ON AGAIN, OFF AGAIN

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

DELIGHTFULLY DELUSIONAL

DELIGHTFULLY DELUSIONAL: It's pretty rare to be pleasantly surprised by anything the Kaua`i County Council does but it's hard not to be after our only endorsement in the November 2010 election, Kipukai Kuali`i, was selected to replace the bad rubbish to which we've bid good riddance, former Councilmember Derek "Going Places" Kawakami.

Even though we assigned the usual evil motives to the remaining council in our analysis last Tuesday and intentionally left Kualii's name out of our discussion, we now have to admit to missing the fact that there was a bigger picture in the alliance angle we pursued.

Although the list was apparently illegally withheld from public purview we can assume that the names fell into one of two categories: blasts from the past like "fourth generation plantation daughter" Maxine Correa- one of the truly abominable councilmembers in the 80's and early 90's- who actually attended the meeting, or absurdist and delusional self-promoters like Kimo Rosen.

One thing that all probably had in common was that they imagined themselves as someone who would "hit the ground running" whether they had a clue or sought to purchase one. That left the "humble" Kipukai as the only one that would be a complete follower- one who would be depending on the remaining councilmembers to "teach him the ropes."

We're not sure from the description of how the meeting was conducted since of course the article in the local newspaper was "written" by the observationally challenged Leo Azumbuja but we suspect that Mel Rapozo, who is increasingly becoming a minority of one, was left dangling in the wind in his hope for an ally.

Once current Chair Jay Furfaro- who has increasingly seen his bread as being buttered by the progressive wing of Yukimura and Bynum- fell into line, his lap dog Dickie Chang quickly heeled.

That left newbie Nadine Nakamura- who has, after the vote to sustain the plastic bag ban last week apparently declared her allegiance to the Yukimura/Bynum progressive alliance- to continue to drift even closer to them. Although she will no doubt not be able to help herself in trying to find compromises with Rapozo, the fact is that the council could just be gelling into a 5-1 (and now with Kuali`i 6-1) progressive bloc with Nakamura a solid third vote for a majority...one away from the promised land.

Really? Well, maybe.

Look at it this way. Kawakami had not only provided a vote opposing the majority but his apparent popularity had also made Furfaro- and so also Chang- a double swing vote making for a shifting majority depending on whether Furfaro feared Kawakami's sway more than he saw voting with Yukimura and Bynum on the progressive side as beneficial to his hold on the chair- which of course, in the final analysis, is all that his vote depends on.

Removing Kawakami removes that dynamic freeing Furfaro and so Chang.

Of course Chang is not really a solid sixth vote. His allegiance to Furfaro may sway depending on how much pressure the Chamber of Commerce/Kaua`i Visitors' Bureau crowd exerts on him and how far the progressive bloc tries to go.

And, as we said Nakamura's penchant for compromise will be strengthened if there are actually two opposing votes, especially if Chang provides a "second" for any Rapozo's lone-wolf proposals.

We hate to get ahead of ourselves in predicting this kind of amazing and even stunning shift to an overwhelming progressive majority but depending on how things play out, after all the recriminations and resignations to another two year of watching paint dry, this just could be the council we've waited for for decades.

You can bet your Prozac and Lithium on it.

AND YOU GET ALL THOSE MEATY BY-PRODUCTS TOO:

AND YOU GET ALL THOSE MEATY BY-PRODUCTS TOO: The talk of the town today is a piece- we won’t say a piece of what- in Hawai`i Business Magazine headlined “Something’s Happening Here” written by 2006 Excellence in Journalism Award winner Scott Radway.

But the only award Scott could hope win for this one would be for parachute journalism- and that presumably if he lied and said he had come to Kaua`i for the undatelined story.

If he did do the drop-in, it didn’t show. Radway’s telephone and email skills are lackluster as is his lack of depth in describing “A string of controversies on Kauai is changing the way people do business” as the article’s sub-head states.

