that if you want to save on the processing fee instituted for taking up the employee’s time you can go on-line and complete the same transaction for free.

So what’s the deal? Who thought this one up? Is it because everyone else- i.e. the other counties- are doing it?

At the risk of sounding like mom we have to ask “if the other counties jumped off a bridge- or for that matter spent $12 million on it instead of $1 million as was mentioned in this space Wednesday- would you do the same?”

Another day another answer to the question of whether anyone here can play this game.

BIG DOG ASPIRATIONS

BIG DOG ASPIRATIONS: In this week’s “Kaua`i People”- the mid-week advertising newspaper that pops up in your mailbox every Wednesday- our friend Joan Conrow’s profile of Councilperson Jay Furfaro begins by saying “Jay Furfaro is a man with many roles, but steward is the one he considers most important”.

But many who know and have dealt with Furfaro or watched his machinations at televised council meetings, see that quality which Furfaro calls “stewardship” expressed in it’s basest form through a kind of pompous, paternalistic, know-it-all persona noted for his penchant for essentially telling questioning members of the public “I’ve looked into it and it’s all ok so don’t worry your pretty little head about it”.

Now it came as no surprise that, at last Wednesday’s council meeting, the council approved without comment the write-off of a $6,044.98 delinquent “tipping fee” debt- one on which we reported on that same day exposing the blunder that led to the need to forgo the “bad debt”

We didn’t expect the council to use the television cameras to explain that, after eight years of lapsed payment plans, the debt was now uncollectible due to a legal screw-up by former Deputy County Attorney Jim Tagupa who, after the county sued and the judge ordered the amount be paid or the debtor’s property be attached, inexplicably filed a “Satisfaction of Judgment” despite the fact that the money was never paid.

(To follow up, current County Attorney Al Castillo still has not returned our Wednesday phone call asking for an explanation and/or comment.)

But what occurred during a recess after the matter had been swept under the rug was exactly what we’d expect from Furfaro, whom Conrow’s article intimates is considering a run for the to-be-vacant state senate seat in 2010.

Seems the “nitpickers”- the group of council regulars who now wear as a badge the name they got from former Mayor Maryanne Kusaka for criticizing the inflated purchase price of Kaua`i Electric by the current co-op- was discussing the write-off wondering what the deal was and why we were taking the loss.

That’s when the self appointed nitpickers were overheard by Furfaro, the self appointed all-purpose explainer. Unsolicited, he sauntered up to them and, according to nitpickers Glenn Mickens and Rob Abrew told them that it was simply “an accounting problem” and that the council was actually insuring that the matter “can now go to collection”

Abrew said “he told us this is the way the accountants do it- this way we can write it off our books and it can go to collection”.

Mickens independently corroborated Abrew’s account- without having heard it or discussed it with him or us- saying in an email saying that Furfaro “said it is simply some type of accounting problem and that when the issue goes in the proper table it means that the account is still collectible”.

We admit to being a bit sneaky here in publishing the real story during the council meeting rather than before or after as an experiment to see whether the council- who was presumably just as informed as we were since the information came from the council’s packet of background documents they receive with the agenda six days before each meeting- would be honest and level with the people on their own, without media prodding.

And as we said we fully expected that no one would say a word in session when the matter was silently approved. But Furfaro’s seems so fixated on his “stewardship” role- even to the point of either making stuff up or talking about it without doing his homework- that he can’t resist an opportunity to either cover for administration incompetence even it means “open mouth-insert foot”.

And he wants to be our state senator- or if not move up to council chair when Kaipo Asing retires next year as he has publicly stated he will.

It makes us once again quote Manager Casey Stengle of the still-a-record 120-game-losing 1962 NY Mets who asked “can’t anyone here play this game?”.

(PNN) FORMER CA TAGUPA’S “BLUNDER” TO COST COUNTY OVER 6K:

FORMER CA TAGUPA’S “BLUNDER” TO COST COUNTY OVER 6K:

(PNN) It’s the perennial question regarding governmental SNAFUs, especially on Kaua`i, one taken advantage of by many a county worker- was it malfeasance, malpractice or simply incompetence?

