YOU WANT IT WHEN?: We tried- we really did.
But once again, like clockwork, our "little buddy" Leo Azambuja, apparently watched a different county council committee meeting than we did a week ago Wednesday (October 28).
Although the agenda item was a report on the new landfill, what actually happened apparently went completely over Azambuja's head.
The acronym MRF- standing for Materials Recovery Facility- never saw the light of day in the article on the meeting. But it was the central topic of discussion after it was discovered that, despite the desperate need for a MRF to move forward on curbside recycling, the administration, as many have feared, is apparently going to wait for the process of siting the new landfill and completing an environmental impact statement to even start actually building a MRF.
That's because, according to Councilperson JoAnn Yukimura, the administration of Mayor Bernard Carvalho is apparently so enamored of their vision for a Resource Recovery Facility at the same location as the new landfill that they won't even consider anything else.
Rather than starting the process now separately from the landfill siting- which won't be done until at least 2020 according to the administration's presentation- there were no plans presented to indicate that the administration even considered trying to get the MRF "done yesterday" so to speak, in order to divert trash from the old, nearing-capacity landfill so as to buy time for siting a new one.
That would mean construction of an MRF won't even start until June of 2016, Yukimura indicated after looking at the administration's timeline.
Not only that but siting the MRF and other resource recovery facilities inland and near the new landfill is a numbskull idea for a number of reasons despite widespread claims that it "sounds logical."
First of all, as Yukimura and Councilperson Tim Bynum both pointed out, hauling the recyclables far inland- where the presumed new landfill site is- and then back to the harbor will increase costs immensely. But siting the MRF near the harbor would actually make sense so apparently it wasn't considered by the administration.
What no one mentioned is the massive mix of trucks going in and out will cause unneeded congestion costing time and money. And of course if the facilities are too close to the landfill itself, it would put the kibosh on expansion into the area where the facilities are sited.
The reality is that, despite the fact that a MRF was supposed to be completed this year according to the Integrated Solid Waste Program the county approved years ago- and that the "pilot" curbside recycling program had to be suspended for lack of a MRF- there is apparently still no fire under the butts of the Department of Public Works to get the process started except as part of the landfill siting process.
County Engineer Larry Dill did come forward to say that the administration was supposedly working separately on a MRF but it seems like a CYA afterthought. It came only after former County Engineer and current Environmental Services Officer Donald Fujimoto seemed incredibly befuddled by the criticism, apparently because the administration has been so stuck on the concept of putting all the trash-related stuff in one place that they didn't see the need for a MRF as being the most important solid-waste-related project for the county right now.
The whole matter will be back on the agenda soon because the discussion was continually being cut short since the subjects of the MRF and the old landfill weren't even on the agenda.
But the fact that even after the embarrassment of having to cut short the pilot curbside recycling program, even after the passage of a new zero waste resolution by the council AND administration, even though the current landfill's life apparently won't get us to the opening of a new landfill and it's filling up faster than it was supposed to and even though all those recyclables are going into the current landfill because there is no MRF, the administration is still in la-la land with their grand plan for their one-stop opala palace.
Excuse us while we look for a place to get sick.
Showing posts with label Donald Fujimoto. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Donald Fujimoto. Show all posts
Thursday, November 3, 2011
Monday, June 6, 2011
JUST DO IT
JUST DO IT: You'd think we were too old for hope to spring eternal. And we shoulda known better with a council like this.
But when we saw that the issue of the Pono Kai seawall was slated for diccussion at last week's council meeting we idiotically looked forward to a few of the fireworks that went off the last time the issue came before them.
It never ceases to amaze us how short memories are, especially when it comes to the people who are trying to ensure we forget. So when we awoke Thursday morning- before we'd had a chance to see the council's grilling of the county's always incompetent Public Works department- and took a gander at the local newspaper's coverage we wern't surprised to see that the "old concerns" referred to in the kicker to the headline was the placement of the bike path just a few feet from the decrepit crumbling ocean-blocking structure.
Apparently the project to "fix" the seawall is a go despite the fact that seawalls are generally frowned upon these days, as UH experts told the council in testimony in 2008. But the fact is that this didn't even come up wasn't even the coverup.
We strongly suspect the reason was because, as we described in detail at the time, it was discovered that the Pono Kai seawall was illegally constructed, without any permits, right after Hurricane `Iniki, despite warnings from the Army Corps of Engineers to the county- in writing- essentially saying "don't you freakin' dare."
But the county, thinking that in the post-hurricane confusion and shuffle it could get away with building the seawall without permits, decided to do just that, as pre and post hurricane aerial pictures presented in 2008 showed.
Although the laws regarding seawalls allow for maintenance and even sometimes a major fix to those legally constructed- or those "grandfathered in"- it does not allow repairs of illegal ones to go forward unless they're treated a new project.
What we did learn last week was that the current go-ahead still lacks state and, more to the point, federal permits which means that the administration is apparently going to try to bluff their way through the ACofE review and hope no one remembers what happened back when they were emphatically told not to build it in the first place.
It's even more bizarre that this issue didn't even come up last Wednesday since four current councilmembers- Tim Bynum, JoAnn Yukimura, Mel Rapozo and current and then-acting Chair Jay Furfaro were on the council at the time and at the meeting and so were- and are- very aware of the issue.
Ordinarily we'd excerpt a snippet of our prior coverage but the story of then-Councilmember Shaylene Iseri-Carvalho's prosecutorial treatment of county administrative personnel was so outrageous we're going to re-post it in full today.
------
Wednesday, August 27, 2008
DOGGED PERSISTENCE: In an absurdist little drama last Wednesday the Kaua`i County Council finally got County Engineer Donald Fujimoto to admit what everyone has known for a long time- the Pono Kai seawall was illegally constructed and there never have been any permits or exemptions for it.
And he came close to acknowledging his Department of Public Works (DPW) attempts to cover it up by refusing to answer questions about it and asking any investigation be done in secret executive session (ES).
Fujimoto wouldn’t even admit it all until grilled for 15 minutes in a prosecutorial manner by prosecutor-to-be Shaylene Iseri-Carvalho who finally broke him down and forced the admissions.
The revelation of the illegal construction goes back a couple of years to a council session discussing shoreline certifications for the bike path during which experts told the council of the problems with the seawall and during subsequent meetings where the lack of any permits was revealed.
The seawall was constructed after the Hurricane `Iniki which itself took the council weeks to ascertain due to stonewalling and sketchy answers from Fujimoto and other DPW personal who conveniently couldn’t remember how long it had been there.
Finally pre and post hurricane pictures were shown to the council on a slide projector to clear up the 1993 construction date.
Apparently the story is that DPW engineers decided that in all the post hurricane confusion and “emergency permitting” they could construct a seawall to “protect” Pono Kai with no approval whatsoever.
This was done, according to testimony a couple of years ago, despite a 1993 letter from the Army Corps of engineers warning them that it was highly illegal to build the wall.
Fujimoto was not the county engineer at the time of the construction and did not come to that position until the Baptiste administration.
Yet Fujimoto clung to the story saying that it “may have been intentional or unintentional- I’d like to think it was unintentional”, although how the county engineer who routinely processes permits could have unintentionally constructed an illegal sea wall wasn’t clear.
What is clear is that Pono Kai resort had always been worried about it’s proximity to the ocean and wanted the wall, going back years before the hurricane when it tried and failed to build one but especially so after the hurricane battered the place and severely eroded the shoreline.
Fujimoto’s attempt to put the genie back in the bottle continued with him trying to cover-up the information even as the meeting began.
He started by refusing to talk about it at all in open session- after his request last month for an ES was turned down by Public Works Committee Chair Mel Rapozo- by saying he want to “wait for the EA (environmental assessment) to discuss it”.
An EA is currently being conducted by DPW to determine what the environmental impacts of any action on the sea wall would be
Previously Fujimoto tried to blow smoke and cast the usual fog machine the PWD has been famous for since well before his tenure.
He has claimed that the wall was legal under various erroneous propositions and obfuscations, first saying there were permits then when asked to produce them saying he had an exemption due to the governor’s emergency declaration after the hurricane, neither of which was true.
After badgering he finally admitted that at some point he spoke to Sam Lemmo at the State DLNR who told him it was possible someone had thought there might have been an exemption at the time.
Still Fujimoto refused at first to admit the sea wall was illegally constructed in hopes that it would be able to be repaired.
Under the federal law, as well as a “zero tolerance” for un-permitted construction by the state and county, the sea wall would have to be removed although there could be an exemption federally if the damage of removing it would be greater than leaving it in place.
The sea wall is currently a public nuisance and in horribly dilapidated condition and according to what UH experts Dolan Ebersole and Chip Fletcher told the council is making a mess of the whole Kapa`a shoreline.
