MUZZLED AGAIN (Part 1): When. business editor at the local newspaper Coco Zickos was unceremoniously fired for not kow-towing enough to the business community- as PNN exclusively reported a month ago- we knew changes were probably in the works.
It wouldn’t be the first time advertisers clamped down on content they didn’t want people to see as PNN reported on it’s Parxist Conspiracy television newsmagazine in the late 1990’s.
But little did we suspect it might be the beginning of the wholesale censoring of Kaua`i based news that reflects poorly on some the islands biggest “industries”.
Yet at least twice in the last week, while other news outlets have reported on stories of alleged illegal activities on the island the local newspaper has remained silent.
The first, as you might suspect if you read our Aug. 26 post regarding the “Informational Briefing” led by Senate Ways and Means Chair Donna Mercado Kim investigating, among other things, is about, as the agenda said, the
a. Status of the employee embezzlement investigation
b. Explanation of the overpayment, reinstatement, and settlement of the employee that walked off the job
c. Status of the Mitigation of TSA (Transportation Security Administration) fines on Kauai – mitigation
d. Costs to the State, airlines, and travelers from the security breach at Lihue Airport on September 11, 2009
(e) Grove Farm – status of the helipad expansion and status of information requested by the Committee in letter dated July 22, 2010, regarding enhancements to the access points for the Grove Farm land , the value and costs of the enhancements, and whether an enhancement fee was negotiated as part of the contract
You’d think that the paper would have at least watched the hearing on line if not sent someone to the hearing that could negatively effect tourism, the biggest industry on the island. Or maybe they could have just read the stories at the KITV web site which is apparently the only news outlet that covered the hearing.
In the first of two articles- which are much more comprehensive than the video report also available at their web site- they described how, as the headline says
Kauai Airport Supervisor Fired For Theft
She Was Put On Leave With Pay After Admitting To Stealing
The article itself reveals
A supervisor at Lihue Airport who admitted to stealing thousands of dollars in an embezzlement case has been fired after state transportation officials put her on leave with pay for nearly two months while they investigated the case.
The state transportation director admitted Tuesday what employees have complained about for years: that there's a management problem at Lihue Airport.
Sources told KITV 4 News a business services supervisor at Lihue Airport, who oversees four other people, admitted to stealing about $13,000 from the state over several months. Some of it was money that airline employees, vendors and others pay for annual airport security badges.
The state placed her on leave with pay after she admitted to airport officials in writing to the theft in early July, according to Sidney Hayakawa, an administrative services officer with the state department of transportation.
The woman, who has not yet been charged with a crime, kept collecting her paycheck for nearly two months until she was fired Thursday, he said.
Though KITV- and apparently those at the hearing- did not name the employee, by simply cross-referencing mentions of the employee’s position in earlier article with the listing at the DOT web site one of PNN's investigators has deduced the employee’s name is Finance Director Maycia Matsuyoshi.
Kim was apparently incredulous, not only at the embezzlement but at Matsuyoshi’s treatment after being caught.
"Why would she be put on leave with pay?” Kim asked during a hearing Tuesday at the state capitol.
"Because we wanted her to be available to come back, because we needed to re-interview her. And that's what's happening right now, the AGs have to re-interview her and she was available to them," Hayakawa said.
"You still have to go through an investigation and you have to verify that wrongdoing is evident and had occurred," said State Transportation Director Brennon Morioka, noting that even people who’ve admitted wrongdoing deserve due process.
Airport records show the woman was paid anywhere from $35,000 to $54,000 a year. Hayakawa said officials could have put her on unpaid leave while they investigated, but they chose not to.
The report also says KITV “found four small claims judgments against the woman since 1998.”
But that incident isn’t all the committee investigated. It goes on to say:
There are other problems at Lihue airport. It was the only airport in Hawaii to pay security fines to the Transportation Security Administration recently. Lihue paid $75,000 worth of security fines to the TSA for 15 security lapses between March of 2009 and 2010.
"The management at Kauai airport seems to be problematic. And this is just one more, on top of all the issues we've seen on Kauai," Kim said.
In another incident, an airport operations controller frustrated with management at Lihue walked off the job in late 2008 and no one bothered to notify personnel officials to stop his paycheck for weeks, so he was overpaid about $5,000.
Earlier this year, he was allowed to return to work at the airport, keeping the extra $5,000 in overpaid salary and 880 hours of accrued sick leave.
If they could rewind the situation “we would have looked at recouping the money for his salary overpayment,” Morioka said....
“It seems to me they could do a reality show at Kauai Airport,” said State Sen. Sam Slom (R-Hawaii Kai, Diamond Head, Kahala).