Case in point an item on today’s council agenda:

C 2009-344 Communication (10/01/2009) from the County Engineer, requesting Council approval to write-off delinquent tipping fees in the amount of $6,044.98 for Eric Taniguchi dba Eric Taniguchi Trucking & Equipment ("Taniguchi") (Account #55445-432027), pursuant to Kaua`i County Code Section 21-9.4, relating to uncollectible delinquent tipping fee accounts (Department of Public Works Solid Waste
Division).

Matters like these seem to pop up on the agenda now and then, mostly for sewer fees that are uncollectible due to things like bankruptcies or simply the fact that it would cost more to sue the delinquent individual than they owe.

But a tipping fee- the money that commercial businesses pay per ton to dump their load in the county landfill? That’s a new one on us.

A look at the paperwork behind the request though shows a story of either the worst bungling incompetence in a long time or an effort by one individual- then Deputy County Attorney James Tagupa- to help Taniguchi get away without paying the $6,044.98 he owes the county.

According to a letter to the council from County Engineer Donald M. Fujimoto with the concurrence of Director of Finance Wallace G Rezentes Jr., it all goes back to May of 2001 when Taniguchi was issued a delinquency letter for $34,704.49 in tipping fees. After a June follow-up letter, in August Taniguchi’s tipping privileges were revoked after the county attorney’s (CA) office unsuccessfully attempted collection.

In September Taniguchi and the county reached a “payment plan” and the suit was dropped but apparently by January 2004 Taniguchi had fallen into delinquency and another plan was formulated to make him pay off $15,986.64 over the next 12 months.

Strangely enough considering the non-payment and default over the previous three plus years, Tagupa recommended that “no collateral be collected, given Taniguchi’s previous record of payment”.

Or non-payment as the case may be.

By November Taniguchi was in default again and was sent a letter by the Solid Waste Division that remained unclaimed and was returned. The County Engineer then asked the CA to file suit against Taniguchi for $3,681.52 and in March 2005 District Court entered a judgment for the county which was recorded with the Bureau of Conveyances against Taniguchi’s assets.

That’s when all the extremely specific facts in the letter turn vague.

For some reason “(a) satisfaction of judgment was filed by Tagupa with the District Court in July 2008 and subsequently with the Bureau (of Conveyances) in August of that year. The filings do not indicate why Tagupa filed the Satisfaction of Judgment” since apparently the judgment was never satisfied, although the letter fails to say this in so many words.

There is also no explanation of the discrepancy between the $3,681.52 that was apparently awarded in court and the $6,044.98 that the council is being asked to write off.

As the letter’s penultimate paragraph says “(a)s a satisfaction of judgment was filed, we are unable to pursue this debt further. Upon recommendation of the county attorney we request the said amount be written off.”

Tagupa no longer works for he county attorney’s office and County Attorney Al Castillo did not return a late morning phone call by press time requesting further information on why Tagupa filed the satisfaction of judgment or whether he was fired for the action.

Others in the CA’s office were apparently terminated when Castillo took over last spring including Margaret Hanson Sueoka who has filed a discrimination action with the federal Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) as PNN reported last April.

Many of those hired by Castillo were attorneys that had been apparently fired by new Prosecuting Attorney Shaylene Iseri-Carvalho who was elected last November after serving two terms on the county council.

GRRRRRR

GRRRRRR: OK- it’s go time.

Through all this “Blood Alley” crap, including today’s announcement of a ludicrous and possibly more treacherous diminution of the speed limit from 50 to 40 on the stretch of road between Hanama`ulu and Wailua, no one- not the cops, not the state DOT, not the scribes of the dozens of letters and certainly not those who died- has said what anyone who drives that stretch a few times can tell you about what causes many of those accidents.

The fact is that for some reason word has not reach the shores of Kaua`i that:

THE LEFT HAND LANE IS FOR PASSING ONLY YOU FREAKIN’ IDIOT.

When the stretch was expanded from two to three lanes- a disaster waiting to happen to begin with- it was the first place on the eastside where there was actually a “passing lane”.

Kaua`i drivers, unsure of what to do with this newfound freedom to pass Mr. Magoo, didn’t heed the “keep right” rule, in part because the DOT didn’t bother to put up a sign to that effect for a number of years.