Both told the council and Fujimoto two years ago that reconstructing an illegal sea wall was not legal under any circumstances. Yet Fujimoto continues to conduct an EA to fix the wall.
Whether the best scientific path is to remove it, rebuild it or leave it alone is a question no one so far has been able to determine.
Fujimoto adamantly maintained that the EA would answer all the legal questions even though everyone knew it was illegal, at first saying “I can’t say if it was legal or illegal”
But despite repeats of this lies Iseri persisted and finally got the truth out of Fujimoto.
She reviewed Fujimoto’s actions and words in claiming there was a permit and then that they didn’t need one and then that they were going to get an “after the fact” one, before she finally asked “You have no evidence to show this wall is legal?”
Fujimoto finally said “That’s correct.” though still maintaining the EA will address that.
Then Iseri focused in on the EA-legalities claim asking “So the EA will look into all the illegalities?”
Fujimoto said “Yes- it will address the impacts”.
After a lot of back and forth finally, after maintaining more than a half a dozen times in direct answers to direct questions that the EA would look a legal questions Fujimoto admitted it wouldn’t and that the County Attorney will address those.
“I stand corrected” he finally said.
What was astonishing was that a couple of months or so ago when being questioned on the sea wall Fujimoto refused to answer the questions in open session asking the council to place the matter on the their executive session agenda.
“Speaking to the County Engineer about DPW’s illegal actions” is not on the list of Sunshine Law exemptions to the open meeting requirements.
This was despite the fact that about two years ago it was widely discussed by the council and they learned in public session of not just the illegal nature of the wall but of the warning letters from the Army Corps of Engineers saying basically “don’t you dare”.
Councilman Ron Kochi was somewhat bemused by Fujimoto shaking his head and saying “you can’t unring the bell” and headscratchingly pondering what Fujimoto thought he was trying to do.
Finally Chair Rapozo summed it up -somewhat haltingly- by saying “It’s no secret that the wall is illegal. I shouldn’t say illegal- it’s un-permitted”, drawing derisive laughter from those gathered.
Believe it or not the council committee concluded it’s session by making plans to take the public knowledge of the illegal wall into executive session to figure out if Kaua`i County will have to repay the state and possibly the feds who financed the project on Kaua`i County’s assurance that they had the permits or an exemption.
Iseri repeated several times that we needed to “come clean” and maybe they’d let us off the financial hook.
No plans were made to investigate the Public Works Department to uncover what most suspect was collusion by Pono Kai and some in the DPW to pull a fast one after the hurricane by building an illegal sea wall.
It only took 15 years to figure out what happened. We’ll be lucky if after 15 years more we catch the culprits because, as has happened dozes of times before- most notably after the Pflueger-McCloskey “Developers Gone Wild” sessions- the Council refuses to investigate the DPW, arguably the most corrupt county department in the state.
But when we saw that the issue of the Pono Kai seawall was slated for diccussion at last week's council meeting we idiotically looked forward to a few of the fireworks that went off the last time the issue came before them.
It never ceases to amaze us how short memories are, especially when it comes to the people who are trying to ensure we forget. So when we awoke Thursday morning- before we'd had a chance to see the council's grilling of the county's always incompetent Public Works department- and took a gander at the local newspaper's coverage we wern't surprised to see that the "old concerns" referred to in the kicker to the headline was the placement of the bike path just a few feet from the decrepit crumbling ocean-blocking structure.
Apparently the project to "fix" the seawall is a go despite the fact that seawalls are generally frowned upon these days, as UH experts told the council in testimony in 2008. But the fact is that this didn't even come up wasn't even the coverup.
We strongly suspect the reason was because, as we described in detail at the time, it was discovered that the Pono Kai seawall was illegally constructed, without any permits, right after Hurricane `Iniki, despite warnings from the Army Corps of Engineers to the county- in writing- essentially saying "don't you freakin' dare."
But the county, thinking that in the post-hurricane confusion and shuffle it could get away with building the seawall without permits, decided to do just that, as pre and post hurricane aerial pictures presented in 2008 showed.
Although the laws regarding seawalls allow for maintenance and even sometimes a major fix to those legally constructed- or those "grandfathered in"- it does not allow repairs of illegal ones to go forward unless they're treated a new project.
What we did learn last week was that the current go-ahead still lacks state and, more to the point, federal permits which means that the administration is apparently going to try to bluff their way through the ACofE review and hope no one remembers what happened back when they were emphatically told not to build it in the first place.
It's even more bizarre that this issue didn't even come up last Wednesday since four current councilmembers- Tim Bynum, JoAnn Yukimura, Mel Rapozo and current and then-acting Chair Jay Furfaro were on the council at the time and at the meeting and so were- and are- very aware of the issue.
Ordinarily we'd excerpt a snippet of our prior coverage but the story of then-Councilmember Shaylene Iseri-Carvalho's prosecutorial treatment of county administrative personnel was so outrageous we're going to re-post it in full today.
------
Wednesday, August 27, 2008
DOGGED PERSISTENCE: In an absurdist little drama last Wednesday the Kaua`i County Council finally got County Engineer Donald Fujimoto to admit what everyone has known for a long time- the Pono Kai seawall was illegally constructed and there never have been any permits or exemptions for it.
And he came close to acknowledging his Department of Public Works (DPW) attempts to cover it up by refusing to answer questions about it and asking any investigation be done in secret executive session (ES).
Fujimoto wouldn’t even admit it all until grilled for 15 minutes in a prosecutorial manner by prosecutor-to-be Shaylene Iseri-Carvalho who finally broke him down and forced the admissions.
The revelation of the illegal construction goes back a couple of years to a council session discussing shoreline certifications for the bike path during which experts told the council of the problems with the seawall and during subsequent meetings where the lack of any permits was revealed.
The seawall was constructed after the Hurricane `Iniki which itself took the council weeks to ascertain due to stonewalling and sketchy answers from Fujimoto and other DPW personal who conveniently couldn’t remember how long it had been there.
Finally pre and post hurricane pictures were shown to the council on a slide projector to clear up the 1993 construction date.
Apparently the story is that DPW engineers decided that in all the post hurricane confusion and “emergency permitting” they could construct a seawall to “protect” Pono Kai with no approval whatsoever.
This was done, according to testimony a couple of years ago, despite a 1993 letter from the Army Corps of engineers warning them that it was highly illegal to build the wall.
Fujimoto was not the county engineer at the time of the construction and did not come to that position until the Baptiste administration.
Yet Fujimoto clung to the story saying that it “may have been intentional or unintentional- I’d like to think it was unintentional”, although how the county engineer who routinely processes permits could have unintentionally constructed an illegal sea wall wasn’t clear.
What is clear is that Pono Kai resort had always been worried about it’s proximity to the ocean and wanted the wall, going back years before the hurricane when it tried and failed to build one but especially so after the hurricane battered the place and severely eroded the shoreline.
Fujimoto’s attempt to put the genie back in the bottle continued with him trying to cover-up the information even as the meeting began.
He started by refusing to talk about it at all in open session- after his request last month for an ES was turned down by Public Works Committee Chair Mel Rapozo- by saying he want to “wait for the EA (environmental assessment) to discuss it”.
An EA is currently being conducted by DPW to determine what the environmental impacts of any action on the sea wall would be
Previously Fujimoto tried to blow smoke and cast the usual fog machine the PWD has been famous for since well before his tenure.
He has claimed that the wall was legal under various erroneous propositions and obfuscations, first saying there were permits then when asked to produce them saying he had an exemption due to the governor’s emergency declaration after the hurricane, neither of which was true.
After badgering he finally admitted that at some point he spoke to Sam Lemmo at the State DLNR who told him it was possible someone had thought there might have been an exemption at the time.
Still Fujimoto refused at first to admit the sea wall was illegally constructed in hopes that it would be able to be repaired.
Under the federal law, as well as a “zero tolerance” for un-permitted construction by the state and county, the sea wall would have to be removed although there could be an exemption federally if the damage of removing it would be greater than leaving it in place.
The sea wall is currently a public nuisance and in horribly dilapidated condition and according to what UH experts Dolan Ebersole and Chip Fletcher told the council is making a mess of the whole Kapa`a shoreline.
Both told the council and Fujimoto two years ago that reconstructing an illegal sea wall was not legal under any circumstances. Yet Fujimoto continues to conduct an EA to fix the wall.
Whether the best scientific path is to remove it, rebuild it or leave it alone is a question no one so far has been able to determine.
Fujimoto adamantly maintained that the EA would answer all the legal questions even though everyone knew it was illegal, at first saying “I can’t say if it was legal or illegal”
But despite repeats of this lies Iseri persisted and finally got the truth out of Fujimoto.
