SAY NO MORE; I CAN SAY NO MORE

SAY NO MORE; I CAN SAY NO MORE: Incomprehensible.

The word can apply to any number of things - if not most anything- when it comes to government and politics on Kaua`i. Usually it can be used to describe the account of council meetings when the local newspaper's Leo Azumbuja sets digit to keyboard.

But in the case of his Thursday account of Wednesday's Committee of the Whole meeting- one held to "fix" an imbalance in the county's budget- one can give poor Leo a pass because his unintelligible account was only slightly more unintelligible than the meeting itself.

Don't bother to watch the meeting in order to try and find out what happened to cause the council to give preliminary approval to bills 2241 and 2242 in an attempt to rectify the fact that the county's budget apparently isn't balanced- or for that matter in order to figure out why no one knew it wasn't balanced until well after it was passed- or for that matter how much is- or isn't- "missing," depending on who you ask.

All the words were there- spoken at the meeting and dutifully reported by Azumbuja: "encumbrances"... "a million dollars"... "capital improvement"... "administration"... "adolescent drug treatment center"... "budget deliberation process." It's just that neither watching nor reading put them in any sensible and coherent order so as to tell the story of what the heck was going on.

It took a few days and talking to a few sources close to county government to figure out the whole story but here's what the whole meshugaas was apparently about.

Seems that the long anticipated and even longer delayed adolescent drug treatment center was funded (again) as part of the county's recent bond float. But actually locating and designing the facility has been a political football that was one of those "now you see it now you don't" items in this year's capital improvement project (CIP) budget.

A couple-or-few years back when Mayor Bernard Carvalho Jr. finally (again) "told" the community where it was to be located, those in the Lihu`e residential area of Isenburg Tract- a predominantly Japanese neighborhood named for a German family that was voted off the island after World War 1- didn't take too kindly to the announcement and took a decidedly NIMBY attitude toward it.

So to oversimplify a long story and make it short on top of that, when this year's budget was on the table, the council either (depending on who you talk to) told the mayor, or wrote it in the budget document that the mayor couldn't actually "encumber" the money until the council actually saw the plans for the center including a buy-in by the Isenberg residents.

Encumbering the money is a process whereby the actual dollars are, for lack of a better word, reserved for the specific project by the administration. At that point, it is, for all intents and purposes, considered spent.

And apparently that's exactly what the mayor did- encumber a half a million dollars for "phase one" of the project which included sighting and design.

So even though the council had told him not to do anything until hizzonah came back to them with "da plan"- and that meant before he encumbered the money- he decided to do it anyway. In other words even though the money was in the bond fund, it wasn't in the budget to be "encumbered" in the first place.

It's hard to say what the legality of all this is. County Attorney Al Castillo refused to say anything in open session even though Council Chair Jay Furfaro swore up and down the charter that nothing illegal happened- that even though the county charter says the budget must be balanced and quite obviously this year's budget wasn't. And even though the mayor "spent" the money that wasn't there. And even though during a recent debate current Prosecuting Attorney Shaylene "Go to your homes- nothing to see here" Iseri-Carvalho- who is running what looks like a losing battle for re-election- has sworn she will prosecute a million dollar theft of county money.

Castillo also warned the council not to talk about the adolescent drug treatment center because somehow it wasn't "on the agenda."

Supposedly the two bills will put the money where it belongs and everyone will live happily ever after.

According to the newspaper article the mayor's mouthpiece, Beth Tokioka, has seemingly blamed the council saying “(t)he imbalance was caused in part by errors in Mayor Bernard Carvalho Jr.’s March 15 initial and May 8 supplemental budget submission, which were not detected and addressed during the budget deliberation process.”

No one particularly wants anything to be perfectly clear because this is an election year and each councilmember's political ass is on the musical chairs line- one that's due to leave two people without seats when the music stops on November 6.

They're just lucky to have Azambuja on the job to make sure that the lack of any clarity and acumen at the meeting was reported with Leo's usual lack of grasp of the matter at hand.

Don't ya just love this town?

BLOWING CHUNKS

BLOWING CHUNKS: It seems appropriate that sewage is once again spilling into the ocean at Nawiliwili. After all, all that crap being generated up the hill in Lihu`e this week had to go somewhere.

People all over town were asking "do you smell that?" on Tuesday and it didn't take an olfactorally-advanced detective to discover the source as being the Kaua`i County Council Chambers.

That was when our seven stilted servants once again turned to the budget for what, from all indications, appears to be the biggest criminal enterprise on Kaua`i these days- the Office of the Prosecuting Attorney (OPA). Those who have been under a pohaku might want to read up on OPA Godmother Shaylene Iseri-Carvalho and her P.O.H.A.K.U. program.


And another great must-read, blow-by-blow account of Tuesday's session is available via Joan Conrow for anyone who doesn't have the time to watch the debacle... although the latter is well worth the investment of an hour (start about an hour in) if just for the comedic value.

No one expected much in the way of discussion regarding evil mastermind Iseri's all-purpose now-you-see-it-now-you-don't combination misdemeanor diversion program/reelection campaign tool. She's been busy lawyering up and taking the fifth so to no one's surprise, with the aid of her Council(hench)man Mel Rapozo and his refuse-to-recuse sidekick Kipukai Kuali`i, her council nemesis Tim Bynum and his second JoAnn Yukimura once again failed to get any "answers" to the same kinds of questions all the other department heads had to answer in order to receive their yearly budget appropriation.

Lesser Iseri sycophants Council Chair Jay Furfaro, and Councilmembers Dickie Chang and Nadine Nakamura managed to help shut things down out and keep the relevant allegations of crimes and misdemeanors from the public's ears and eyes, running out the clock without any repercussion to the budget... and of course the local newspaper has been too busy promoting flower shows, defunct food banks and poisonous GMO corn to notice the P.O.H.A.K.U. mess.

But while the council busied itself exploring new corners and crevices on the other side of the looking glass, it might well have been County Attorney Al Castillo who stole the show.

This week's prize for "Most Convoluted Abuse of the Law" goes once again to the program "Legal Opinions From Al's Ass," the show that asks the statutory question "did he really just say that?"

This time Castillo actually told Yukimura that the council can't appropriate "line items" in the budget- specific amounts designated for specific uses like a salary for a certain position or a piece of equipment or furniture.

Despite the fact that that's what a line-item budget does by definition, Castillo told the assembled that to restrict department heads as to what the money can be used for would be violate "the separation of powers" and be "interfering with the administration."

After a few "let me get this straight" questions, Yukimura simply gave up, flabbergasted by the notion that a department head like Iseri can now take all money appropriated for her department and spend it on anything her black little heart desires.

Finally things got as curiouser as they could get when Nakamura revealed that, according to the finance director, the P.O.H.A.K.U. was either "pau" or "suspended". But attempted verification of that information apparently depended on how many times one asked the question, so the council spent the next half hour asking over and over until Iseri herself got up and told them it wasn't really pau or suspended but rather being run internally in her office.

By that point everyone was thoroughly confused and befuddled, but it didn't really matter because that was when Furfaro ruled the clock had officially run out, apparently because the only part of the day that matters to Furfaro was beckoning: lunch.

The next move in this monkey chess game will be played at this coming Wednesday's council meeting when, the council will consider the following agenda item:

C 2012-170 Communication (05/17/2012) from Councilmember Yukimura, requesting Council approval of her request that the Board of Ethics conduct an investigation of whether violations of the Code of Ethics have occurred in connection with the creation and operation of the POHAKU Program and related matters.

In addition, the matter is listed for an executive session.

And speaking of wasting time, get ready to once again to vote on a charter amendment that would give these clods four-year terms.

The claim by councilmembers is that "we can't get anything done in two years." But the message from the voters has been "we're not sure we want you to 'get anything done.' If there was a way to give you two month terms, we'd probably go for that."

It's not like Kaua`i voters haven’t said "no freakin' way" way too many times to keep track of over the past few decades. Yet the council is once again apparently going to ask the electorate to approve doubling the time between elections. The last time we said "no" was in 2006 when we also passed "term limits" of eight years.

If you get a chance watch the "debate," do so with an eye toward the unmitigated arrogance and sense of entitlement.