And, apparently- we say apparently because to this day no one seems quite sure- Hawai`i is the only place we know of other than New York City where passing on the right is legal, if not safe.

But legal or not it seemingly doesn’t occur to most that if cars are zooming past you on the right- many screaming obscenities and giving the one-finger salute- you just might be doing something wrong.

After the grand opening the stream of traffic stayed in the left hand lane and passing on the right became de rigor, except for tourists who, not knowing what the heck was going on got into the right lane when the road expanded.

So now we have some Magoos in the left lane and others in the right hand lane while Larry Leadfoot, who needs get to the next stoplight three seconds earlier, gets frustrated enough to tailgate one or the other- or alternatingly both- zigzagging in and out of the two lanes of traffic both going 40 MPH side by side.

But KPD is still out there ticketing- if they can get through the traffic and catch up to anyone- the speeders and turning a blind eye to the oblivious obstructer in the left hand “passing lane” whose steering wheel apparently doesn’t have the ability to guide them into the right hand lane.

So the DOT- most likely at the behest of a gaggle of engineers from Honolulu who rarely if ever drive the stretch- decides in its wisdom to slow down ALL the traffic so old Larry will be zooming in and out of not just the Magoos but everyone else following the speed limit but not do anything about alerting us to the ”keep right, you moron” rule of the road.

Maybe the DOT engineers- obvious graduates of the Rube Goldberg School of Urban Design- are all out of stupid things to do with Kaua`i traffic after designing all those hedge-maze interchanges and “Burma Shave” style series’ of signs on the west side that say “Speed Limit 50, Speed Limit 40 Ahead. Speed Limit 40, Speed Limit 35 Ahead, Speed Limit 35, Speed Limit 25 ahead, Speed Limit 25,” then suddenly “Speed Limit 50”... all within a thousand feet... all at around a thousand bucks a sign.

Can’t anyone here play this game?

SUNDAY EXTRA- CAN’T YOU SHUT THAT DOG UP?

CAN’T YOU SHUT THAT DOG UP?: Police Commissioner Tom Iannucci’s letter to the editor in Sunday’s local paper shows once again why many believe he is a disgrace to KPD and the commission.

As we’ve seen over and over in his writings and statements, excuses and attacks are his MO when it comes to responding to citizen’s concerns. Rather than acknowledge these concerns, try to mitigate the problem and work toward an understanding on all sides, he consistently exacerbates the situation, ignoring the actual complaint by hurling red herrings and belittling the person with unwarranted personal attacks.

Rather than deal professionally with citizen’s criticisms, like a drunk in a barroom fight he ratchets up the rhetoric with fighting words.

And this is a guy who is supposed to represent the public as a liaison with the department- one of those who adjudicates official complaints. If this is also his attitude toward complaints when the commission goes behind closed door how can the public have any confidence of impartiality and due diligence when many of these complaints are “not sustained”?

It’s a good thing most of our fine Kaua`i officers on the beat respond to calls as the “peace officers” we expect them to be and when confronted with macho kooks like Iannucci they take things down a notch, cooling things off rather than throwing gasoline on the fire.

It’s time for Iannucci to resign- or if not, be removed- and to stop setting the worst of examples for the department. Until he does, Chief Perry’s statement that “the days of KPD Blue are behind us” will ring hollow whether they actually are or not.

IT’S NOT A TURD- IT’S OUR LIVELIHOOD

IT’S NOT A TURD- IT’S OUR LIVELIHOOD: It’s been nothing short of nauseating to watch the way the western-settler, fat-cat, gentlemen-farmers have screwed any chance of an agriculturally successful future and thus rural island culture for the island by spewing their sense of false entitlement in front of the council and planning commission as they whine and snivel that they should be allowed to violate the state law banning vacation rentals on ag land.

Yet who can blame them for taking advantage of scofflaws like Councilperson Jay Furfaro who introduced the bill to somehow make the illegal legal and once-and-we-hope-not-future Councilperson JoAnn Yukimura who drew up the bill?