She reviewed Fujimoto’s actions and words in claiming there was a permit and then that they didn’t need one and then that they were going to get an “after the fact” one, before she finally asked “You have no evidence to show this wall is legal?”
Fujimoto finally said “That’s correct.” though still maintaining the EA will address that.
Then Iseri focused in on the EA-legalities claim asking “So the EA will look into all the illegalities?”
Fujimoto said “Yes- it will address the impacts”.
After a lot of back and forth finally, after maintaining more than a half a dozen times in direct answers to direct questions that the EA would look a legal questions Fujimoto admitted it wouldn’t and that the County Attorney will address those.
“I stand corrected” he finally said.
What was astonishing was that a couple of months or so ago when being questioned on the sea wall Fujimoto refused to answer the questions in open session asking the council to place the matter on the their executive session agenda.
“Speaking to the County Engineer about DPW’s illegal actions” is not on the list of Sunshine Law exemptions to the open meeting requirements.
This was despite the fact that about two years ago it was widely discussed by the council and they learned in public session of not just the illegal nature of the wall but of the warning letters from the Army Corps of Engineers saying basically “don’t you dare”.
Councilman Ron Kochi was somewhat bemused by Fujimoto shaking his head and saying “you can’t unring the bell” and headscratchingly pondering what Fujimoto thought he was trying to do.
Finally Chair Rapozo summed it up -somewhat haltingly- by saying “It’s no secret that the wall is illegal. I shouldn’t say illegal- it’s un-permitted”, drawing derisive laughter from those gathered.
Believe it or not the council committee concluded it’s session by making plans to take the public knowledge of the illegal wall into executive session to figure out if Kaua`i County will have to repay the state and possibly the feds who financed the project on Kaua`i County’s assurance that they had the permits or an exemption.
Iseri repeated several times that we needed to “come clean” and maybe they’d let us off the financial hook.
No plans were made to investigate the Public Works Department to uncover what most suspect was collusion by Pono Kai and some in the DPW to pull a fast one after the hurricane by building an illegal sea wall.
It only took 15 years to figure out what happened. We’ll be lucky if after 15 years more we catch the culprits because, as has happened dozes of times before- most notably after the Pflueger-McCloskey “Developers Gone Wild” sessions- the Council refuses to investigate the DPW, arguably the most corrupt county department in the state.
Wednesday, March 16, 2011
YOU CAN'T GET THERE FROM HERE
YOU CAN'T GET THERE FROM HERE: If drivers on county roads have had an easy time of it for the past few years with seemingly no delays there's a reason for it.
Because, as revealed at a couple of recent council meetings, the county has failed to do any of it's regular road repaving for at least the past three financial three years, possibly longer.
That's what new County Engineer Larry Dill reluctantly admitted to the council last Wednesday after councilmembers finally examined the budget and found that the monies they appropriated over the last two-plus budget years went unspent, including a "extra" almost two million dollars so that we could "catch up" on the routine maintenance that extends the life of roads.
It all started at the February 23 council meeting with an agenda item asking Department of Public Works (DPW) to discuss road resurfacing.
Our regular readers might remember that, as we wrote in August of 2009, something has been fishy with the contracts for road resurfacing for many years. But at least it was getting done.
According to Council Chair Jay Furfaro there is still $7.9 million sitting there that was supposed to be used for resurfacing to keep county owned roads- as opposed to the state roads- from deteriorating to the point where it would cost many times that amount to fix them.
But the preventive maintenance hasn't been performed in years although no one will quite admit to why.
Dill claims he's too "new" to be able to say what happened after he replaced former County Engineer Donald Fujimoto earlier this year. And long time DPW engineer Ed Renaud, who is now in charge of road resurfacing, was his ever-evasive self, repeating that he "can't" or "won't" answer the council's questions regarding why.
All the council could get out of Dill and Renaud is that a new era is at hand- again- and that all problems will be solved through the purchase of an expensive piece of software called "Micropaver" which will track what roads have been resurfaced and when and what condition all the county's 300 some odd miles of roads are in.
Always quite the character, Renaud claimed he was also "new" although he was apparently able to answer many questions in excruciating detail about how county crews have been doing the actual road resurfacing over the years in conjunction with the contract awardees.
Of course the council wasn't interested in going back and finding out why we were being short changed on the road resurfacing contracts for many years as council watchdog Glenn Mickens has pointed out for the last 15-odd years.
As we wrote in 2009 in describing his research:
To try to be brief, a few years back- make that more than a decade ago- council “nitpicker” Glen Mickens began to notice that, as he took his daily walks pieces of broken off pavement sat by the side of the road which upon measurement were apparently thinner than the standard and required 1 ½ inches thick.
He made it his quest- one that, despite detailed presentation to the council no one so far seems to want to hear- to inform the council about how not only is the county paying for 1 ½ inch paving and not getting it but that, for some reason no one can adequately explain, on Kaua`i the standard of 90 sq. ft. of asphalt per ton is used while the national standard is 120 sq. ft. per ton to get that 1 ½”.
That means that, if anything, we should be getting roads that are 33% thicker than 1 ½” or 2” thick.
The question is, where is the extra asphalt going- a question the Public Works Department has been unable to answer.
You can also read Mickens' more detailed account contained in the same post.
Supposedly a contract for a good portion of the money available- $5.4 million- has gone out to bid and will be awarded by the summer according to Dill and Renaud. But as far as accountability for the past we'll have to wait and see what County Auditor Ernie Pasion comes up with in his performance audit of the road resurfacing program that's due later this year.
Because, as revealed at a couple of recent council meetings, the county has failed to do any of it's regular road repaving for at least the past three financial three years, possibly longer.
That's what new County Engineer Larry Dill reluctantly admitted to the council last Wednesday after councilmembers finally examined the budget and found that the monies they appropriated over the last two-plus budget years went unspent, including a "extra" almost two million dollars so that we could "catch up" on the routine maintenance that extends the life of roads.
It all started at the February 23 council meeting with an agenda item asking Department of Public Works (DPW) to discuss road resurfacing.
Our regular readers might remember that, as we wrote in August of 2009, something has been fishy with the contracts for road resurfacing for many years. But at least it was getting done.
According to Council Chair Jay Furfaro there is still $7.9 million sitting there that was supposed to be used for resurfacing to keep county owned roads- as opposed to the state roads- from deteriorating to the point where it would cost many times that amount to fix them.
But the preventive maintenance hasn't been performed in years although no one will quite admit to why.
Dill claims he's too "new" to be able to say what happened after he replaced former County Engineer Donald Fujimoto earlier this year. And long time DPW engineer Ed Renaud, who is now in charge of road resurfacing, was his ever-evasive self, repeating that he "can't" or "won't" answer the council's questions regarding why.
All the council could get out of Dill and Renaud is that a new era is at hand- again- and that all problems will be solved through the purchase of an expensive piece of software called "Micropaver" which will track what roads have been resurfaced and when and what condition all the county's 300 some odd miles of roads are in.
Always quite the character, Renaud claimed he was also "new" although he was apparently able to answer many questions in excruciating detail about how county crews have been doing the actual road resurfacing over the years in conjunction with the contract awardees.
Of course the council wasn't interested in going back and finding out why we were being short changed on the road resurfacing contracts for many years as council watchdog Glenn Mickens has pointed out for the last 15-odd years.
As we wrote in 2009 in describing his research:
To try to be brief, a few years back- make that more than a decade ago- council “nitpicker” Glen Mickens began to notice that, as he took his daily walks pieces of broken off pavement sat by the side of the road which upon measurement were apparently thinner than the standard and required 1 ½ inches thick.
He made it his quest- one that, despite detailed presentation to the council no one so far seems to want to hear- to inform the council about how not only is the county paying for 1 ½ inch paving and not getting it but that, for some reason no one can adequately explain, on Kaua`i the standard of 90 sq. ft. of asphalt per ton is used while the national standard is 120 sq. ft. per ton to get that 1 ½”.
That means that, if anything, we should be getting roads that are 33% thicker than 1 ½” or 2” thick.
The question is, where is the extra asphalt going- a question the Public Works Department has been unable to answer.
You can also read Mickens' more detailed account contained in the same post.
Supposedly a contract for a good portion of the money available- $5.4 million- has gone out to bid and will be awarded by the summer according to Dill and Renaud. But as far as accountability for the past we'll have to wait and see what County Auditor Ernie Pasion comes up with in his performance audit of the road resurfacing program that's due later this year.
Monday, November 1, 2010
A FINAL WORD
A FINAL WORD: Kaua`i has never been much of a place for the “October surprise”. While whispering campaigns have been few and far between we can’t even remember a last minute revelation about a candidate in print.