The assumption that these office are theirs once they are elected is palpable. Talk of "slots opening up" when the "eight-years are up" is bandied about with no sense of the fact that they have to run for re-election every two years.

The voters will no doubt reject four-year terms once again and the council will no doubt try again in a few years. If anything, we'd probably pass a charter amendment to prohibit the council from asking us more than once every 20 years.

But if you're looking for the obvious source of the sewage spill it might be the latest "big flush" of $120,000 into the Kaua`i Marathon. Every year it's been the same thing- for no apparent reason the taxpayers have been forced to shovel wads of cash into the event with promises that "this will be the last year." Only it hasn't been and apparently never will be since this year's appropriation seems to be circling the drain with little opposition from council members.

That money could go a long way if it were to be spread wisely among the charitable non-profits that serve the island's neediest. But instead it's shunted directly into the coffers of hotel owners, airlines and other off-island entities, soon to be converted into campaign contributions. Supposedly a few dollars will trickle-down to local businesses and service industry employees, but no one is really quite sure how that works, and council members didn't seem interested in asking any questions so they weren't told too many lies.

It is an election year after all. It can only get worse.

P.O.H.A.K.U.: ROCKIN' IN THE SHAY WORLD; A PNN INVESTIGATIVE REPORT

P.O.H.A.K.U.: ROCKIN' IN THE SHAY WORLD;
WHAT ARE THE QUESTIONS THE COUNCIL WANTS ANSWERED ON PROSECUTOR'S SIGNATURE DIVERSION PROGRAM?
A PNN INVESTIGATIVE REPORT

(PNN) -- Prosecuting Attorney Shaylene Iseri-Carvalho's much ballyhooed P.O.H.A.K.U. program to "divert" minor offenders from jail has blown-up recently as two councilmembers have tried to ask questions about the program while the rest have blocked those queries, even refusing to hold closed door discussions of the program.

A PNN investigation has uncovered what some of those questions may be and found both process and monetary improprieties associated with the program as well as false claims on the part of Iseri and conflicts of interest within the Office of the Prosecuting Attorney (OPA).

For those who have not followed the council machinations lately, for weeks now Iseri, her First Deputy Jake Delaplane and her chief ally on the council Mel Rapozo have thwarted Councilmembers JoAnn Yukimura and Tim Bynum from even discussing the P.O.H.A.K.U. program, with the latest dust-up occurring at Friday's budget session for the OPA.

The council has twice defeated requests for an executive session with County Attorney Al Castillo, and when Council Chair Jay Furfaro was at a doctor's appointment Friday morning, Rapozo acted as chair and banned all discussion of P.O.H.A.K.U.

That enraged Bynum and Yukimura with Yukimura forced to withhold a power point presentation she had prepared to expose some of the alleged wrongdoing in the P.O.H.A.K.U. program.

But Rapozo banned discussion despite its direct relevance to the the agenda item: the OPA's budget, because, he claimed, County Attorney Al Castillo had banned the discussion- something Castillo later denied.

For those who want a blow-by-blow of the multi-level, multi-player chess game of the past month or so, including Friday's budget session, we recommend reading Joan Conrow's Kaua`i Eclectic coverage here, here and here

The overriding question no one has answered is why? What is Iseri so apparently trying to hide? No one can honestly watch the meetings without asking themselves that question. Why are she and Delaplane "running out the clock" with repetitive power point presentations and long winded answers to questions no one asked every time they are subjected to council questioning?

So what are Yukimura and Bynum trying to question her about?

The key to answering that is apparently a company that, despite Iseri's claim that the program is fully of her design and implementation, is apparently the entity that is responsible for the nuts and bolts of the P.O.H.A.K.U. program... a company called Strategic Justice Partners (SJP) LLC of Nevada.

Politically, P.O.H.A.K.U., which has been implemented for a few years now, has been a key to Iseri's campaign for re-election and she has promoted it recently in two articles in the local newspaper touting community meetings and the program's alleged successes. Iseri's official P.O.H.A.K.U. website calls it "a new innovative diversion program that was designed by the Office of the Prosecuting Attorney (OPA) as an alternative to the traditional court process."

But although SJP has never publicly been mentioned by Iseri or her department's personnel, a look at the bottom of the P.O.H.A.K.U. web site says "Content copyright 2011-2012. Strategic Justice Partners. All rights reserved."

And a visit to the SJP web site reveals where the program really came from. The very first thing you see there on the right side is the statement that:

Strategic Justice Partners is a leader in Alternative Sentencing, Diversion and Early Release Programs.

"Our Diversion programs have a 94% completion rate with over 96% of participants rating their experience as "good" or "outstanding".

And under the "What We Do" button it describes a service that sound exactly like the P.O.H.A.K.U. program, saying they provide:

Diversion Programs
Diversion Programs result in lower recidivism than “Stand in line-Pay a fine” justice while dramatically reducing the burden and costs on Prosecutors and Courts. http://www.strategicjusticepartners.com/What_We_Do.html

And the main program exemplary of their work? At the top of the left had side of the home page of the site is a color photo of a smiling, lei-bedecked Iseri alongside a photo of a Kaua`i-style poi pounder (the symbol of P.O.H.A.K.U.) under the title "Kaua'i County Hawai`i; P.O.H.A.K.U. Program." and a blurb that says "We are pleased to introduce P.O.H.A.K.U., an innovative alternative to the traditional court Process."

It doesn't really say who "we" is but the context demands one interpret it as being SJP especially because it's their web site.

Iseri has recently been holding a series of meetings- meetings dutifully reported upon by the local newspaper- apparently as a part of, or at least in conjunction with, her campaign for re-election in the fall. One example of how she has used P.O.H.A.K.U. for political haymaking at every turn is the wording of a communication to the county council for a special council meeting on April 11.

At the time Iseri was asking the "Council approval to apply for and receive Technical Assistance from the Bureau of Justice Assistance and the Vera Institute of Justice's national Cost-Benefit Knowledge Bank for Criminal Justice," although it has since been withdrawn at Iseri's request, apparently because that would have opened the door to questioning about P.O.H.A.K.U.

What would make us say that might be the reason? Well, Iseri had already applied for the "technical assistance" before the item was to have been approved by the council. Not only that but she withdrew the request after all the other delay requests on her part had failed... and she did so in a late night email to the chair, sent the night before the meeting where P.O.H.A.K.U. was to have been discussed.

But it's the rest of the communication that had many laughing at the unique wording that was anything but the usual kind of straightforward "communications for approval." It went on to say that the assistance "will allow the OPA to find innovative programs and develop procedures to ensure that the community is served in the most cost efficient manner and in the best way possible."

Some may say "so what?- it's politics... nothing wrong with that... they all do it." But we bring this up not just to point to the use of the program as a political tool for Iseri but to point out what exactly amounts to wrongdoing here.

It's not clear what precisely SJP's full role is. But what is true is that the association between the OPA and SJP has never come before the council nor has there even been any type of official "procurement process" for SJP's services, as provided by law.

Any "grant" to any department or for that matter any donation of anything, including information or assistance must, by law, come before the county council for approval. It's usually in an official communication for approval to "apply for, accept and indemnify" as the agenda item would normally read. But the words "Strategic Justice Partners" have never been mentioned in even verbal form to the council much less written.

That would be for a grant or donation type of thing. What if the OPA is involved financially with SJP? The fact is that there has never been any official procurement of services from SJP. Nor of course has there ever been a type of contract or "memorandum of agreement" (MOA) which would also have to have been approved by the council.

Finally there have never been any HRS Chapter 91 Administrative Rules promulgated, which according to state law are required to establish procedures for how, say, the OPA would engage with SJP in the P.O.H.A.K.U. program.

But all that is just procedural. Here's what happens if you, as they say, "follow the money."

Because SJP is a Nevada corporation if it wants to do business in Hawai`i it must file with the Department of Commerce and Consumer Affairs (DCCA) and have an "agent" in Hawai`i.

The DCCA filing shows SJP to be a for-profit corporation and the agent in Hawai`i is none other than Iseri's second-in-command, Delaplane.