We still haven’t seen the cablecast of this week’s disgusting installment of “Screw the Public” (aka Furfaro’s Council Planning Committee meeting) due to the usual Ho`ike incompetence and catch-22 runaround – somehow apparently the captioning wasn’t done at the meeting and is being done now by Ho`ike although the only one who can say exactly what the heck is going on and when it might be on is the always out-of-the-office and incommunicado J Robertson... who in the middle of this mess took Friday off and is, as usual, unreachable until Monday, if then.

But thus far no one that we’ve caught at any meeting considering the bill – either at the planning commission or council- has mentioned that state law- HRS 205- specifically bans overnight accommodations for tourism related ag activities, which former Councilperson Mel Rapozo pointed out and later, at our urging, posted on his new “Straight From the Spleen- er, Heart” blog that replaces his now deleted Kaua`i Politics entry that disappeared after he lost the mayoral election in 2008.

It reads in pertinent part:

(b) Within agricultural districts, uses compatible to the activities described in section 205‑2 as determined by the commission shall be permitted; provided that accessory agricultural uses and services described in sections 205‑2 and 205‑4.5 may be further defined by each county by zoning ordinance. Each county shall adopt ordinances setting forth procedures and requirements, including provisions for enforcement, penalties, and administrative oversight, for the review and permitting of agricultural tourism uses and activities as an accessory use on a working farm, or farming operation as defined in section 165‑2; provided that agricultural tourism activities shall not be permissible in the absence of a bona fide farming operation. Ordinances shall include but not be limited to:...

(2) Requirements and restrictions for accessory facilities connected with the farming operation, including gift shops and restaurants; provided that overnight accommodations shall not be permitted;

That’s why the bill originally called for “non-enforcement agreements” even though the bill didn’t mention what was not being enforced in an hilarious-if-it-weren’t-so-asinine provision that had to be changed because the lobbyists and lawyers couldn’t ask for it without doubling over with laughter.

It’s hard to say who the worst jerkwad- or wads- in all this is/are. But when you look at the ag VCR owners who testify it’s hard not to start by blaming them for their own so-called predicament.

After flying in from LA on their magic wallets and cutting up most of the non-subdividable prime ag lots for their luxury homes driving prices for ag land beyond all farming business viability, they now are all suddenly “po' workin’ folk” who regurgitate-on-cue this “oh pity me- and in this bad economy no less- I’ll lose my land if I can’t have my illegal vacation rental- nooo oooone ever toooold meeeee” and similar drivel that just makes you want to scream.

Apparently if you have been illegally running, oh let’s say a drug ring and the cops failed to bust you then we need to let you keep up your trade because it feeds your family or some other irrelevant bullshit.

Next thing you know we’ll be grandfathering in all those who have been breaking into tourist’s cars – we have certainly not been enforcing that law either as the guy who, it was reported this week, has been arrested 74 times and is still on the loose can testify.

But worse is that we haven’t even heard a peep out of any councilperson challenging these chuckleheads as they file before them and blame everyone but themselves after they bought their land presumably with the required full disclosure so knowing full well what the rules were.

Of course the same goes for some of the requests for farm worker housing- or some who even want to put their own house on land they bought on the cheap precisely because it came without any “density” to build a house- and even the ones who, like Councilperson Tim Bynum, live on an “ag condo” so have apparently been violating the law requiring houses on ag land to be “farm dwellings” and so presumably have some nexus to a farming operation other than a mango tree in the yard.

Actually before any of these bills, as the law cited above says, what the county needs to do is to enact an ag tourism bill although even then state law specifically bans overnight accommodations in any ag tourism venture.

But instead of fulfilling that state mandate we’re the first to identify “unimportant” ag lands so we can sell of the rest of our agricultural capability to the next California cretin.

Oh and of course there’s plenty of blame left over for the local newspaper which so far has yet to quote HRS 205’s provision banning overnight tourist accommodations on ag land in the half dozen articles on the bill.

And in case anyone forgets, ALL TVRs outside the designated Visitor Destination Areas, no matter what the zoning, are and always were (since 1976) illegal no matter what Yukimura said and did in trying to make the existing ones legal by grandfathering them in rather than redoubling enforcement efforts.

But then of course the county is noted if not famously persistent for fixing what they don’t like under state law or our charter with an illegal ordinance as in the case we cited Wednesday.