But last week’s excoriation of Tim Bynum by our friend Joan Conrow contained not just her reasons for not voting for Tim- many of which we agreed with- but reported one tidbit about Bynum that we had been trying to find out more about for the last month or so.
Joan starts out by saying
When Tim finally did get elected, in 2006, I was hearing a lot of talk about how we — as in mainland haoles — needed to elect a haole to represent our interests on the Council and fight the “old boy” system. They saw Tim as "the great white hope."
Of course, Tim is actually a product of that very same system, seeing as how he was appointed by the late Mayor Baptiste to run the totally worthless, do-nothing county “outreach” program known as Ka Leo O Kauai — a position Tim lists as Community Response Specialist on his resume.
Though we never saw Tim as such, for just that reason- in addition to his involvement with the bike path as Joan also cites- it’s hard to see how being a crony of Baptiste’s is compatible with being “the great white hope”, as Joan says.
And more than fair criticism was the fact that Bynum extensively talks about the horrors of how our ag land has been subdivided and condominiumized (CPRs) into gentlemen’s estates but built his house on CPRed ag land.
Then of course there’s his transient vacation rental (TVR) bill which weakened the 2008 bill that banned new TVRs on residentially zoned lands and opened up ag lands to TVRs, which were banned under the original bill.
We aren’t the only ones for whom that was the tipping point on whether to give Tim our support tomorrow so no disagreement there.
But then comes the story that we’ve been chasing since Ken Taylor raised it during a council meeting a while back.
What Tim fails to mention is that he himself bought a lot in one of those pretend farm developments, built a house and let someone graze a horse in the yard to further the pretense.
What's more, he is the subject of a formal complaint alleging that he’s been operating an illegal dwelling unit within his single-family residence. However, when a county inspector went to check it out, Tim refused to give him access to the house — even though he had signed a use permit agreeing to periodic inspections. Tim also failed to respond to numerous susequent (sic) written requests for access. As a result, Tim was issued a zoning compliance notice and the county will seek a search warrant to conduct the inspection.
Wow. No wonder Tim wouldn’t answer our emails asking him for clarification. We asked Conrow if she had a copy of what should be a publicly available complaint, especially in light of one comments which said,
The rumor is that Tim was set up by a trespassing planning inspector who was probably there at the request of one of the mean three (K.A., M.R. and S.I.C) and who tried to accuse him of having an illegal kitchen for having a coffee maker plugged in a bedroom or something ridiculous like that. If that is true (I'd like to know before the election) it would seem like a political dirty trick aimed at getting an uninformed media to ruin his election chances.
We certainly would like to know the source of the complaint but haven’t as yet heard back from Joan. We certainly trust Joan’s reporting and would like to hear Bynum’s side of the story. Our question is in the timing of the report and the wisdom of publishing it in the middle of a piece with such obvious animus.
But then Joan says something that baffled us.
This sort of refusal has happened only once before, by a man who had 20 unpermitted houses on his property, and it's certainly surprising to such behavior in someone sworn to uphold the law. Normally, people want to give an inspector access to show they're in compliance. Unless, of course, they're not. Perhaps that's why Tim never replied when I asked him for a comment.
Only once before? Hasn’t Joan followed the stories about people like Jimmy Pflueger and Tom McCloskey as well as other “Friends of Maryanne” Kusaka who refused entry to Department of Public Works (DPW) and Planning inspectors until Kusaka allegedly told them to back off?
This has been a huge issue for both DPW and the Planning Department with both County Engineer Donald Fujimoto (and his predecessors) and Planning Director Ian Costa who have bitterly complained over and over on specific cases- on the record at planning and council meetings- that they have been denied entry to people’s properties and have begged for a law which allows them to gain entry administratively.
But then comes the criticism that makes us think that if Joan had watched the council in action she might have gotten a different impression.
In further supposed support for farming, Tim recently introduced three bills related to agricultural lands. But because he has failed so miserably at consensus-building (another one of his campaign pledges), the Council nixed them immediately. However, his oft-stated quest to reduce density on ag land — which would hit family farms hardest — instilled sufficient fear in some large ag land owners that they moved to lock in their density, including CPRs, while they could. As a result, speculator/developer Tom McCloskey now has 1,000 units all lined up and ready to go in Kealia.
Actually those bills were first introduced by Mayor Bryan Baptiste years ago and McCloskey has had his units “all lined up” for years.
But to blame the obstructionism of those who are letting some personal revenge factor on the target of their ire is pretty tea-partyish. And, as a matter of fact, talking to more than one other councilperson about a bill before it is introduced is highly illegal.
After justifiably criticizing the thousand dollars in campaign funds from the Transient Vacation Rental Association Conrow then says something that we can’t fathom, especially from a journalist who deals in documents and should know how important access to them as well as transparency and accountability in government is.
All in all, it's pretty hypocritical for someone who wrote, in his response to the previously mentioned questionnaire:
I believe that public participation in government is essential, and helps us make better decisions. For that reason I have tried to improve the public process, specifically by advocating for easy access to public documents, release of county attorney opinions of Law, and public broadcast of all council proceedings — including budget hearings. Frankly, I am dismayed that this has been contentious and difficult.
Perhaps it was contentious and difficult because Tim, who was later joined by Lani, never sat down with the Council Chair or sought support from other Councilmembers to work out such a change. Instead, they turned it into a self-serving and very public crusade of “us against them,” making a mockery of his campaign pledge to “strive for consensus.”
If Joan had actually viewed all the meetings on the topic rather than relying on the notoriously inept reporting in the local newspaper, she would have known that Bynum repeatedly tried to meet with Chair Kaipo Asing’s despite Asing denial- that is until Tim produced the document requesting a meeting and that it was Lani, relying on Tim who was introducing the needed changes- who didn’t meet with Asing.
While we have many reasons to withhold support for Bynum this year- and it was not an easy decision for just this reason- his fight for access to the agenda for councilmembers and the posting of public documents on-line as well as many other instances of abuse of the rules and process by Asing (as we’ve detailed over and over) was the one high points of this council term.
To blame those who fight for positive change in the face of paternalistic intransigence for “not striving for consensus” is the reason why Asing and the three D’s- Derek, Dickie and Darryl- got away with their obstructionism.
And guess what- the subject documents are still not posted on-line.
But the reason why it sticks in our craw is because it’s not just Joan who seems to take this attitude.
Way too often we hear from candidates- and from voters- that we need to “all get along” and “stop all the fighting.”
But those blaming people who fight hindrances and impediments to change thrown up by the forces of the broken status quo seem to have very little understanding of what open governance really means.
Is that what you want?.. politicians “seeking consensus” in back rooms rather than before the public at a meeting, as provided in the sunshine law?
Bynum’s and Kawahara’s crusade for accountability and transparency and access to documents should not be the subject of closed door meetings- the antithesis of the spirit- and letter- of the law.
This type of criticism assures that nothing will ever change except for assuring that, when those who challenge corruption and the old boys’ control over the process are turned out of office, the next politician won’t fail to get the “sit down and shut up” message.
And as long as politically astute progressives buy into this Kumbaya form of governance the Minotaurs and their minions will continue to control access to “our” government.
But last week’s excoriation of Tim Bynum by our friend Joan Conrow contained not just her reasons for not voting for Tim- many of which we agreed with- but reported one tidbit about Bynum that we had been trying to find out more about for the last month or so.
Joan starts out by saying
When Tim finally did get elected, in 2006, I was hearing a lot of talk about how we — as in mainland haoles — needed to elect a haole to represent our interests on the Council and fight the “old boy” system. They saw Tim as "the great white hope."
Of course, Tim is actually a product of that very same system, seeing as how he was appointed by the late Mayor Baptiste to run the totally worthless, do-nothing county “outreach” program known as Ka Leo O Kauai — a position Tim lists as Community Response Specialist on his resume.
Though we never saw Tim as such, for just that reason- in addition to his involvement with the bike path as Joan also cites- it’s hard to see how being a crony of Baptiste’s is compatible with being “the great white hope”, as Joan says.
And more than fair criticism was the fact that Bynum extensively talks about the horrors of how our ag land has been subdivided and condominiumized (CPRs) into gentlemen’s estates but built his house on CPRed ag land.
Then of course there’s his transient vacation rental (TVR) bill which weakened the 2008 bill that banned new TVRs on residentially zoned lands and opened up ag lands to TVRs, which were banned under the original bill.
We aren’t the only ones for whom that was the tipping point on whether to give Tim our support tomorrow so no disagreement there.
But then comes the story that we’ve been chasing since Ken Taylor raised it during a council meeting a while back.
What Tim fails to mention is that he himself bought a lot in one of those pretend farm developments, built a house and let someone graze a horse in the yard to further the pretense.