The filing is simply the initial corporate document and apparently no 2012 report has been submitted. There is nothing to indicate whether Delaplane is being paid for being the sole representative of SJP in Hawai`i. But the fact that he is both their agent and part of the team that is contracting with SJP- the OPA- makes for a blatant conflict of interest.

So who gets what money and where does it come from?

The upcoming OPA's budget for 2013 shows a request for around $20,000 for four different diversion programs although there is no breakdown of how much of that would go to P.O.H.A.K.U. That is one reason why Yukimura and Bynum were asking questions- or want to ask them- in the first place; to find out how much is for each program and in fact what the county funding mechanism(s) for P.O.H.A.K.U. actually are/is. It also "opens the door" so to speak, to discuss the program.

But PNN did learn of one funding source that isn't listed anywhere and certainly has not been communicated to the council.

At Iseri's P.O.H.A.K.U. website those in the program can go to the "Register for Class" page. Under "P.O.H.A.K.U. Class Registration" it says:

You may schedule your P.O.H.A.K.U. class date below.
You must pay your program fees prior to registering.
You may REGISTER with a credit or debit card below or visit any Bank of Hawaii Branch with the deposit slip you were given (emphasis added).

And, PNN has learned, that the "deposit slip" is filled out to deposit $200 to an account bearing the name of, not the County of Kaua`i as one would expect for a program designed and run by Iseri but rather, Strategic Justice Partners.

According to testimony by Delaplane on Friday before the council 49 people have completed the program and so what is clear is that at least that many have paid SJP $200 each for a total of almost $10,000.

What is not clear however is whether the money is refunded if the person doesn't complete the diversion program. The question of how many people failed has, of course, not been discussed because nothing about POHAKU has been able to be discussed, even though both Delaplane and Iseri were permitted to tout it Friday during their "power point" presentation to the council on the budget.

Even- or maybe especially- if the OPA never sees or touches a nickel, improprieties abound with this setup. As we said, P.O.H.A.K.U. itself has never even been approved by the council. Plus, there has never been a procurement of services for SJP nor has there been any MOA, both of which would have to come before the council for approval.

Oh- and one more thing.

The only person listed as a "member" of SJP is one Kirk Barrus. That means he is the sole owner of SJP. Yet a search of SJP's web site does not readily yield Barrus' name- or any other associated with the company.

So who is Barrus? What is his background?

According to David Lazarus' "Consumer Confidential" in the February 20, 2008, Los Angeles Times, Kirk Barrus was the Senior Vice President and spokesperson for a company called American Corrective Counseling Services (ACCS).

In an article in which Lazarus discusses Bush-era court rulings providing full immunity to companies doing business with the government he cites the example of "AT&T and Verizon immunity for their roles in any past and future eavesdropping on the American people."

But ACCS was not granted immunity in the case at hand and Lazarus writes that:

when it comes to public-private canoodling, the most egregious case I've seen recently involved a San Clemente company, American Corrective Counseling Services, that worked with public prosecutors to go after people who bounced checks.

He describes the scam this way:

In contacting consumers, ACCS represented itself as actually being the district attorney's office, even though the cases involved may not have been vetted in advance by an actual prosecutor.

In return for its efforts, ACCS typically would be entitled to a $100 fee and as much as 60% of any fines paid...

Lois Artz, a 72-year-old resident of the Northern California city of Petaluma, received what looked like a very serious letter from the Sonoma County district attorney's office in November 2005.

"The Sonoma County District Attorney's Office has received a CRIME REPORT alleging you have violated Penal Code 476(a) of the California State Statute: Issuing a Worthless Check," the letter warned.

"A conviction under this statute is punishable by up to one (1) year in county jail, or in a state prison, and up to $1,000 in fines," it said.

The letter advised Artz, a former Bank of America branch manager, to enroll in a "bad check restitution program" and to pay $196.62 in fines.

"When I saw that letter, I almost fainted," she told me. "I was beside myself."
Her crime, Artz said, was writing a check for a $26.62 carton of smokes and not having sufficient funds in her bank account to cover it. Artz said she'd been distracted caring for her daughter, who has breast cancer, but she knows that's no excuse.

What troubled her was that her case seemingly was elevated with alarming speed to the level of criminal prosecution without anyone trying to work things out with her.

"I was humiliated and terrified," Artz said. "I felt like any time I turned around, there would be somebody there telling me to come with them."

According to court documents, ACCS went after more than 100,000 Californians in 2001, the latest year for which data are available. And most if not all those people believed they'd been contacted by a government agency, not a private company.

In speaking for ACCS, Barrus

denied that the company acts independently when it chases down suspected check scofflaws.

"We operate under the total control of the district attorney," he said. "We're basically a secretarial service, and therefore should carry the district attorney's immunity.

"They're not letters from a private company," Barrus insisted. "They're letters from a district attorney."

There is another article in The Press Democrat describing the situation in more detail

The fact that the council has questions for Iseri about P.O.H.A.K.U. shouldn't surprise anybody.

We'd certainly like to know a few things.

Did SJP receive other funds such as ACCS did in collecting "as much as 60% of any fines paid" in the California case? Did the OPA either receive or expend any funding directly or indirectly to or from SJP? What exactly is Delaplane's role? What does he do as "agent?" Is he a paid agent? If so, how much? If so, what if anything is Iseri's cut? Doesn't Delaplane or Iseri see an inherent conflict in a operation where someone- so far apparently SJP- is receiving at least $10,000? Why is Iseri so transparently covering up her and the OPA's association with SJP? Is it simply to take credit for a program she didn't really design and implement or is there more?.. perhaps a financial association?

We haven't been able to uncover all the facts or follow all the money. But we sure hope that Rapozo- along with Councilmembers Kipukai Kuali`i, Dickie Chang, and Chair Jay Furfaro- stop blocking at least an executive session but preferably have a full public airing of the issues involved.

Oh by the way- Kuali`i refused to recuse himself from discussions of the OPA's budget despite the fact that the Erin Wilson Victim Witness position cut by Iseri- which is the subject of a complaint by Wilson as we discussed in January - was contracted out to the YWCA where Kuali`i works.

The next thing scheduled for the matter is an executive session set to take place April 30.

POLITICAL THEATER ON RYE... WITH MUSTARD PLEASE

POLITICAL THEATER ON RYE... WITH MUSTARD PLEASE: What with all the fun and games of the Iseri-Bynum circus of the absurd, the status and functionality of the Victim-Witness Program (VWP), the meat of the recent political sandwich, hasn't really received much press.

As we reported two weeks ago (January 12) according to a scathing letter to the Kaua`i County Council by Erin Wilson, a terminated Victim-Witness Counselor at the Office of the Prosecuting Attorney (OPA, the program is now dysfunctional due to the requirement that all communications with outside agencies and the world in general be channeled through Prosecutor Shaylene Iseri-Carvalho, the lack of communications between those performing VWP services and many other issues such as the 17 new faces at the OPA since Iseri came into office.

According to the agenda for last Thursday's council meeting, Council Vice Chair JoAnn Yukimura asked Iseri to come before the council to discuss "the status of the Victim-Witness Program and OPA." And when Councilmember Tim Bynum recused himself due to Iseri's prosecution of him for alleged zoning violations at his home- as we detailed yesterday- Yukimura took over the questioning that, according to Bynum, had been suspended in 2009 when then Chair Kaipo Asing stopped it.

But not before Iseri, trying to direct the show, dragged up her whole department to blow smoke up everyone's butts after demanding that Wilson be questioned, spurring Chair Jay Furfaro to remind her that he was the one running the show.

Instead Yukimura asked for current VWP employee Dianne Gauspohl-White to come up to tesfy. She pretty much backed up most of Wilson's complaints although saying she could only speak from her perspective.

At first Yukimura's questioning elicited mostly red-faced rage, bluster and misdirection on Iseri's part, complaining how she and her staff had to take valuable time to present information they had supposedly already presented.

But after Iseri's right hand man First Deputy Prosecutor Jake DelaPlane- who continually throughout the session pulled her butt out of the sling she had created through her own belligerence- did a PowerPoint presentation with lots of numbers and statistics but almost nothing on the VWP, the questioning of Iseri by Yukimura began, mostly based on Wilson's allegations.