Unwittingly Radway dishes more of exactly what people on Kaua`i are fed up with- current day lunas seeking to reestablish plantation mentality claiming a silent majority of cowed, plantation lackeys they wish still existed and proposing more dog and pony shows to try to keep us the way we were.

He quotes every business mouthpiece and hack around- the kinds of BS artists who are as out of touch as they could be. The story is based on quotes from the following, all trying to tell Radway what the common people are thinking:

-Long-time County biz-shill Beth Tokioka,

-Top-tourism promoter Sue Kanoho,

-Future Lunas of Kaua`i wannabe and current Kauai Chamber of Commerce (CofC) President Randall Francisco,

-CofC Chair Joy Miura Koerte who doubles in the daytime doing the usual public relations slime-work at Fujita & Miura,

-Randy Hee, the top apologist and good old boys at KIUC, the “co-op” electric company,

-Councilwoman JoAnn Yukimura who chairs the “how-far-should-we-bend-over”, “how much money ya got” and “where-do-you-want-to-put-it” Planning Committee and

-Hizdishonah Mayor Bryan Baptiste who, if he had a dollar, a day and a brain he would still be two short of each.

They all do their best to tell investors and developers that, not to worry, people here are so dumb and snowed you actually can take a dump on Kaua`i people as long as you make believe you asked them first.

The article starts with some of the usual Oahu-centric myths about the Superferry which now includes apparently charges of “vandalism of vehicles” during the first attempted docking of the hated harbinger in the harbor, replete with snide comments about the protesters from Kanoho.

Radway starts with an insincere derision of the world’s view of Kauai’s Hobson’s Choice with statement “Outside of Kauai, people could not help but ask whether the Garden Island was officially antibusiness? In a series of in-depth interviews, Kauai leaders emphatically stated that’s not the case, it’s far more complex than anything so black and white”.

But then he goes on to find out how that anti-business attitude can be overcome by smart PR and proper subjugation of the populace.

When Radway quotes CofC’s PR Queen Koerte as saying “(t)here are a lot of frustrations that cannot be left un-addressed. We need to really take the time to figure out where we are going and how we are going to get there”, there’s not much doubt about where “there” is- ramming big-money backed development down our throats but sugar coating it enough to not make us gag too much... and making it seem like we asked for that sweet turd on our plate in the first place

He quotes Tokioka, the County’s top development enabler with the past two “never met a hotel they didn’t like” administrations, as saying “(t)here is a heightened awareness of anything that might impact our quality of life. Processes are not easy on Kauai right now.”

That’s right- beware developers- it’s so bad out there you’d better schmooze and pay off people with millions set aside to grease the skids if you want to put your money suction machine wherever you want.

The article mentions some horrifying stats from the Kauai Planning & Action Alliance (KPAA) about how bad living condition for the workforce are on Kaua`i and praises the overdevelopers in Po`ipu and their fully ineffective “Dust Management Hui” which swept under the rug the issue if not the dust from a dozen simultaneous projects.

But painfully obvious in it’s omission is any possibility that your new gated golf course, resort and luxury home project might be the wrong fit for an island littered with them (and more already zoned), rather intimating it’s all a matter of presentation and not getting people so pissed off they block the harbor or threaten to burn it down when you sue to “get ‘er done”.

And talk about audacity. The articles says that Councilwoman JoAnn Yukimura criticized the lack of implementation of the General Plan by the administration, and

“says instead Kauai often manages growth by reactionary measures such as a laundry list of approval conditions and at times, litigation. “One thousand conditions is not the answer,” she says. “You have to address the issue before it becomes a controversy.”

These words come from Ms. Sell-Out herself. Yukimura came back to politics after being credited with stopping the 1000 acre Kukui`ula resort, luxury home and golf course project as a citizen and then turned around after re-election and guided it through a contentious Council rezoning process toward approval.