What's more, he is the subject of a formal complaint alleging that he’s been operating an illegal dwelling unit within his single-family residence. However, when a county inspector went to check it out, Tim refused to give him access to the house — even though he had signed a use permit agreeing to periodic inspections. Tim also failed to respond to numerous susequent (sic) written requests for access. As a result, Tim was issued a zoning compliance notice and the county will seek a search warrant to conduct the inspection.
Wow. No wonder Tim wouldn’t answer our emails asking him for clarification. We asked Conrow if she had a copy of what should be a publicly available complaint, especially in light of one comments which said,
The rumor is that Tim was set up by a trespassing planning inspector who was probably there at the request of one of the mean three (K.A., M.R. and S.I.C) and who tried to accuse him of having an illegal kitchen for having a coffee maker plugged in a bedroom or something ridiculous like that. If that is true (I'd like to know before the election) it would seem like a political dirty trick aimed at getting an uninformed media to ruin his election chances.
We certainly would like to know the source of the complaint but haven’t as yet heard back from Joan. We certainly trust Joan’s reporting and would like to hear Bynum’s side of the story. Our question is in the timing of the report and the wisdom of publishing it in the middle of a piece with such obvious animus.
But then Joan says something that baffled us.
This sort of refusal has happened only once before, by a man who had 20 unpermitted houses on his property, and it's certainly surprising to such behavior in someone sworn to uphold the law. Normally, people want to give an inspector access to show they're in compliance. Unless, of course, they're not. Perhaps that's why Tim never replied when I asked him for a comment.
Only once before? Hasn’t Joan followed the stories about people like Jimmy Pflueger and Tom McCloskey as well as other “Friends of Maryanne” Kusaka who refused entry to Department of Public Works (DPW) and Planning inspectors until Kusaka allegedly told them to back off?
This has been a huge issue for both DPW and the Planning Department with both County Engineer Donald Fujimoto (and his predecessors) and Planning Director Ian Costa who have bitterly complained over and over on specific cases- on the record at planning and council meetings- that they have been denied entry to people’s properties and have begged for a law which allows them to gain entry administratively.
But then comes the criticism that makes us think that if Joan had watched the council in action she might have gotten a different impression.
In further supposed support for farming, Tim recently introduced three bills related to agricultural lands. But because he has failed so miserably at consensus-building (another one of his campaign pledges), the Council nixed them immediately. However, his oft-stated quest to reduce density on ag land — which would hit family farms hardest — instilled sufficient fear in some large ag land owners that they moved to lock in their density, including CPRs, while they could. As a result, speculator/developer Tom McCloskey now has 1,000 units all lined up and ready to go in Kealia.
Actually those bills were first introduced by Mayor Bryan Baptiste years ago and McCloskey has had his units “all lined up” for years.
But to blame the obstructionism of those who are letting some personal revenge factor on the target of their ire is pretty tea-partyish. And, as a matter of fact, talking to more than one other councilperson about a bill before it is introduced is highly illegal.
After justifiably criticizing the thousand dollars in campaign funds from the Transient Vacation Rental Association Conrow then says something that we can’t fathom, especially from a journalist who deals in documents and should know how important access to them as well as transparency and accountability in government is.
All in all, it's pretty hypocritical for someone who wrote, in his response to the previously mentioned questionnaire:
I believe that public participation in government is essential, and helps us make better decisions. For that reason I have tried to improve the public process, specifically by advocating for easy access to public documents, release of county attorney opinions of Law, and public broadcast of all council proceedings — including budget hearings. Frankly, I am dismayed that this has been contentious and difficult.
Perhaps it was contentious and difficult because Tim, who was later joined by Lani, never sat down with the Council Chair or sought support from other Councilmembers to work out such a change. Instead, they turned it into a self-serving and very public crusade of “us against them,” making a mockery of his campaign pledge to “strive for consensus.”
If Joan had actually viewed all the meetings on the topic rather than relying on the notoriously inept reporting in the local newspaper, she would have known that Bynum repeatedly tried to meet with Chair Kaipo Asing’s despite Asing denial- that is until Tim produced the document requesting a meeting and that it was Lani, relying on Tim who was introducing the needed changes- who didn’t meet with Asing.
While we have many reasons to withhold support for Bynum this year- and it was not an easy decision for just this reason- his fight for access to the agenda for councilmembers and the posting of public documents on-line as well as many other instances of abuse of the rules and process by Asing (as we’ve detailed over and over) was the one high points of this council term.
To blame those who fight for positive change in the face of paternalistic intransigence for “not striving for consensus” is the reason why Asing and the three D’s- Derek, Dickie and Darryl- got away with their obstructionism.
And guess what- the subject documents are still not posted on-line.
But the reason why it sticks in our craw is because it’s not just Joan who seems to take this attitude.
Way too often we hear from candidates- and from voters- that we need to “all get along” and “stop all the fighting.”
But those blaming people who fight hindrances and impediments to change thrown up by the forces of the broken status quo seem to have very little understanding of what open governance really means.
Is that what you want?.. politicians “seeking consensus” in back rooms rather than before the public at a meeting, as provided in the sunshine law?
Bynum’s and Kawahara’s crusade for accountability and transparency and access to documents should not be the subject of closed door meetings- the antithesis of the spirit- and letter- of the law.
This type of criticism assures that nothing will ever change except for assuring that, when those who challenge corruption and the old boys’ control over the process are turned out of office, the next politician won’t fail to get the “sit down and shut up” message.
And as long as politically astute progressives buy into this Kumbaya form of governance the Minotaurs and their minions will continue to control access to “our” government.
Tuesday, October 7, 2008
GIVE HIM A BISCUIT AD MAYBE HE WON’T BITE YA
GIVE HIM A BISCUIT AD MAYBE HE WON’T BITE YA: Often when people criticize the actions of government they end their rant with the phrase “they must think we’re stupid”.
But that kind of statement implies a falsehood- the proposition that in fact that “we” aren’t... stupid that is. And there’s nothing that makes people stupider than money
And so the town of Kekaha met last night to decide what to do with the bribe that the administration and council came up with to get people on the far Westside to let them expand the landfill by paying them off with about a third of a million dollars “for the community”.
And the residents did what any group of people would do when given a big pile of money- they started squabbling over it.
What’s really going on here is a not-so-hair-brained scheme that assumes- probably rightly- that it’s going to be possible to do what otherwise has been impossible for the last 20 years due to individual community opposition putting a landfill in any neighborhood.
This trial balloon bestows taxpayer money upon Kekaha and according to at least one person in attendance, though the smelly site and rumbling trucks on the highway were unbearably and disgustingly objectionable just last year, now apparently money changes everything.
It seems that no one at the meeting- called to decide how to spend the money- now objects to the landfill anymore. But they do however object to being told how to spend the money.
Because County Engineer Donald Fujimoto revealed the attached strings last night by telling people that the county is forming a “citizen’s advisory board” to decide and the board will contain five members of the county administration and “eight community members” all of whom will be selected not by the community but by the mayor.
“That’s nonsense” says former mayoral candidate Rolf Bieber. “How is that a community process when the people are all selected by the mayor?”
Bieber described another of those PowerPoint presentations we talked about yesterday- a fancy name for 14 pages of big print containing outline subject headings, projected like a slide show on a screen with about enough content to fill one side of a sheet of paper.
In it Fujimoto told the crowd the parameters as to how the people were to be allowed to bicker over how to spend the cash.
Bieber also asked, as many at the meeting did, just what “the Kekaha community” is?
According to residents the worst part of the existence of the landfill in Kekaha is the trucks that rumble through town on their way to the dump. But unaddressed by the county is the fact that everyone along the highway all over the island has four wheels and flies rumbling by in an inversely proportionally diminishing number as the distance from the dump increases.
“So where’s the cash for those living right on the highway in Kekaha” asked residents, failing of course to ask that the money also be distributed to those on the highway outside of Kekaha, although some Waimea people in attendance weren’t happy they weren’t considered part of Kekaha and so not getting any of the new-found riches.
But this whole payoff to Kekaha is really just a way to try to deal with the fact that, though “everyone” wants a new landfill on Kaua`i no one wants it in their backyard.
That’s been the bugaboo for the last 20 years. in which time each attempt to site a new dump has met with such fierce opposition from the “host community” that the county council’s already pathetic lack of political will was diminished seven times over.
The answer to the questions “how dumb do they think we are” may not have a strict quantitative bottom but whatever the level of stupidity is, it apparently increases in direct proportion to the amount of money people are paid to be idiots.
So the plan is obviously to pick a community and pay off those who are on the other side of town so they’ll come out and actually support the siting of a new landfill even though their neighbors don’t want it in their back yard.
Knowing how self absorbed and greedy people are it’s not that bad of a “wool over the eyes" plan.