Things were going along swimmingly (not) with Iseri parrying Yukimura's questions with non-responsive "answers" and continual reminders that she had already presented the requested material, when Yukimura finally asked the right questions and hit a jackpot of an answer.

"The Victim Witness Program no longer exists" Iseri told a stunned council.

Seems that Iseri has instituted a program called "vertical prosecution." Formerly deputy prosecutors were assigned to individual courts, not to individual cases. That meant that many times an attorney got the case for the first time when he showed up to court after a case had, for example, been moved from district to circuit court or from the court of one judge to another.

"Vertical prosecution" (VP) is a system where each case is assigned to one attorney who takes it from beginning to end, usually sorted by subject matter- drugs, violent crime, domestic, white collar crime etc.- supposedly creating attorneys with expertise in a certain area.

It actually sounds like a good and long overdue practice.

Under VP each individual attorney has a "team" assigned to him or her- a law clerk, and now, a Victim-Witness (VW) counselor.

And in Iseri's office that apparently has come to mean that there's no cross communication anymore between the various VW employees.

According to White and Wilson, VW employees are now tasked by the attorney who almost exclusively assigns them tasks like calling specific victims and witnesses to let them know about court dates, changes in case status and those kinds of things.

Apparently the actual "counseling" part has fallen through the cracks and not only that but the only victims and witnesses contacted by the counselors are those the attorney on the team tells them to call- and then only to communicate matters regarding the case status.

It used to be that VW employees met every month, traveled to conferences and did a lot of evaluation of whether and how services were being delivered to VWs. But that is a thing of the past with VP where counselors are now "team members" whose actions are dictated by either the attorneys in charge of the team or Iseri herself.

Whereas vertical integration is growing in popularity in the offices of prosecutors and district attorneys across the country- and, according to Councilmember and Iseri ally Mel Rapozo, is by far the most popular management scheme- robust victim witness counseling can wind up being be sacrificed.

Especially if a megalomaniacal, puerile, petty, vindictive, ego-driven prosecutor is the one running the show.

The rest of Yukimura's questioning revealed that, despite requests from the council that statistics and information be presented in an intelligible manner and one that addresses questions the council has- like how all the monies from the various VW programs from the county state and federal governments are actually spent- they are embedded in spread sheets and long narratives where there's little or no possibility of extracting the pertinent information.

It all ended up with DelaPlane- who had taken over much of the question-answering after Iseri's patented self-righteous, rage-filled and spittle-spewing attacks on the questions and questioner became self-defeating- promising to put the statistics in meaningful formats for the new budget... and, importantly, to provide the evaluation forms that victims and witnesses have filled out for those entities providing the grants, which had never been provided to the council previous to the request.

We can expect a repeat performance during the budget hearings starting in March when the OPA presents its budget. But more importantly we just may get some of the issues aired during this year's election campaign where current Deputy County Attorney for the Kaua`i Police Department (KPD), Justin Kollar, is challenging Iseri for the Prosecutor's job.

Iseri won her first and only term as prosecutor in 2008 running unopposed, leaving her position on the county council after four years there.

Although the community has suffered in all this, personally we can't be too distressed with the Bynum matter, the victim witness program questions and other brewing debacles promise that this summer will be anything but a dull one in this space.

So thank you Shay- you're a columnist's dream. So much so that we're torn between supporting Justin for the sake of the community or you for being the gift that keeps on giving.

SILENT BUT DEADLY

SILENT BUT DEADLY: We're old enough to remember when there were still "water closets"- those big boxes installed way up on the wall above toilet bowls that, when you pulled the chain, released a torrent of water so noisy that everyone in the restaurant had to pause conversation until the sound of the flash flood had subsided.

When the W/Cs were removed, their replacements were still loud but at least they weren't conversation halters. And now of course we have the ultra-silent modern toilets that barely make a sound.

But for the most silent flush of all, you had to attend last Wednesday's Economic Development Committee meeting of the Kaua`i County Council.

For those who are new to these pages, it was all part of the latest "Gush and Flush" as we've come to call them- sessions where councilmembers fall all over themselves to throw money at Kaua`i Visitor's Bureau and associated events, first gushing over what a great job Director Sue Kanoho is doing and then promising to flush another hundred grand or so down into the cesspool of tourism promotion.

No matter what the economy has done to our "biggest industry" in recent years- biggest only if you count all the money that never sees the shores of Kaua`i- it's always a wonder to behold what a great job Kanoho has done with the money the council appropriated, even though there has never been a verified connection between each flush and the council's subsequent gush.

Two years ago Kanoho told the council how "down is the new up" followed by "flat is the new up" last year. And of course with occupancy up and numbers of direct flights to Kaua`i increasing, Kanoho and her county overseer, Economic Development Chief George Costa, were all too ready to breath in the wondrous air of success even though they, as always, couldn't show any correlation between whatever the figures are and the taxpayer money spent on promotion.

And, as they are wont to do, the council couldn't contain themselves at the election-year-news that their foresight in appropriating the money was rewarded with such rousingly successful promotions.

The council of course knows someone is watching occasionally so this time they conveniently failed to post the agenda on-line until the Monday before the meeting so that not only wasn't the agenda item in the local newspaper but those who get the agenda via an emailed link didn't get it until Tuesday. That meant that nitpickers Glenn Mickens and Ken Taylor, who have been trying to publicly point out all of this for years, didn't even know there was a meeting much less the subject of it.

There was one attempt to counterbalance the obscene self-congratulatory proceedings by Gusher-In-Chief, Councilperson JoAnn Yukimura, who asked for proof that increases in occupancy were somehow correlated with the million dollars in "stimulus money" the council threw at KTA over the last couple-a few-years or so.

And, as if Yukimura didn't know the answer, Kanoho was all too happy to inform her that those numbers were "proprietary."

"So I shouldn't be happy to see high occupancies because they aren't real?" asked Yukimura.

Kanoho hemmed and hawed and was about to launch into one of her patented ebullient doubletalk explanations when Yukimura baled her out to let her know that she was only questioning the occupancy numbers because they had to be accurate or any semblance of validity for purposes of the newly-enforceable general plan- due for update this or next year- would be a joke.

Well, at least she seems to have a firm grasp of the obvious.

Usually one gush and flush is enough for one day but since they had gone to all the trouble of making sure no one knew what was on the agenda, they also revisited the cash they have been throwing at The Kaua`i Marathon for many years... money that, we were apparently assured at the last meeting, wouldn’t be forthcoming anymore.

Anyone expecting what was said six months ago by councilmembers to be repeated again without someone sitting there at the testimony table and reminding them of it was sorely disappointed. Apparently, the $120,000 that was off again, on again, off again is now on again, pending approval at budget time when the appropriation won't stand out like a sore thumb among all the rest of the cash thrown at the county's woes.

Actually- and we're somewhat guilty of burying the lede here- there was a bit of news from the meeting from Councilmember Mel Rapozo who somehow got to bring up the subject of the Wailua Golf Course. Unbelievably enough, in the year 2012, they don't take credit cards.

Yet increasing the number of rounds played by tourists has been the focus of the council and administration for a decade as the amount of taxpayer money the county has had to use to subsidize the supposedly self-sustaining golf course has grown almost every year in that time to around a half-million bucks in this year's budget.

Rapozo pointed out how many, himself included, use ONLY credit cards when they travel and don't ever use ATMs because they doesn't trust them.

Kanoho then announced that the county had finally, at great expense, gotten an ATM machine at the course. But that doesn't help people who want to book a round from the mainland and it really doesn't help those without a debit card because the amount charged for a "cash advance" on credit cards can be exorbitant.

Kanoho at first claimed that they now take credit cards only to be told by Rapozo that staff had called that very morning to verify that credit cards were still not welcome at the golf course.

The way the gush and flush works best is when no one bothers to challenge it. Only then does the modern silent toilet work to cover-up the stench of the way we throw money at tourism without any indication it does thing-one to bring more visitors here... assuming indiscriminate urging of Kaua`i visitation is what we want in the first place rather than cultivating a niche in a directed, precise- and of course verifiable- manner.

There's a well known hoax that claims that the flush commode was invented by a man named Crapper. But those who think that's the biggest lie in potty history have never been to an economic development session of the Kaua`i County Council.