And she says she did so because she got those “one thousand conditions” mostly so inconsequential and totally insufficient that they could and will never come close to paying for the county services impacts. The major “conditions” included a school no one (including the BOE) wants or needs, “workforce” housing that is so restrictive and expensive no one will want it and the road that runs through and serves the subdivision (and turns a quiet dead end road to Spouting Horn into a superhighway) but includes no other provision for roads to support the thousands of rich mainlanders who are going to overpopulate it and Po`ipu.

After some typical “huh??” words from Baptiste about how it’s not really a problem he created despite his administration’s lack of implementation of the General Plan and a Planning Department with a notorious revolving door to the remnants of the plantations at Grove Farm, Gay and Robinson and others the other CofC honcho Francisco does the dirty work of trying to divide Kauaiians by race and claiming the people here basically know their place and it’s a handful of outside rabble rousers stopping development

According to Radway, Francisco:

“acknowledges there is definitely an undercurrent of cultural division contributing to divisiveness.”

“I think people felt embarrassed,” Francisco says, referring to the Superferry protests. “We as people of Hawaii and Kauai, most of us came from a plantation community. That multicultural upbringing gives us our identity and sometimes for newcomers, there is a disconnect.”

”Francisco continues that, in plantation culture, where everyone was so interdependent, you didn’t always express your opinion so negatively, so publically(sic). “Sometimes how we use language, verbal and nonverbal, is the Red Sea that divides us. I don’t fault newcomers, because they don’t share that experience, but the majority of the community does have that as a reference point.”

Ah the good old days when the darkies on the plantation “no like say nahting” and if one of them looked the wrong way at the head of the CofC they were jobless, homeless and blacklisted before the sun when down.

Then Koerte cracked massah’s whip again saying:

“With a lot of issues, there is a silent majority, made up of a lot of local people, born and raised here. They do have the same interests and they do want to preserve our community our culture, our unique social fabric, but really weren’t against the Superferry and understand why the monkeypod trees have to come out,” says Koerte.

“A lot of the longtime people experience the shutdown of the plantations. They understand something has to come in so there are jobs and their children can return, can come home for work,” she says. “They understand something has to happen for us to progress and compete in a global marketplace. They are people who have experienced downturns.”

Yeah how’s that workin’ out for ya after following that scheme for the 50 years since most of the plantations closed?

We all know how-- with more hotel plantations giving our kids the opportunity to have six jobs each cleaning rich people’s toilets with their tongues at starvation wages while the ultra rich move in next door or put in a vacation rental driving our taxes through the roof and making housing cost more than Tokyo as the working poor on Kaua`i slide down the razor blade of life while the pols create “for sale” affordable housing at a price just out of the reach of anyone who needs it so the rich end up getting a cheap deal when we can’t even afford or find a rental unit.

Tokioka then takes it home with the advice that it isn’t really about how bad the project is, how it will hurt the community, how it will continue the hopelessness of most local families or dash the hope that they will ever get any sleep before the kids leave home.

It’s all about how you sell it to the plantation-whipped plebes.

From the article:

“There is always a concern in business in trying to get something done quickly or efficiently, but I think where we are as an island, it is probably better to take more time and in some cases, a lot more time, and take the input and get buy-in,” Tokioka says. “So you have success at the back-end.”

Is the Superferry a good example of the opposite approach?“

Hindsight is always much easier, but clearly that project is not moving forward as planned,” she says. “You really can’t rush things here. It is better to take a little time and do your due diligence and come out with a better product, embraced by a greater segment of the community.”

Francisco puts on the capper that puts us in the crapper:

“Kauai is not antidevelopment. This is a place with tremendous heart and aloha. People want to know you’re genuine, your intentions are good and if the community is taken care of, the business will succeed.”

Sincerity is important and, as they say, if you can fake that, you’ve got it made.

You bet there’s something happening here Scott- and what it is is all too clear to us if not you or your readers.