Suppose they want to put a new dump where the old one was in Kapa`a. You can bet anyone who lives in the area within 1000 yards of it won’t care how much money is thrown at the town- they won’t want it.
And in the past all else being equal their neighbors – even those five miles away- supported them and maybe even turned out en masse at a council meeting and threatened the pols with political oblivion if they put a dump in Kapa`a.
But if Kekaha is any example once there’s cold currency on the table the amount people who care if a dump is placed “in Kapa`a” is inversely proportional to how far away they live- the greater the distance, the less the concern. Someone in Kapahi or Wailua Homesteads or Houselots will probably take their bribe and shut up about it.
Is this how we want our cash-strapped county’s money spent- dividing and conquering our communities by paying them off with a new neighborhood center or swimming pool?
This actually goes back to the question of why the heck we are siting a new landfill in the first place instead of looking at a Zero-Waste program.
The answer, as we described in June, is that the money for another bogus study from favorite consultant RW Beck was recently spent for the third time and so we’re stuck throwing good money after bad for the next 50 years according to the incumbent councilpeople and many of their flummoxed newbie wannabe sycophants in this year’s election like Derik Kawakami, Dickie Chang and Ron Agor.
And its supported by both mayoral candidates.
The real solution- as we’ve said to no avail before- is to ship our trash back where it came from- the mainland.
Landfills in the northwest are fighting over the chance to take the last dribs and drabs of waste that cannot be recycled, reused and composted- and then even burned, if the Beck recommendations are implemented.
But the largess for the companies who run the current system is so great that the pols, who get their campaign cash from them, are bound to kow-tow.
And for more pressure look only as far as the county workers who irrationally fear they will lose jobs- irrationally because the jobs will just be switched over to loading the stuff on a barge rather than trucking it to a landfill.
Though the claim is made that it would be more expensive to ship it back, that contention- made going back to the beginning of the Kusaka administration- is not just shibai but has never been shown to be true in any of the numerous consultant studies. That’s because they have refused to actually quantify it in the Beck reports, despite promises from mayors and councilpeople to study the option.
And if we are going to be paying yearly hush money to a town to accept a new dump, the cost of landfilling is only going up.
Not only that but we now know that the price of the landfill is going to be twice of what the early guesstimates were and are increasing all the time, along with the number and types of expensive EPA requirements for opening maintaining and closing them.
When Honolulu recently started shipping it’s trash back - although only partially and supposedly temporarily- their announced total costs were even less than our current Kaua`i landfill “tipping fee” and that doesn’t include all the extra and hidden costs of the process.
And it doesn’t include the Beck proposed tipping fee increases since the fee doesn’t cover costs now.
And in an ecological sense shipping it back make perfect sense. Once you remove the greenwaste, 100% of our trash came from off island to begin with,. Does it make more sense to use our tiny island area and throw all the stuff we bring in into a hole or to send it back to where it came from where land is 1/100th the price and 100 times more available?
But instead of doing something that makes sense and is ecologically sound – and arguably would cost less money- we still act like the Minotaur- we “will do what’s wrong as long as we can”.
How stupid do they think we are? We’re not sure why but somehow the words to the following Bobby Dylan seem appropriate.
On The Road Again
Well, I wake up in the morning
There's frogs inside my socks
Your mama, she's a-hidin'
Inside the icebox
Your daddy walks in wearin'
A Napoleon Bonarparte mask
Then you ask why I don't live here
Honey, do you have to ask ?
Well, I go to pet your monkey
I get a face full of claws
I ask who's in the fireplace
And you tell me Santa Claus
The milkman comes in
He's wearing a derby hat
And you ask why I don't live here
Honey, how come you have to ask me that ?
Well, I asked for something to eat
I'm hungry as a hog
So I get brown rice, seaweed
And a dirty hot dog
I've got a hole
Where my stomach disappeared
Then you ask why I don't live here
Honey, I gotta think you're really weird.
Your grandpa's cane
It turns into a sword
Your grandma prays to pictures
That are pasted on a board
Everything inside my pockets
Your uncle steals
And you ask me why I don't live here
Honey, I can't believe that you're for real.
Well, there's fist fight in the kitchen
They're enough to make me cry
The mailman comes in
Even he's gotta take a side
Even the butler
He's got something to prove
Then you ask me why I don't live here
Honey, how come you don't move ?
But that kind of statement implies a falsehood- the proposition that in fact that “we” aren’t... stupid that is. And there’s nothing that makes people stupider than money
And so the town of Kekaha met last night to decide what to do with the bribe that the administration and council came up with to get people on the far Westside to let them expand the landfill by paying them off with about a third of a million dollars “for the community”.
And the residents did what any group of people would do when given a big pile of money- they started squabbling over it.
What’s really going on here is a not-so-hair-brained scheme that assumes- probably rightly- that it’s going to be possible to do what otherwise has been impossible for the last 20 years due to individual community opposition putting a landfill in any neighborhood.
This trial balloon bestows taxpayer money upon Kekaha and according to at least one person in attendance, though the smelly site and rumbling trucks on the highway were unbearably and disgustingly objectionable just last year, now apparently money changes everything.
It seems that no one at the meeting- called to decide how to spend the money- now objects to the landfill anymore. But they do however object to being told how to spend the money.
Because County Engineer Donald Fujimoto revealed the attached strings last night by telling people that the county is forming a “citizen’s advisory board” to decide and the board will contain five members of the county administration and “eight community members” all of whom will be selected not by the community but by the mayor.
“That’s nonsense” says former mayoral candidate Rolf Bieber. “How is that a community process when the people are all selected by the mayor?”
Bieber described another of those PowerPoint presentations we talked about yesterday- a fancy name for 14 pages of big print containing outline subject headings, projected like a slide show on a screen with about enough content to fill one side of a sheet of paper.
In it Fujimoto told the crowd the parameters as to how the people were to be allowed to bicker over how to spend the cash.
Bieber also asked, as many at the meeting did, just what “the Kekaha community” is?
According to residents the worst part of the existence of the landfill in Kekaha is the trucks that rumble through town on their way to the dump. But unaddressed by the county is the fact that everyone along the highway all over the island has four wheels and flies rumbling by in an inversely proportionally diminishing number as the distance from the dump increases.
“So where’s the cash for those living right on the highway in Kekaha” asked residents, failing of course to ask that the money also be distributed to those on the highway outside of Kekaha, although some Waimea people in attendance weren’t happy they weren’t considered part of Kekaha and so not getting any of the new-found riches.
But this whole payoff to Kekaha is really just a way to try to deal with the fact that, though “everyone” wants a new landfill on Kaua`i no one wants it in their backyard.
That’s been the bugaboo for the last 20 years. in which time each attempt to site a new dump has met with such fierce opposition from the “host community” that the county council’s already pathetic lack of political will was diminished seven times over.
The answer to the questions “how dumb do they think we are” may not have a strict quantitative bottom but whatever the level of stupidity is, it apparently increases in direct proportion to the amount of money people are paid to be idiots.
So the plan is obviously to pick a community and pay off those who are on the other side of town so they’ll come out and actually support the siting of a new landfill even though their neighbors don’t want it in their back yard.
Knowing how self absorbed and greedy people are it’s not that bad of a “wool over the eyes" plan.
Suppose they want to put a new dump where the old one was in Kapa`a. You can bet anyone who lives in the area within 1000 yards of it won’t care how much money is thrown at the town- they won’t want it.
And in the past all else being equal their neighbors – even those five miles away- supported them and maybe even turned out en masse at a council meeting and threatened the pols with political oblivion if they put a dump in Kapa`a.
But if Kekaha is any example once there’s cold currency on the table the amount people who care if a dump is placed “in Kapa`a” is inversely proportional to how far away they live- the greater the distance, the less the concern. Someone in Kapahi or Wailua Homesteads or Houselots will probably take their bribe and shut up about it.
Is this how we want our cash-strapped county’s money spent- dividing and conquering our communities by paying them off with a new neighborhood center or swimming pool?
This actually goes back to the question of why the heck we are siting a new landfill in the first place instead of looking at a Zero-Waste program.
The answer, as we described in June, is that the money for another bogus study from favorite consultant RW Beck was recently spent for the third time and so we’re stuck throwing good money after bad for the next 50 years according to the incumbent councilpeople and many of their flummoxed newbie wannabe sycophants in this year’s election like Derik Kawakami, Dickie Chang and Ron Agor.
And its supported by both mayoral candidates.
The real solution- as we’ve said to no avail before- is to ship our trash back where it came from- the mainland.
Landfills in the northwest are fighting over the chance to take the last dribs and drabs of waste that cannot be recycled, reused and composted- and then even burned, if the Beck recommendations are implemented.