I IN MY KERCHIEF AND MA IN HER CAP

I IN MY KERCHIEF AND MA IN HER CAP: We admit it. Listening to fiscal and financial discussions- actually anything that falls under the subject of "the economy"- is, for us, like taking a handful of Ambien.

So when we sat down to watch the Kaua`i County Council discuss "Resolution 2011-77... establishing the County of Kaua'i reserve fund and reserve fund policy"- as they did last Wednesday- we carefully ensconced ourselves with a nice blankie and set the recliner on stupor.

The issue isn't new and, although some councilmembers obviously disagree, it comes down to a negative semantic that has caused embarrassment to councils past.

For decades the term "unexpended surplus" has been used on Kaua`i for the amount that was "leftover" when the budget was completed. And that has been an open can of worms slithering around on the council table for just as long, as people ask why there is one since, in theory, the council is supposed to adjust the real property tax rate based on how much it budgets.

In practice, some of it is "appropriated" throughout the fiscal year, as needed, through "money bills" and the rest is left over for the next year's budget.

Enter stage right, Mr. Fiscal Conservative, current Council Chair Jay Furfaro, a former hotel manager who has made it his mission to reform this practice by changing the name from "surplus" to "reserve fund."

Now we've given Furfaro plenty of guff for his habitual bombastic oratory that often baffles the assembled with its pomposity and buffoonery. But although we really wouldn’t know because unless it's the theory of surplus value, we're pretty much unable to comprehend complex money matters, when it comes to fiscal affairs Furfaro sure seems to be able to tell his assets from a hole in the ground.

It seems that surpluses are "out" these days and those who recommend fiscal policy on a national basis prescribe "reserve funds"- specifically in amounts of 20 to 25% of the jurisdiction's budget.

Furfaro has talked about this for years so the resolution in question was, in his eyes, a first step in establishing the correct way to look at the fact that the county will still be collecting more than it spends- or at least the councilmembers will have an explanation for the public that doesn't push the "hey- that's my money you're spending" button as hard.

Now, enter stage left, Councilmember Tim Bynum, the "progressive" responsible for things like the plastic bag ban and the exit- by falling off the stage- of former Chair Kaipo Asing after Bynum challenged Asing's secretive, paternalistic policies in the name of open and good governance.

But Bynum found himself in an unaccustomed slot this year as Chair of the Finance Committee after complaining all last year that Mayor Bernard Carvalho's county-employee "furlough" program was actually a political stunt designed to make the legislature think the county was being fiscally conservative enough to deserve our fair share of the transient accommodations tax (TAT)... or at least that was our take on the effort at the time.

So Bynum, seeing the opportunity to make sure that these kinds of shenanigans were a thing of the past became a Republican For A Day.

As a spreadsheet of sorts was posted on the wall-mounted screen, Bynum read off the "surpluses" going back to 2001... $12 million... $14 million... $17 million... $18 million... until he got to last year, reading off- with the proper emphasis and outrage- $68 MILLION.

Noting that this was quite obviously more than the 20-25% recommended for a reserve fund, Bynum pulled out an amendment to Furfaro's resolution that would set a policy for what to do, not only if the fund dipped below 20% but what to do if it got up above 30%.

And, in true populist anti-tax Norquistian Republican form he stated that if it were to go above 30% his "first priority personally would be to reduce the amount that we're taking from the people who live here to give a tax refund or rebate or lower taxes.

"Give it back," he demanded, "It's not our money. It belongs to the people of Kaua`i."

Bynum went on and the only thing missing from his spiel was the actual use of the phrase "tax and spend."

Meanwhile Furfaro looked like he was going to have a conniption fit waiting for Bynum to finish. And when his turn came he managed to crystallize his thoughts in one booming sentence.

"THIS COUNTY OWES 170 MILLION DOLLARS."

The meaning was clear, although Furfaro made it clearer. We've already spent that $170 million- or at least have committed to spending it very soon. The county recently refinanced its old bonds and took out new ones for all sorts of "capital improvement projects" from sewers to levees to bridges and roads... 81 of them to be specific.

And if anything was going to happen with the (don't-call-it-a) surplus over and above the recommended "reserve," Furfaro said it should be used to pay for what we already spent by paying down our debt faster than the current $4.7 million a year.

In other words, now that we've collected the "tax" it's time to "spend" it.

The issue of whether to set a policy in the current resolution- which is actually non-binding and is only to set up the policy of creating the reserve fund that will later need to be codified in an ordinance- or whether to include the policy for what to do if the fund is over or under the Goldilocks range of 20-25%, the paradigm shift of the two councilmembers acted on us like half a dozen cups of espresso, the idea of a nap now only a dream.

While we don't particularly "get" this high finance stuff, we think the means of production should be in the hands of the proletariat- or whatever the 21st century equivalent is. But we usually "get" the politics.

Except in this case we've got Furfaro, the ultra conservative- at least for Kaua`i where conservatism usually goes to die- attempting to spend the "extra" already collected taxes while our classic liberal wants to give it back.

It was a good thing that Carvalho's weekly "Together We Can" snooze-fest was coming up next or we'd never have gotten any sleep.

MRF-FREE'S LAW

MRF-FREE'S LAW: There's a sure way to get our blood boiling- mention solid waste and Kaua`i county government in the same sentence.

Back in the early-mid 90's, when the term "zero-waste" was just a'bornin', Dr. Ray Chuan, activist extraordinaire, used to walk into the council chambers each week with stacks of papers and during the interstitial periods, start pawing through them.

Of course we couldn't resist looking over his shoulder and so much to our amazement we and eventually the rest of the "nitpickers" became experts on the last thing in which we wanted to stick our noses- literally or figuratively... trash.

It didn't take a genius to see that the costliest- and stupidest- thing that could be done was to dig a hole in the ground and bury valuable materials rather than recycle them. The solution was- and is- to make it as easy for folks to separate them out of their yucky trash, pick them up curbside and bring them to a place to separate them for shipment, as many places on the mainland were already either doing or planning to do at the time.

Now more than 15 years later and three administrations later Kaua`i not only doesn't have a Materials Recovery Facility (MRF) but, according to the local newspaper- albeit buried mid-way through an article- Mayor Bernard Carvalho has no real plans to build one, making recycling as haphazard and costly as possible.

It's not like the money to plan and build a MRF hasn't been appropriated by the council at least four time we can think of since the turn of the century. Every single bond float- and restructuring of bonds- has included money for the facility which needs to be the first thing that is done in either a "zero-waste" program or the "integrated solid waste" strategy the county has embraced.

It has also been included in almost every capital improvement budget since then to no avail. If we didn't know better we'd think there was no one who knew how to both build a large warehouse and kick back money to the Department of Public Works' Solid Waste Division and the various mayors.

The article is, as usual when penned by Leo Azambuja, fairly useless in explaining why the heck a MRF is not in Carvalho's budget this year, preferring to concentrate on the reasons why the council refused to waste money by continuing to pay our state senator's brother an exorbitant rate to separate a small amount of curbside recycled materials, recovered through a now-canceled "pilot project."

It's just another textbook example of the county's "ready, fire, aim" modus operandi.

But further, the article fails to point out the massive costs of dumping most of our recyclable goods in our overflowing landfill to the point where some have suggested "mining" the old cells, not just to recover the materials discarded over the years but to open up space so as to delay for as long as decades the need to site a new one that nobody wants in their backyard anyway.

Instead Carvalho is still adamant about siting the MRF in the area in which he is proposing to put the new landfill even though planning and permitting for the dump could be a decade away. That means that in Carvalho's mind we will keep on doing what's wrong as long as we can, falling further behind the rest of the world in solid waste management.

Meanwhile the cart is not just before the horse, it's rolling down an endless hill and gathering speed with no equine activity on the horizon.

Of course if the planning and design had been done years ago the county might have even had the whole shebang paid for by the federal government when the they were looking for "shovel ready" public works projects a couple of years back- as they may be doing again next year.

Carvalho seems to have no trouble acting on a dime when it comes to hiring another suck-up crony to fill another new administration position. But when it comes to capital improvement projects the bungling seems almost intentional.