Want more?
In another incident, airport manager George Crabbe lost track of two people he was escorting behind security checkpoints on Sept. 11, 2009, resulting in the Lihue airport terminal being evacuated and shut down and passengers re-screened.
That disrupted scheduled flights on Kauai. “In spite of my personal embarrassment of being the cause of the disruption, the alternative of not taking this step to ensure terminal safety would have been worse,” Crabbe wrote in a statement to his superiors at the DOT.
“I take sole responsibility for the events that led to this disruption and I cannot fully express the mortification and regret my momentary lapse of attention caused,” Crabbe said in the statement.
The second article deals with the resignation of former Deputy Transportation Director Brian Sekiguchi who is now involved in an ethics probe for allegedly “accepting free tickets from an airport vendor to attend the Masters golf tournament in Augusta, Ga., in April of 2009 (and) not put(ting) in for vacation leave for one day of that same April vacation.”
But late in the article it refers back to what apparently caused Sekiguchi to resign three weeks ago saying:
Several other incidents and problems raised questions about the management of the airports division, which Sekiguchi oversaw since 2003 before resigning in August.
On July 27, state Procurement Office Administrator Aaron Fujioka found the state Department of Transportation violated procurement law when it hired two airport security consultants through Securitas Security Services USA, an airport security contractor.
The incident was previously reported to involve dealings with former county Finance Director Mike Tressler, now a vice president at Grove Farm which handsomely profited by the overpayment which paid out more than double what the property was really worth.
Tomorrow in part 2 we’ll let you know about an even bigger blockbuster ignored by the local “news”paper- one that could have severe repercussions that bode ill for the future of agriculture on Kaua`i.
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It’s time to send letter to stop Linda Lingle’s lame duck attempt to make horrendous wholesale changes to the conservation district rule which the Department of Land and Natural Resources is proposing. Go to Marti Townsend’s KAHEA website for a handy-dandy way to do so.
Showing posts with label DLNR .. Show all posts
Showing posts with label DLNR .. Show all posts
Monday, September 6, 2010
Monday, August 16, 2010
WILL IT GO ROUND IN CIRCLES
WILL IT GO ROUND IN CIRCLES: It wouldn’t be the first time the state took a cue from one of the more outrageous abuses of process originating on Kaua`i- and it certainly won’t be the last.
But let’s back up a bit.
An article in last Thursday’s Honolulu Star-Advertiser announced
Changes proposed to state land rules
The first revisions in 16 years involve shoreline boundaries and permits
It reports that:
The first update of conservation land use rules in 16 years would change the shoreline setback, eliminate required permits for activities like weeding and increase fees.
The proposed changes, outlined in a 71-page document by the state Department of Land and Natural Resources, are being reviewed through public meetings. Today's will be in Honolulu.
The revisions have some environmental organizations concerned.
Among the more significant changes would specify shoreline setback, a line past which no structures or coastal alterations are allowed. Numerous lawsuits have been filed over designations of public and private access along the shorelines.
Some of the changes will include those required by the Supreme Court of Hawai`i (SCOHI) decision in the case brought by Kaua`i North Shore resident Caren Diamond that redefined the shoreline determination process.
But a side bar to the article lists some of the changes the new rules will try to bring about including one that goes unmentioned in the piece:
Rules would specify that only people with property interest, residency on the land or anyone directly affected by a permit can appeal. Rules now state that "any person" can appeal to the department.
Now maybe they missed it but that rule would apparently fly in the face of a more recent SCOHI case, County of Hawaii v. Ala Loop Homeowners, which essentially held that any land use effects the environment and that triggers Article XI, Section 9 of the Hawai`i State Construction which reads:
Each person has the right to a clean and healthful environment, as defined by laws relating to environmental quality, including control of pollution and conservation, protection and enhancement of natural resources. Any person may enforce this right against any party, public or private, through appropriate legal proceedings, subject to reasonable limitations and regulation as provided by law
That would seem to preempt any restriction on who can sue when it comes to “land use rules” of the DLNR.
So what does this have to do with Kaua`i?
The use of administrative rules to try to define-out-of-existence provisions of the county charter- the county’s equivalent of a constitution- was the central issue of the two year Kaua`i Board of Ethics (BOE) brouhaha when county attorneys used both a county ordinance and the BOE’s rules to narrow the plain reading of Section 20.02(D) of the charter which bans county employees and board and commission members from “appear(ing) on behalf of private interests” before other boards and commission.