But the largess for the companies who run the current system is so great that the pols, who get their campaign cash from them, are bound to kow-tow.
And for more pressure look only as far as the county workers who irrationally fear they will lose jobs- irrationally because the jobs will just be switched over to loading the stuff on a barge rather than trucking it to a landfill.
Though the claim is made that it would be more expensive to ship it back, that contention- made going back to the beginning of the Kusaka administration- is not just shibai but has never been shown to be true in any of the numerous consultant studies. That’s because they have refused to actually quantify it in the Beck reports, despite promises from mayors and councilpeople to study the option.
And if we are going to be paying yearly hush money to a town to accept a new dump, the cost of landfilling is only going up.
Not only that but we now know that the price of the landfill is going to be twice of what the early guesstimates were and are increasing all the time, along with the number and types of expensive EPA requirements for opening maintaining and closing them.
When Honolulu recently started shipping it’s trash back - although only partially and supposedly temporarily- their announced total costs were even less than our current Kaua`i landfill “tipping fee” and that doesn’t include all the extra and hidden costs of the process.
And it doesn’t include the Beck proposed tipping fee increases since the fee doesn’t cover costs now.
And in an ecological sense shipping it back make perfect sense. Once you remove the greenwaste, 100% of our trash came from off island to begin with,. Does it make more sense to use our tiny island area and throw all the stuff we bring in into a hole or to send it back to where it came from where land is 1/100th the price and 100 times more available?
But instead of doing something that makes sense and is ecologically sound – and arguably would cost less money- we still act like the Minotaur- we “will do what’s wrong as long as we can”.
How stupid do they think we are? We’re not sure why but somehow the words to the following Bobby Dylan seem appropriate.
On The Road Again
Well, I wake up in the morning
There's frogs inside my socks
Your mama, she's a-hidin'
Inside the icebox
Your daddy walks in wearin'
A Napoleon Bonarparte mask
Then you ask why I don't live here
Honey, do you have to ask ?
Well, I go to pet your monkey
I get a face full of claws
I ask who's in the fireplace
And you tell me Santa Claus
The milkman comes in
He's wearing a derby hat
And you ask why I don't live here
Honey, how come you have to ask me that ?
Well, I asked for something to eat
I'm hungry as a hog
So I get brown rice, seaweed
And a dirty hot dog
I've got a hole
Where my stomach disappeared
Then you ask why I don't live here
Honey, I gotta think you're really weird.
Your grandpa's cane
It turns into a sword
Your grandma prays to pictures
That are pasted on a board
Everything inside my pockets
Your uncle steals
And you ask me why I don't live here
Honey, I can't believe that you're for real.
Well, there's fist fight in the kitchen
They're enough to make me cry
The mailman comes in
Even he's gotta take a side
Even the butler
He's got something to prove
Then you ask me why I don't live here
Honey, how come you don't move ?
Wednesday, August 27, 2008
DOGGED PERSISTENCE
DOGGED PERSISTENCE: In an absurdist little drama last Wednesday the Kaua`i County Council finally got County Engineer Donald Fujimoto to admit what everyone has known for a long time- the Pono Kai seawall was illegally constructed and there never have been any permits or exemptions for it.
And he came close to acknowledging his Department of Public Works (DPW) attempts to cover it up by refusing to answer questions about it and asking any investigation be done in secret executive session (ES)..
Fujimoto wouldn’t even admit it all until grilled for 15 minutes in a prosecutorial manner by prosecutor-to-be Shaylene Iseri-Carvalho who finally broke him down and forced the admissions.
The revelation of the illegal construction goes back a couple of years to a council session discussing shoreline certifications for the bike path during which experts told the council of the problems with the seawall and during subsequent meetings where the lack of any permits was revealed.
The seawall was constructed after the Hurricane `Iniki which itself took the council weeks to ascertain due to stonewalling and sketchy answers from Fujimoto and other DPW personal who conveniently couldn’t remember how long it had been there.
Finally pre and post hurricane pictures were shown to the council on a slide projector to clear up the 1993 construction date.
Apparently the story is that DPW engineers decided that in all the post hurricane confusion and “emergency permitting” they could construct a seawall to “protect” Pono Kai with no approval whatsoever.
This was done, according to testimony a couple of years ago, despite a 1993 letter from the Army Corps of engineers warning them that it was highly illegal to build the wall.
Fujimoto was not the county engineer at the time of the construction and did not come to that position until the Baptiste administration.
Yet Fujimoto clung to the story saying that it “may have been intentional or unintentional- I’d like to think it was unintentional”, although how the county engineer who routinely processes permits could have unintentionally constructed an illegal sea wall wasn’t clear.
What is clear is that Pono Kai resort had always been worried about it’s proximity to the ocean and wanted the wall, going back years before the hurricane when it tried and failed to build one but especially so after the hurricane battered the place and severely eroded the shoreline.
Fujimoto’s attempt to put the genie back in the bottle continued with him trying to cover-up the information even as the meeting began.
He started by refusing to talk about it at all in open session- after his request last month for an ES was turned down by Public Works Committee Chair Mel Rapozo- by saying he want to “wait for the EA (environmental assessment) to discuss it”.
An EA is currently being conducted by DPW to determine what the environmental impacts of any action on the sea wall would be
Previously Fujimoto tried to blow smoke and cast the usual fog machine the PWD has been famous for since well before his tenure.
He has claimed that the wall was legal under various erroneous propositions and obfuscations, first saying there were permits then when asked to produce them saying he had an exemption due to the governor’s emergency declaration after the hurricane, neither of which was true.
After badgering he finally admitted that at some point he spoke to Sam Lemmo at the State DLNR who told him it was possible someone had thought there might have been an exemption at the time.
Still Fujimoto refused at first to admit the sea wall was illegally constructed in hopes that it would be able to be repaired.
Under the federal law, as well as a “zero tolerance” for un-permitted construction by the state and county, the sea wall would have to be removed although there could be an exemption federally if the damage of removing it would be greater than leaving it in place..
The sea wall is currently a public nuisance and in horribly dilapidated condition and according to what UH experts Dolan Ebersole and Chip Fletcher told the council is making a mess of the whole Kapa`a shoreline.
Both told the council and Fujimoto two years ago that reconstructing an illegal sea wall was not legal under any circumstances. Yet Fujimoto continues to conduct an EA to fix the wall.
Whether the best scientific path is to remove it, rebuild it or leave it alone is a question no one so far has been able to determine.
Fujimoto adamantly maintained that the EA would answer all the legal questions even though everyone knew it was illegal, at first saying “I can’t say if it was legal or illegal”
But despite repeats of this lies Iseri persisted and finally got the truth out of Fujimoto.
She reviewed Fujimoto’s actions and words in claiming there was a permit and then that they didn’t need one and then that they were going to get an “after the fact” one, before she finally asked “You have no evidence to show this wall is legal?”
Fujimoto finally said “That’s correct.” though still maintaining the EA will address that.
Then Iseri focused in on the EA-legalities claim asking “So the EA will look into all the illegalities?”
Fujimoto said “Yes- it will address the impacts”.
After a lot of back and forth finally, after maintaining more than a half a dozen times in direct answers to direct questions that the EA would look a legal questions Fujimoto admitted it wouldn’t and that the County Attorney will address those.
“I stand corrected” he finally said.
What was astonishing was that a couple of months or so ago when being questioned on the sea wall Fujimoto refused to answer the questions in open session asking the council to place the matter on the their executive session agenda
“Speaking to the County Engineer about DPW’s illegal actions” is not on the list of Sunshine Law exemptions to the open meeting requirements,.
This was despite the fact that about two years ago it was widely discussed by the council and they learned in public session of not just the illegal nature of the wall but of the warning letters from the Army Corps of Engineers saying basically “don’t you dare”..
Councilman Ron Kochi was somewhat bemused by Fujimoto shaking his head and saying “you can’t unring the bell” and headscratchingly pondering what Fujimoto thought he was trying to do.
Finally Chair Rapozo summed it up -somewhat haltingly- by saying “It’s no secret that the wall is illegal. I shouldn’t say illegal- it’s un-permitted”, drawing derisive laughter from those gathered.
Believe it or not the council committee concluded it’s session by making plans to take the public knowledge of the illegal wall into executive session to figure out if Kaua`i County will have to repay the state and possibly the feds who financed the project on Kaua`i County’s assurance that they had the permits or an exemption.
Iseri repeated several times that we needed to “come clean” and maybe they’d let us off the financial hook.
No plans were made to investigate the Public Works Department to uncover what most suspect was collusion by Pono Kai and some in the DPW to pull a fast one after the hurricane by building an illegal sea wall.