The old "is it incompetence or is in malfeasance?" question was seemingly made for the last three mayors. But the more Carvalho's administrative skills are on display, the more we have to believe it's the latter more than the former.

SLIPPIN' INTO DARKNESS

SLIPPIN' INTO DARKNESS: "It was the same- only different" is one of our favorite "huh?" inspiring expressions.

And it was hard not to feel that way about this year's county budget process, the difference being that they were open for all to see with not just on-line but TV coverage.

That allowed the public to see what the few of us who have actually sat through them in the past know all too well- any pretense of actual due diligence is a joke with the proceedings alternating between snoozefest and schmoozefest.

As we wrote in mid-April

after the department heads' usual perfunctory reading of their "prepared remarks" councilmembers lobbed a few softballs before heaping the praise on them reminiscent of the post-secret-handshake "you're great, no you're great" declaration from the Tom Hanks Saturday Night Live "Fiver Timer" sketch.

Most of the questions that have been asked are invariably of the "what the bleep did you do with the money" nature with "anykine" answers sufficing as appointees stumbled and bumbled their way through the sessions until they finally ran out the clock. That was followed by councilmembers declarations of "I especially liked the way you listed..." whatever it was they listed and an "I love you too" from the person in the not-so-hot seat.

What we failed to mention is that when any difficult question- read: potentially embarrassing or threatening to the administration's corrupt crony cabal- arises, the department head is given time to get the answer and come back during the "call backs," scheduled later in April.

Problem is that when they do come back they inevitably dodge the questions again through equivocation and obfuscation and truly run out the clock because the next phase of the process is the public hearing, supplemental budget from the mayor and final decision making.

But one thing that was different this year was that some councilmembers actually started to complain about the "compressed time line" that supposedly forced them into "rush job" budgets.

Of course our response was "and you just figured this out?" followed by "we'll bet dollars to donuts it's the same next year."

Another thing different- at least as far as the local newspaper coverage- was that our favorite reporter was apparently absent and his substitute, business reporter Vanessa Van Voorhis, became the first one in years to actually report the unique way the final budget is determined on Kaua`i.

The first thing she wrote was the usual wrong information saying:

The budget will now go to Mayor Bernard Carvalho Jr. for final approval.


But then she actually gives a clue as to the real "final" phase of the Kaua`i County Budget process:

The mayor has the power to line-item veto the budget, meaning he does not have to approve the budget as a whole. A council super majority of five of seven votes could override a mayoral veto.

Every year, not just the local newspaper but the Honolulu press dutifully report how "the budget now goes to the mayor for his signature." And no amount of hair-on-fire notes from us to reporters to "read the charter" seem to force them to avoid the same mistake the next year and every year thereafter.

So how did this come about. That too is an "only on Kaua`i" story.

Back during the administration of then-Mayor, now Council Vice Chair JoAnn Yukimura, the battles between the council and mayor were epic on just about every issue. So, under the budget process of "council approval, mayoral veto and council override" that just about every jurisdiction across the county uses, that's exactly what happened... except for the override.

The budget had passed by a 5-4 margin so with Yukimura's veto there were only four votes to override- on short of the five votes needed. And it stayed that way all though May and June until finally the new fiscal year came around with no budget in place.

Of course being politicians no one wanted to admit that this was obviously a politically-created mess and instead called it a "constitutional crisis."

And the newspaper and the sleeping populace quite obviously bought it in the form of the ultimately confusing and contradictory charter amendment that left us with a guiding document that, in it's Solomon-like wisdom splits the baby and gives no one the final say over the budget which just sort of slips into existence.

The year after it passed the council had no idea what to do and the only one who supposedly understood the process- or claimed to- was long time council "legislative analyst" Ricky Watenabe without whom, all councilmembers agree, the council could not operate.

What happens when Watenabe retires is anyone's guess but when he does these arcane and questionable council procedures are bound to blow up in the council's faces.

And when they do you can bet things will pretty much the same... only really, really different.

TIME KEEPS ON SLIPPIN', SLIPPIN'...

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

A CAPITAL IDEA

A CAPITAL IDEA: After explaining the difference between the real property tax “rate“ and the actual amount people pay in property taxes last month we almost facetiously suggested that in order to maintain services the council should consider raising the rate to a level where the payments would remain static.

We say facetiously because, as we described, the council has been so successful in making people believe their taxes go up only when the rate goes up that, as a victim of their success, they have apparently been refusing to consider raising the rate, especially in an election year... as evidenced by the lack of any mention of the possibility in the same breath as the proposed two-day-a-month furloughs of county employees.

But at yesterday’s budget hearing we were surprised to listen to a presentation by Councilperson Tim Bynum repeating the gist of what we wrote, sans the bombast.

Though we’re not sure what happened next since we never got back to watching the on-line coverage (not archived yet at press time) after the first break, it did get us thinking about the budget process and so we spent some time re-reading that county charter section today.

Another thing few people realize although it’s right there for their perusal is that the operating budget, is that what we commonly call “the budget” is only a portion of what we will actually spend this year because there is also a “capital budget” that goes to building new facilities.

The capital budget is for the most part supported by the sale of bonds and this year the county floated a new bond issue with a slightly better rate and also renegotiated our outstanding bonds.

Though many sort of treat the capital budget as some kind of free money, of course it’s nothing of the sort and shows up in the operating budget every year as a fixed expenditure that covers payments on the principle and the interest.

Not to say that it’s some kind of waste of money because it’s going to pay for many much needed projects like the repair of the levees in Hanapepe and Waimea and sewage treatment plants and the like- long neglected projects that have been delayed for years.

It obviously takes a lot of planning to decide on how much to borrow and how to spend it.

So it was no surprise that the county charter calls for one step that we don’t recall ever hearing or seeing.

Section 19.09B under Capital Program and Capital Budget, reads

The planning commission shall prepare the capital program for each of the ensuing five fiscal years, predicated upon the requests of the several agencies and based upon the finance director's statement of moneys likely to be available and the amount of bonds which the mayor believes would be proper for the county to issue.

We admit to being a little lax in keeping up with planning commission doings but if it ever did come before the commission it certainly wasn’t “prepared” by the commission with full public hearings and workshops to make sure that the public takes part in deciding where and how the money that’s borrowed is spent.

This isn’t just some formality. Although the mayor decides how much should be borrowed and the council approves and ultimately decides how to spend the bond money, the charter foresees the public participation part of the process as occurring before the planning commission- something that has never happened as far as we can tell.

Once again the county’s paternalistic attitudes cause corners to be cut wherever the public participation part of the process is concerned and the pervasive attitude inside the minotaur’s labyrinth- that that the public is nothing but a nuisance- rules the day.

HAIRY PLUGS

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

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

Because the real issue isn’t fiscal its political.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The list of similar repercussions is endless.

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

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

NOTHIN’ TO SEE HERE

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

ONE WAY OR ANOTHER

ONE WAY OR ANOTHER: Watching yesterday’s council meeting we feared the council as a whole might have to march en masse to the hospital after their session to have the same kind of shoulder surgery we recently endured due to the way they twisted themselves into pretzels patting themselves on their own backs over the increase in ratings for the $120 million dollars in bonds they plan to issue on March 3.

And indeed, credit where credit is due. It will mean that the county will have to pay a lower interest rate to service those bonds saving the taxpayer money over the years. In addition we’re borrowing enough to cover outstanding bonds that we’re now paying off at a higher interest rate.

As the Honolulu Advertiser wrote yesterday:

Standard & Poor's Ratings Services has raised it's rating on Kaua`i County outstanding general obligation bonds to AA, it's third-highest rating for municipal bonds.

The ratings agency also assigned an AA rating to the county's $120 million general obligation bond sale that's expected in early March. Standard & Poor's said the ratings upgrade related to Kaua'i's strong financial performance and its reserve position.

Fitch Ratings assigned an AA- rating on Kaua`i bonds that will be sold, and upgraded its outstanding general obligation debt to AA- from A+.

The council touted how they had done it by fully funding their obligations to the county retirement funds unlike the other counties and fixed the 19 different “problems” a required audit found a couple of years back.

But one thing barely mentioned- and for good reason- is that the primary reason for the better rating is that Kaua`i has been operating with huge surpluses for many years.