Apparently the DLNR may be paying attention to our local shenanigans and are attempting to slip through a rule that could at least temporarily bog down what land use attorneys across the state have called a “newly created right”- that of private citizens to sue over land use decisions.
It’s enough to make a local good old boy’s chest swell with pride to think little Kaua`i could come up with a process corrupt enough to be used by the masters at DLNR.
But let’s back up a bit.
An article in last Thursday’s Honolulu Star-Advertiser announced
Changes proposed to state land rules
The first revisions in 16 years involve shoreline boundaries and permits
It reports that:
The first update of conservation land use rules in 16 years would change the shoreline setback, eliminate required permits for activities like weeding and increase fees.
The proposed changes, outlined in a 71-page document by the state Department of Land and Natural Resources, are being reviewed through public meetings. Today's will be in Honolulu.
The revisions have some environmental organizations concerned.
Among the more significant changes would specify shoreline setback, a line past which no structures or coastal alterations are allowed. Numerous lawsuits have been filed over designations of public and private access along the shorelines.
Some of the changes will include those required by the Supreme Court of Hawai`i (SCOHI) decision in the case brought by Kaua`i North Shore resident Caren Diamond that redefined the shoreline determination process.
But a side bar to the article lists some of the changes the new rules will try to bring about including one that goes unmentioned in the piece:
Rules would specify that only people with property interest, residency on the land or anyone directly affected by a permit can appeal. Rules now state that "any person" can appeal to the department.
Now maybe they missed it but that rule would apparently fly in the face of a more recent SCOHI case, County of Hawaii v. Ala Loop Homeowners, which essentially held that any land use effects the environment and that triggers Article XI, Section 9 of the Hawai`i State Construction which reads:
Each person has the right to a clean and healthful environment, as defined by laws relating to environmental quality, including control of pollution and conservation, protection and enhancement of natural resources. Any person may enforce this right against any party, public or private, through appropriate legal proceedings, subject to reasonable limitations and regulation as provided by law
That would seem to preempt any restriction on who can sue when it comes to “land use rules” of the DLNR.
So what does this have to do with Kaua`i?
The use of administrative rules to try to define-out-of-existence provisions of the county charter- the county’s equivalent of a constitution- was the central issue of the two year Kaua`i Board of Ethics (BOE) brouhaha when county attorneys used both a county ordinance and the BOE’s rules to narrow the plain reading of Section 20.02(D) of the charter which bans county employees and board and commission members from “appear(ing) on behalf of private interests” before other boards and commission.
Apparently the DLNR may be paying attention to our local shenanigans and are attempting to slip through a rule that could at least temporarily bog down what land use attorneys across the state have called a “newly created right”- that of private citizens to sue over land use decisions.
It’s enough to make a local good old boy’s chest swell with pride to think little Kaua`i could come up with a process corrupt enough to be used by the masters at DLNR.
Tuesday, June 15, 2010
STONED AGAIN
STONED AGAIN: One of the stupidest things we’ve ever heard of- and on Kaua`i that’s saying a lot- is the plan to try to prevent a rockslide at the waterfall on Kalalau beach by causing one.
If the local newspaper article by still-unable-to-find-the-lead reporter Leo Azambuja is to be believed:
Workers will then suspend themselves from the top of the cliff, and using crowbars they’ll hammer out rocks that appear to be less than 50 percent attached to the cliff’s face.
It’s hard to say which is more imbecilic- the Department of Land and Natural Resources (DLNR) that has come up with this harebrained scheme or the Kaua`i Planning Commission that actually issued a Special Management Area Permit to do it- an approval that was reported 1037 words into a 1137 word article.
Have these people ever spent any time there? We have- lots of it.
Yes rocks fall- very occasionally. And people generally avoid the areas where they are likely to fall, obeying the signs in the area.
But as long as you leave them alone, when they do fall they present little or no danger. The only “incidents” have come about when sh-t-for-brains tourists mess with them by climbing around on them.
As anyone who has spent any time looking at the geology of landslides on the crumbly islands’ sheer cliff faces can tell you, if you actually bring down the loose stuff- the rocks that are actually holding the whole thing together- the rock slides will continue at an advanced rate for many years until it stabilizes... leaving others rocks ready to fall in perpetuity.
If you let them fall intermittently by themselves the occurrences will be sporadic and won’t potentially allow a huge “face” to fall with the first good rainfall.
This has been shown over and over and is why, when the Department of Transportation (DOT) does any rock removal work above highways nowadays, they put chain link meshing over the disturbed area to stop the rock and landslides that inevitably occur immediately after the work is done.