Finally all this couldn’t be done without the complicity of the Planning Commission and Planning Director Ian Costa- along with his hand picked staff of sycophants- whose incompetence and out-and-out corruption has been well documented in this and other spaces.

But apparently this bill trying to make the illegal legal is sailing right along because the last person to blame- all the members of the public- have sat on their thumbs and let the stream of asshole gentleman farmers trying to cash in on the stumblebums in county government, to dominate testimony on the bill.

With once again apologies to Casey Stengle, can’t anyone here play this game?

THE AXE AIN’T ALL THAT’S TOO DULL

THE AXE AIN’T ALL THAT’S TOO DULL: Don’t you just love the tone deaf way the county does things. Last week a press release announced that:

The latest edition of the “Kaua`i Recycling Guide” is now available free of charge at all public libraries, HI-5 bottle redemption centers, Kaua`i Resource Center, and the mayor’s office.

Individuals and groups can also contact the County Recycling Office for copies of the recycling guide.

Now the next thing you would expect to read is where to get this valuable information on line- after all, we are talking about keeping trash out of the landfill.

But such intuitive leaps of thought are something Kaua`i county apparently needs to hire a consultant to figure out. A search of the county web site shows no such booklet exists. Instead, the release continues:

“I encourage everyone to pick up a free copy of the Kaua`i Recycling Guide for comprehensive information on the 3Rs and composting,” said Mayor Bernard Carvalho, Jr. “If we all do our part to minimize waste and maximize resource recovery, it will help preserve landfill space and conserve our natural resources and energy.”...

The 22-page recycling guide highlights all local waste diversion opportunities with detailed information on how to reduce, reuse, recycle, and compost through a variety of county programs as well as other options.

So in order to “minimize waste and maximize resource recovery, (and) help preserve landfill space and conserve our natural resources and energy” we’re killing who knows how many trees and spending who knows how many taxpayer bucks to print up a bunch of presumably quality 22 page brochures (if it’s on plain white paper we’ll eat one) that people will pick up and possibly read before throwing it in the rubbish where it will no doubt become grist for the landfill.

And if people do keep them we can just imagine conversations that will no doubt ensue.

“Honey, can we recycle this piece of crap we don’t need or want anymore”

“I don’t know, check that recycling guide we picked up six months ago”

“Where is it”

“Oh- It must be here somewhere in this mess- don’t you have it”

“Oh I thought you had it”

“I think we recycled it”

The release doesn’t not say whether the brochures themselves are even recyclable- much less made from recycled materials- since on Kaua`i there actually are paper goods that are not recyclable... along with all sorts of other things you’d normally be able to recycle anywhere else like all plastics 1-7 and steel cans... which is the reason we need such a pamphlet so people will know what recyclables they can throw in the landfill.

There’s a hole in Kekaha dear Liza dear Liza

Can’t anyone here play this game?

I’LL SHOW YA HOW TO WALK THE DOG

I’LL SHOW YA HOW TO WALK THE DOG: The construction of the so-called “coastal” bike path has always been a harebrained. through-the-looking-glass experience.

But, to mangle a phrase, it keeps getting circuitous-er and circuitous-er as the path moves from Lydgate to the Kapa`a Boat launch at Lihi according to an informative piece by Juan Wilson at IsalndBreath who has been staying on top of the latest phase of the boondoggle.

He also reports a new wrinkle to explain what the rush is in deciding on one of the untenable options the county is considering- there’s $4 million dollars of federal stimulus money involved and if it isn’t used soon it will grow and spread wings, Big Island bound.

He reports

Some small, yet important adjustments can still be made to improve the overall plan. There is now a very short window of opportunity to having any affect on these plans because $4 million of funding has been obtained through the federal stimulus program and final plans must submitted by early August or those funds will be redistributed to the Big Island. Comments on this projected work must be in by August 7th 2009...

The major projects consist of two state components:

1) The widening to four lanes of the Kuhio Highway north of the Wailua River to the Kapa`a bypass.

2) The rebuilding of the existing cane haul bridge to accommodate two lanes of traffic and the bike pedestrian path.

It also consists of one County component:

3) The bike path from the Wailua river crossing north as far as the Kapa`a bypass.