Now don’t get us wrong- we’re not one of those “lower my taxes” wing-nut tea-baggers, especially when it comes to the progressive types like property and income taxes. We often joke that the reason we don’t run for office is they we favor more government- especially fiscal and environmental regulations - and higher taxes to fully fund safety net and social spending.

One of the problems has been that there is a question of exactly how much money is in this slush fund awaiting appropriation- a question that has never been answered despite the queries from council watchers from Glenn Mickens to Ray Chuan over the last 20 years.

Trying to find out from that shell game they call the annual financial audit has been an exercise in frustration according to those with the skills to try.

Another is that is isn’t spent on social programs... it just kind of sits there like a slush fund ready for appropriation whenever someone convinces the council to spend it.

But the main problem in all this is that at the very moment the council was claiming to be flush out of one side of our collective mouths the administration was talking out of the other side while testifying before a legislative committee in Honolulu where they are considering stealing the counties’ shares of the transient accommodations tax (TAT) which could cost Kaua`i around $15 million this year.

As the Advertiser reported this morning, at the hearing

(Kaua`i Administrative Assistant) Gary Heu, administrative assistant to Kaua`i Mayor Bernard Carvalho Jr., said they would have to raise property taxes to a level necessary to offset the TAT losses.

So are we flush enough to achieve a better bond rating because of our vast surpluses or are we so broke that losing 10% of our resources will cause an increase in our property tax rates to fund the same level of services as last year?

All we know is you can’t have it both ways.

(PNN) ABREW FILES WRITTEN RECORDS, CLARIFICATION REQUESTS WITH COUNTY CLERK AT OIP’S URGING

ABREW FILES WRITTEN RECORDS, CLARIFICATION REQUESTS WITH COUNTY CLERK AT OIP’S URGING

(PNN) -- The release of information on the applications of prospective board and commission (B&C) members took another turn today when, on instructions from the Office of Information Practices (OIP), good government activist Rob Abrew filed for that information and also submitted a written request to “seek clarification in writing from the County Clerk’s office as to whether and to what extent all the applications received in the Clerk’s office concerning the Mayor's successful applicants to various Kauai County Boards and Commission's, will be made available to the public”.

Abrew also asked “before any additional action is taken by the Clerks Office and by the Kauai County Council on any appointments not already approved, that the Clerk respond to this request”.

Abrew’s complete letter to County Clerk Peter Nakamura is reproduced below.

In response to a request by Abrew for guidance as to how to proceed given previous OIP rulings on the matter (see PNN/gw?) Friday - COUNCIL IGNORES, FLOUTS OIP IN CONFIRMING BOARD, COMMISSION MEMBERS) the OIP’s Acting Director Cathy L. Takase told Abrew that:

We have received your email dated January 7, 2010 asking that the Office of Information Practices (OIP) review whether or not the Kauai County Council must disclose the application of a successful applicant for a county board or commission prior to their action on that applicant, i.e., where the Mayor has appointed the individual and that individual's appointment is now before the Council for confirmation. You stated that you orally asked the County Clerk's office for copies of the applications and were orally denied access to them.

OIP does not generally issue opinions based upon informal requests (i.e., oral requests) made to agencies for records under the Uniform Information Practices Act (Modified), chapter 92F, Hawaii Revised Statutes (HRS) (the UIPA). Therefore, we will not be opening a case file for your request. However, we note that you are correct that OIP has previously opined that Council confirmation of board and commission appointees must be done in an open meeting and that successful nominee applications are generally public with respect to information such as names, employment history, current occupations and education. See oip Op. Ltr. No. 05-04 (issued to Council member JoAnn Yukimura); Op. Ltr. No. 91-8 (application information to be disclosed for Governor's nominees).

It is our understanding that the meeting at which the Mayor's nominees were confirmed has passed. Given this fact, we presume that you are no longer interested in getting the actual applications, but are instead seeking to get clarification for future confirmations. Given these facts, we suggest that you seek clarification in writing from the County Clerk's office or the County Attorney's office as to whether and to what extent applications of successful mayoral nominees for boards and commissions will be made available. You may provide them with a copy of this letter, and they may consult with 01? if desired. If you receive a response that is inconsistent with the above-referenced 01P opinions, you may request an opinion at that time, enclosing a copy of your request and any written agency response received.

Although many of the nominees were confirmed last Wednesday without the information being publicly available despite a verbal request by Abrew, in today’s written document request Abrew asked for the applications of those prospective B&C members whose confirmations have been deferred because the council had to reschedule their interviews.

Verbal request for public documents related to current agenda items are always granted by council services without delay or charge. Written requests for documents can face a 10 business day delay before a response is sent, according to state law.

Since agendas need not be filed until six calendar days before a meeting, a document may not be available until well after the meeting.

According to sources, Nakamura and the council are seeking to set the responsibility for redacting the parts of the applications that do not fall into the “public interest” category- like phone numbers and other extraneous information- and releasing them.

But the OIP has said that it is the council’s responsibility to make the documents available before the meeting because the trigger for releasing the information is the public nature of the confirmation process and the public’s right to testify on each nominee armed with the information contained in the applications.

Abrew also submitted his testimony from last Wednesday’s council meeting as well as the letter from Takase along with the two requests.

The summaries and complete texts of OIP Opinion. Letters No. 91-8 and 05-04 are available on-line at:
91-8 Summery -- Full Text
05-04 Summery -- Full Text

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Abrew’s letter to County Clerk Nakamura

01/11/10
Mr. Peter Nakamura, Kauai County Clerk

I would like to seek clarification in writing from the County Clerks office as to weather and to what extent all the applications received in the Clerks office concerning the Mayor's successful applicants to various Kauai County Boards and Commission's , will be made available to the public.

This clarification is in response to a oral request for these applications that was denied on January 4 2010 from this Office at the counter.

I would ask the County Clerk to respond to this request for clarification as soon as possible due to a letter I received from the State of Hawaii Office of Information Practices on January 8 2010. This letter addresses a previous letter sent to The County Clerks Office IE.. OIP 05-04. This letter is attached to this request.

I also ask before any additional action is taken by the Clerks Office and by the Kauai County Council on any appointments not already approved that the Clerk respond to this request

I have also included in this request for clarification, the testimony I presented to the County Council on 1-05-10. This testimony describes in detail my concerns with information not available to the public as required by law for the County Council to review and act on the Mayor’s selected appointments to various County Boards and Commissions.

Mahalo,
Rob Abrew

LICKING WHERE ONLY THEY CAN:

LICKING WHERE ONLY THEY CAN: There aren’t a lot of legislators looking forward to next year, especially those who prepare an annual budget. Even those who fund administrative programs on a biennial basis are going to be rehashing the already hashed now that projected plummeting revenues have plunged beyond the predictions.

But here on Kaua`i when it comes to what the home viewer will and will not see it’s probably going to be another year in the dark when comes to the budget machinations the council will perform next spring.

Although last year for the first time the local newspaper’s Mike Levine attended and reported upon the highlights of the budget sessions, the cable-casting of these meetings- where the rubber meets the road and councilmembers must show their hands as to their funding priorities- has not itself been a budget priority.

As far as we can tell this year will be no different and you can bet that the excuse will be “the budget crunch” in terms of both the televising of this year’s sessions and the funding of those in 2011.

How convenient. The most contentious and telling council function- the one where they will inevitably disappoint many who expect funding and outrage others by funding questionable line times- will be done if not behind closed doors at least before draped cameras.

Funny how there’s no money for televising the budget sessions but there’s plenty for those self promotional, vote-grabbing, grin and grip, who’s your daddy and mommy, “council certificates”.

You see it every meeting- all of a sudden business stops and a gaggle of people fill the chambers while the council fawns over them, laughing and questioning them as to their accomplishments.

And when the tiddlywinks team wins third place in Honolulu it’s really a circus with each kid coming up listing not just their parents and siblings but their cousins and their uncles and their aunties.

And not only are these “awards” televised but their are fully captioned- at a cost of more than $200 an hour last time we were able to verify the amount.

At an average of about an hour per council meeting- sometimes, like last week, it’s over an hour, sometimes less- and 50 meetings a year that comes out to at least 50 hours- just enough to televise all the budget sessions.