And even stupider is, according to the article, the idea to try to bring down:
two massive blocks that are apparently slowly detaching from the cliff’s face.
Conservative estimates measure the blocks at approximately 230 and 1,250 cubic yards each.
(Environmental planner for AECom, the company contracted to oversee the project,
Tobias) Koehler said there are cracks so wide that it’s possible to stick an arm inside of them.
The idea is to insert air bags into those cracks, and then pump them until the blocks detach from the face of the cliff.
In talking to the old-timers as far back as the 70’s those “slowly detaching” boulders have been doing so for decades, perhaps centuries- as far back as anyone can remember. An examination of the large boulders in the area shows them to have been where they are for a long long time.
A couple of the comments on the article agree:
“If you pop off the big rocks the more numerous small ones the size of your fist will crumble off the cliffs and kill and injure more people than 1 big one. Leave Kalalau natural like it has been since it began.”
“Anyone who's spent any time down the coast knows that rocks fall - and will continue to fall. You can't stop it. Avoid the rock fall zones just like we did as kids. Anyone remember when the entire cave at the Honopu end collapsed?”
Along with the recent announcement that despite almost unanimous local opposition the DLNR is going to put up a gate in Koke`e to charge “non-residents” (for now).
It’s no wonder they use the excuse of having no money for “maintenance” of parks to justify the Koke`e fees when they spend $800,000 (reported 974 words into the article) on nonsense like this.
This kind of idiocy of allowing decisions regarding our parks to be made around a table in Honolulu has got to end with the end of this administration.
The question only seems to be how much damage they can do before December.
If the local newspaper article by still-unable-to-find-the-lead reporter Leo Azambuja is to be believed:
Workers will then suspend themselves from the top of the cliff, and using crowbars they’ll hammer out rocks that appear to be less than 50 percent attached to the cliff’s face.
It’s hard to say which is more imbecilic- the Department of Land and Natural Resources (DLNR) that has come up with this harebrained scheme or the Kaua`i Planning Commission that actually issued a Special Management Area Permit to do it- an approval that was reported 1037 words into a 1137 word article.
Have these people ever spent any time there? We have- lots of it.
Yes rocks fall- very occasionally. And people generally avoid the areas where they are likely to fall, obeying the signs in the area.
But as long as you leave them alone, when they do fall they present little or no danger. The only “incidents” have come about when sh-t-for-brains tourists mess with them by climbing around on them.
As anyone who has spent any time looking at the geology of landslides on the crumbly islands’ sheer cliff faces can tell you, if you actually bring down the loose stuff- the rocks that are actually holding the whole thing together- the rock slides will continue at an advanced rate for many years until it stabilizes... leaving others rocks ready to fall in perpetuity.
If you let them fall intermittently by themselves the occurrences will be sporadic and won’t potentially allow a huge “face” to fall with the first good rainfall.
This has been shown over and over and is why, when the Department of Transportation (DOT) does any rock removal work above highways nowadays, they put chain link meshing over the disturbed area to stop the rock and landslides that inevitably occur immediately after the work is done.
And even stupider is, according to the article, the idea to try to bring down:
two massive blocks that are apparently slowly detaching from the cliff’s face.
Conservative estimates measure the blocks at approximately 230 and 1,250 cubic yards each.
(Environmental planner for AECom, the company contracted to oversee the project,
Tobias) Koehler said there are cracks so wide that it’s possible to stick an arm inside of them.
The idea is to insert air bags into those cracks, and then pump them until the blocks detach from the face of the cliff.
In talking to the old-timers as far back as the 70’s those “slowly detaching” boulders have been doing so for decades, perhaps centuries- as far back as anyone can remember. An examination of the large boulders in the area shows them to have been where they are for a long long time.
A couple of the comments on the article agree:
“If you pop off the big rocks the more numerous small ones the size of your fist will crumble off the cliffs and kill and injure more people than 1 big one. Leave Kalalau natural like it has been since it began.”
“Anyone who's spent any time down the coast knows that rocks fall - and will continue to fall. You can't stop it. Avoid the rock fall zones just like we did as kids. Anyone remember when the entire cave at the Honopu end collapsed?”
Along with the recent announcement that despite almost unanimous local opposition the DLNR is going to put up a gate in Koke`e to charge “non-residents” (for now).
It’s no wonder they use the excuse of having no money for “maintenance” of parks to justify the Koke`e fees when they spend $800,000 (reported 974 words into the article) on nonsense like this.
This kind of idiocy of allowing decisions regarding our parks to be made around a table in Honolulu has got to end with the end of this administration.
The question only seems to be how much damage they can do before December.
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