Of course this won’t be the first county scam of questionable legality to redirect funds from needed transportation projects to supplement the bike path funding which dried up with only as small fraction the entire path constructed.

We blew the original $40 million that was supposed to build the whole shebang long ago and are well into the $10’s of millions in additional county funds, not including the other state and federal money stolen from other much-needed transportation and recreational projects.

Wilson continues:

The routing of the alternative transportation "bike" path between Lihue and Kapa`a has been a tortured history of misplaced priorities, hurried planning and bad decisions. The current state of the plans are as illogical as they will be impractical.

One must remember, regardless of what Thomas Noyes says, the federal funding for alternative transportation that is going to our bike path is not earmarked for a "coastal recreation trail". It is funding for transportation alternatives to automotive traffic.

Since we’ve been getting away with it for so long apparently we’re going to do it again. But we may not even wind up with a coastal path after all this if the best option among a lot of bad alternative routes is selected.

More from Wilson

Ideally, this alternative should be safe and efficient and not have negative impact on the environment or cultural sites. Some, including ourselves, have advocated mauka (inland) routes for the bike path.

One mauka scheme would lead through what were once cane fields from Lihue north of the Kuhio Highway, past Hanama`ulu and follow the base of Kelepa Forest Reserve, and cross the Wailua River just mauka of the existing highway bridge. The route could then follow the public right of way behind the old Coco Palms along the canal and hook up with the canal way that goes behind the Foodland in Waipouli. This route would never have to cross the highway and would avoid problems of other routes on cultural sites and sensitive beach environments.

Where we are today is stuck with a crossing of the Wailua River makai (seaward) of the cane haul bridge structure that will carry two lanes of the Kuhio Highway. This route will be narrow and close to heavy traffic with accompanying noise, dust, and fumes.

The bike path then is planned to run over the dunes and plants covering burial sites along Wailua Beach. It will then follow a twisted route up Papaloa Road, make a left at Lanikai Street, then absurdly backtrack east along the Kuhio Highway to Hale`ilio Street until it can finally line up with a mauka path to Foodland. This is a ridiculous and unacceptable plan.

Yes. it’s already been decided that the “scenic” beach path is going through the Foodland and Safeway parking lots and crossing the highway at the worst intersection on the island. But one of the alternatives on crossing back over is even more absurd.

That was so we could get the property for the path by letting the two mall owners off the hook for 25 year of ignoring and delaying a required bridge to connect the two supermarkets. That was the reason for the path crossing the highway in the first place.

Wilson describes one alternative for what he calls the “canal route” designed to link up with the now urban corridor.

After exiting the cane haul bridge bike path would follow the mauka side of the rock wall dividing the highway from Wailua Beach until it is north of Kuamo`o Road. It would then ramp down to a pedestrian highway underpass (funded by the Coco Palms developer) and parallel Kuamo`o Road until it reach the canal where it could then follow the public right of way to link eventually with Foodland.

A highway underpass? 100 yards from the ocean about a foot above sea level? And depending on a developer- one who hasn’t done a thing about the rat infested ruins of the hotel and is apparently trying to sell the development rights after getting an extension from a bamboozled planning commission- to do it.

Yeah... that’ll happen.

The county is hell bent on completing this boondoggle no matter how much it costs and no matter how much disruption it causes because if it doesn’t then it will certainly never be able to claim that any transportation is happening, even though the only ones they have ever made that claim to is the DOT.

Wilson also notes the details of the latest illegally segmented environmental assessment up for approval- where a full blown EIS would be required if it wasn’t divided into small sections.

Oh- and despite lies Noyes repeated recently saying the DOT director has signed off on the “primarily transportation. not recreation” requirement for the bike path he still can’t produce the document.

The idea of putting a ribbon of concrete along the ocean to protect it and provide access has always seemed to us to be kind of like the kid who spits on his ice cream to make sure he doesn’t have to share it with his buddies. Yup he’s got your ice cream, disgusting though it may be

Still if we have to throw more money down this rat hole boondoggle, we’ve got to agree with Juan that moving it mauka is the least objectionable of the idiotic alternative.

Can’t anyone here play this game?