Now no one is saying that the council should suspend giving out their certificates- even though sometimes it pushes the meeting over eight hours causing massive overtime for staff... a fact that the council uses to justify the recent shift in the scheduling of their meetings to 9 a.m. from the former 1:30 p.m. time slot, insuring people will be less likely to attend and testify.

But using taxpayer money to televise them and then using the lack of funds as an excuse to nix televising the budget sessions is a crass and ludicrous abuse of discretion that serves councilmembers at the expense of the public’s right to know what the council is doing with their money.

The purpose of televising the meetings is to allow the public to see the council at work, not an incumbency protection program designed to garner publicity and the votes of friends and families as well as the participants themselves.

So next time you see one of those certificates being presented just remember- there’s your budget sessions. And remember when, as expected, due to declining assessments the council resorts to raising the property tax rate to pay for all the stuff they stuffed into the budget, instead of watching them do it we were forced to watch the council make kissy-face with Mr. Pupule’s third-grade Christmas pageant participants.

ISN’T THAT CUTE?... AND SHE TALKS TOO

ISN’T THAT CUTE?... AND SHE TALKS TOO: Basing criticism of a bill based on newspaper reports- as we did last Friday for the half million dollar “economic stimulus plan” for the Kaua`i tourism industry- can often spur a limited view of what really happened.

After seeing it, it was actually worse than we could have imagined, especially the condescending paternalism displayed by the other councilmembers when Councilperson Lani Kawahara had the nerve to intimate many of obvious problems with not just accountability but the general concept of the using taxpayer money to support private enterprise.

We finally found the cablecast of the meeting despite Ho`ike TV’s new “never twice at the same time” scheduling where the last two time digits are never :00 or :30 and were horrified by the council’s total lack of interest in having any measurable results of the cash fling.

Paternalistic condescension was the order of the day as the six no-brains tried to justify what they called a "no brainier" decision because, as Chair Kaipo Asing said “it was either do something or do nothing” ignoring the choice of doing something only if it’s going to be measurably effective.

Only under Kawahara’s questioning of Kaua`i Visitor Bureau (KVB) E.D. Sue Kanoho did we get the answer as to how the quarter million dump into the laps of the “travel wholesalers” would translate into more “heads in beds”.

They actually they have no freakin’ idea because that information is “confidential”.

We weren’t really surprised that there wasn’t a way to tell if the money actually translated into more tourists coming to Kaua`i. Kanoho told Kawahara that she “will check”- seemingly as an afterthought- to see what the “wholesalers can tell us” regarding “bang for the buck”.

Although we apparently missed Darryl Kaneshiro’s remark calling Kawahara “sweetie”- as reported in a letter to the editor by former mayoral candidate Rolf Bieber who was present at the meeting- the room reeked with testosterone-generated belittlement and misrepresentations of what Kawahara actually said.

Even though it was solely made up of numbers telling the council what everyone knows- tourism is in the toilet- Kanoho and county Economic Development Director George Costa’s “power point” presentation finally reveled their “plan” for flushing money into that self-same crapper.

It seems the idea is to “get the word out that there are good deals” in coming here by putting Kaua`i in the rotating banner ads at the typically ignored top of web sites like Travelocity and Ovitz in order to “divert” people from other destinations- who presumably also pay to be similarly “perched and rotated”.

When clicked it goes to pictures of beaches and coconut trees and the like along with the latest bafflingly ambiguous and apt to be ridiculed Hawai`i slogan- “you’d be happy to be here too”.

We presume that the number of “click-throughs” we get is also “proprietary” making a pig in a poke sound like a good deal.

Oh and guess what- there’s going to be “coupon book” with all sorts of those “buy one- get one free” restaurant scams and “get a free gift with purchase”- usually a two bit trinket- good at various tourist traps.

Does anyone actually click on banner ads? Does anyone actually come somewhere because of those notoriously useless coupon books? Is there anyone who’s not hip to their lack of any value whatsoever by now?

Ah- meet the Kaua`i County Council where a bill of goods are as good as gold.

It was expected that these things would typify the brainiac ideas of round-up-the-usual-suspects Kanoho and politically-appointed Costa. But if anyone thought the pompously vacuous council would be skeptical well, they’re obviously not paying attention.

Which is why it was so refreshing to see Kawahara suggest that it might be more than appropriate to use at least half the money to go to the root of the problem- our sole dependence on the tourism industry which soars and busts dependant on circumstances beyond our control- and use it to support diversification of our economy.

An obviously irritated Kanoho responded “now is not the time for that- you do that when you’re healthy”, a statement repeated by many on the council.

But Kawahara responded that “now IS the time” adding “I don’t see us putting this kind of money into other ‘industries’

“There’s no doubt that tourism is crucial” she told the rest of councilmembers “but there’s no doubt the council should develop alternative sustainable (economic) practices (and) provide people with options.

“We have not funded diversifying our economy. Now is the time we should look at diversifying”.

Then the bombshell that punctured the carefully over-inflated chest of the old boys at the table- Kawahara questioned whether appropriating county money to support private enterprise was an “appropriate use” of “taxpayer money”.

Kawahara said she could support half the amount- which is to be matched with half a million in next year’s budget- saying that any further expenditure should be for developing other “industries” and perhaps, if government money is to be spent, things like retraining.

Well all that was red meat for the rest of the council.

First Kaneshiro demanded a specific written amendment for what to throw the other half of the money at noting that the half million was from the “unappropriated surplus” (as if it was “extra money”) seemingly oblivious to the option of just not spending it at all for now

Next in the march of the unaccountable panic of “do something... anything!” was junior patriarch Derek Kawakami who chided Kawahara by insisting we have already been doing enough economic diversification by reading from something called the Kaua`i Economic Development Plan... which is just that- a plan that has sat there for years.

“It isn’t going to happen overnight” said Kawakami, ignoring the fact that it hasn’t happened in decades.

Kawakami then showed his grasp of issues by citing the $400,000 the county is spending on the so called “important ag lands study” as indication the county is funding diversification.

In actuality, as anyone who has followed it will tell you, the important ag lands study was mandated by the legislature and is designed as a way to identify UNIMPORTANT ag lands so they can be grabbed by developers to- yes, expand the tourism plantation.

That was followed by long tirades from former hotel honcho, Mr. Pomposity, Councilperson Jay Furfaro followed by his dazed and confused visitor-industry-promoting cohort Dickie Chang.

They each defended the tourism industry intimating that Kawahara had said to shut it down instead of suggesting that our dependence on such a volatile form of commerce makes diversification more crucial than ever.

Even though when sugar was disappearing in the 70’s the buzz word was economic diversification Kaua`i has never been more dependant on tourism. But when tourism is in a “boom phase” the attitude on the council has been “why do we need to diversify now?”. And when it’s in a bust well it’s “now is not the time because we have to fix our number one money maker first”.

Leaving Kawahara to ask if not now, when?

After Kawakami read from the portion of the 10 year old General Plan that calls for support of the tourism industry Kawahara read the rest of it that also details areas ripe for economic diversification- something, we have to add, that was in the GP before that and the one before that with no movement toward anything but our number two and three industries- militarism Frankenfood seeds.

But with Kawahara making too much sense the boys finally said they couldn’t vote for her amendment to cut all but the money for the wholesaler and to promote the 50th anniversary celebration of the movie South Pacific next fall- probably the only money being spent that could not just get people to come specifically to Kaua`i put is measurable... although it too should really be supported by the industry, not the county the way we see it.

Eventually, with nothing else left, Asing and Kaneshiro went back to gorging on red herrings with Kaneshiro leading the charge saying he couldn’t support her amendment unless she had a specific plan to use the “other $225,000” as if the money was burning a hole in his pocket.

Worse was Asing’s final straw-grasping attempt to humiliate Kawahara by claiming that in calling it an “inappropriate use of taxpayer money” she was calling it illegal. He said he was ready to ask the county attorney up to correct her in an absurd attempt to intimidate her and intentionally misunderstand the obvious meaning of “appropriate”.

As we said Friday, Kawahara seems to be slowly emerging as the voice of reason on the council. Watch this space later this week for more on that.