It only took 15 years to figure out what happened. We’ll be lucky if after 15 years more we catch the culprits because, as has happened dozes of times before- most notably after the Pflueger-McCloskey “Developers Gone Wild” sessions- the Council refuses to investigate the DPW, arguably the most corrupt county department in the state.
And he came close to acknowledging his Department of Public Works (DPW) attempts to cover it up by refusing to answer questions about it and asking any investigation be done in secret executive session (ES)..
Fujimoto wouldn’t even admit it all until grilled for 15 minutes in a prosecutorial manner by prosecutor-to-be Shaylene Iseri-Carvalho who finally broke him down and forced the admissions.
The revelation of the illegal construction goes back a couple of years to a council session discussing shoreline certifications for the bike path during which experts told the council of the problems with the seawall and during subsequent meetings where the lack of any permits was revealed.
The seawall was constructed after the Hurricane `Iniki which itself took the council weeks to ascertain due to stonewalling and sketchy answers from Fujimoto and other DPW personal who conveniently couldn’t remember how long it had been there.
Finally pre and post hurricane pictures were shown to the council on a slide projector to clear up the 1993 construction date.
Apparently the story is that DPW engineers decided that in all the post hurricane confusion and “emergency permitting” they could construct a seawall to “protect” Pono Kai with no approval whatsoever.
This was done, according to testimony a couple of years ago, despite a 1993 letter from the Army Corps of engineers warning them that it was highly illegal to build the wall.
Fujimoto was not the county engineer at the time of the construction and did not come to that position until the Baptiste administration.
Yet Fujimoto clung to the story saying that it “may have been intentional or unintentional- I’d like to think it was unintentional”, although how the county engineer who routinely processes permits could have unintentionally constructed an illegal sea wall wasn’t clear.
What is clear is that Pono Kai resort had always been worried about it’s proximity to the ocean and wanted the wall, going back years before the hurricane when it tried and failed to build one but especially so after the hurricane battered the place and severely eroded the shoreline.
Fujimoto’s attempt to put the genie back in the bottle continued with him trying to cover-up the information even as the meeting began.
He started by refusing to talk about it at all in open session- after his request last month for an ES was turned down by Public Works Committee Chair Mel Rapozo- by saying he want to “wait for the EA (environmental assessment) to discuss it”.
An EA is currently being conducted by DPW to determine what the environmental impacts of any action on the sea wall would be
Previously Fujimoto tried to blow smoke and cast the usual fog machine the PWD has been famous for since well before his tenure.
He has claimed that the wall was legal under various erroneous propositions and obfuscations, first saying there were permits then when asked to produce them saying he had an exemption due to the governor’s emergency declaration after the hurricane, neither of which was true.
After badgering he finally admitted that at some point he spoke to Sam Lemmo at the State DLNR who told him it was possible someone had thought there might have been an exemption at the time.
Still Fujimoto refused at first to admit the sea wall was illegally constructed in hopes that it would be able to be repaired.
Under the federal law, as well as a “zero tolerance” for un-permitted construction by the state and county, the sea wall would have to be removed although there could be an exemption federally if the damage of removing it would be greater than leaving it in place..
The sea wall is currently a public nuisance and in horribly dilapidated condition and according to what UH experts Dolan Ebersole and Chip Fletcher told the council is making a mess of the whole Kapa`a shoreline.
Both told the council and Fujimoto two years ago that reconstructing an illegal sea wall was not legal under any circumstances. Yet Fujimoto continues to conduct an EA to fix the wall.
Whether the best scientific path is to remove it, rebuild it or leave it alone is a question no one so far has been able to determine.
Fujimoto adamantly maintained that the EA would answer all the legal questions even though everyone knew it was illegal, at first saying “I can’t say if it was legal or illegal”
But despite repeats of this lies Iseri persisted and finally got the truth out of Fujimoto.
She reviewed Fujimoto’s actions and words in claiming there was a permit and then that they didn’t need one and then that they were going to get an “after the fact” one, before she finally asked “You have no evidence to show this wall is legal?”
Fujimoto finally said “That’s correct.” though still maintaining the EA will address that.
Then Iseri focused in on the EA-legalities claim asking “So the EA will look into all the illegalities?”
Fujimoto said “Yes- it will address the impacts”.
After a lot of back and forth finally, after maintaining more than a half a dozen times in direct answers to direct questions that the EA would look a legal questions Fujimoto admitted it wouldn’t and that the County Attorney will address those.
“I stand corrected” he finally said.
What was astonishing was that a couple of months or so ago when being questioned on the sea wall Fujimoto refused to answer the questions in open session asking the council to place the matter on the their executive session agenda
“Speaking to the County Engineer about DPW’s illegal actions” is not on the list of Sunshine Law exemptions to the open meeting requirements,.
This was despite the fact that about two years ago it was widely discussed by the council and they learned in public session of not just the illegal nature of the wall but of the warning letters from the Army Corps of Engineers saying basically “don’t you dare”..
Councilman Ron Kochi was somewhat bemused by Fujimoto shaking his head and saying “you can’t unring the bell” and headscratchingly pondering what Fujimoto thought he was trying to do.
Finally Chair Rapozo summed it up -somewhat haltingly- by saying “It’s no secret that the wall is illegal. I shouldn’t say illegal- it’s un-permitted”, drawing derisive laughter from those gathered.
Believe it or not the council committee concluded it’s session by making plans to take the public knowledge of the illegal wall into executive session to figure out if Kaua`i County will have to repay the state and possibly the feds who financed the project on Kaua`i County’s assurance that they had the permits or an exemption.
Iseri repeated several times that we needed to “come clean” and maybe they’d let us off the financial hook.
No plans were made to investigate the Public Works Department to uncover what most suspect was collusion by Pono Kai and some in the DPW to pull a fast one after the hurricane by building an illegal sea wall.
It only took 15 years to figure out what happened. We’ll be lucky if after 15 years more we catch the culprits because, as has happened dozes of times before- most notably after the Pflueger-McCloskey “Developers Gone Wild” sessions- the Council refuses to investigate the DPW, arguably the most corrupt county department in the state.
Saturday, June 28, 2008
YOU CAN’T SMELLTHAT?
YOU CAN’T SMELLTHAT?: Rachel Gehrlein’s rather confused report today in the local paper about Monday’s Charter Commission (CC) meeting reports both a deferral and a “moving forward” of the controversial County Manager proposal being considered,
Thought the article lacks cohesion and continuity, as if written by the specter of Lester Chang, it does characterize and quote CC Chair Jonathan Chun this way:.
Commission Chair Jonathan Chun said he still didn’t see the need for the proposed amendment.
“What is the problem we are trying to solve?” Chun said. “No one, in my mind, has said what the problem is.
"Every time the question is asked, different answers are given, Chun said.
Maybe because so may things are broken and more are breaking all the time so like the procrastinating unhandy homeowner with the house that’s falling apart, every time you ask “what’s the problem” you get “a different answer”
So let’s assume for argument sake the quote and surrounding material is accurate. It brings up an interesting question
Are you friggin insane Jonathan or just a disingenuous liar trying to squelch the measure for some ulterior motive... because we know you’re not an idiot?
We haven’t exactly been on the County Manager conga line ourselves although we are starting to come around with Walter Lewis and Walter Briant’s specific proposal, even though the proposal itself is extremely problematic and poorly written, disregarding the 89 state laws that would have to be changed to accommodate the lack of an administrative “mayor”
But there are no problems with Kaua`i County government and the strong mayor system that makes every department head job a political appointee, Jonathan? Have you seen these bozos? Have you noticed how mayors are eaten alive when they try to get each new “temp” at the helm to get the department “we-bes” (we be here when you got here we be here when you go) to actually do anything differently?
Have you seen these people give what is laughingly called testimony before the council? Or were you just engulfed by “the fog” as they call it when mumbling incompetents who got their job by campaigning or collecting bundles of cash for the mayor try play their shell games.
The game typically goes like this.
Department head: “Oh I can’t answer that, Wendel has to tell you.”
Councilperson: Where’s Wendel?”
“He’s not here today”
“OK we’ll defer to next week and you get Wendel here”
Wendel comes in next week but no Department head and Wendel says “well I have to ask the department head for more information”
“Where’s he?”
“He’s out of town today”
“OK we’ll defer until next week”
Next meeting there’s the department head but no Wendel
“Wendel’s on vacation”
Finally they get Wendel and the department head there on the same day but either
A) They now say Clayton- who isn’t there- has the real information or
B) The department head testifies, then Wendel testifies and then when they want to get back to the department head he’s
1) left for lunch,
2) left for a meeting or
3) taken a plane to Honolulu
And on and on until the council gives up and moves on to the next calamity caused by an incompetent political appointee department head comes up on the agenda.
For god sake look at Ian Costa. He practically invented “the fog” as the unqualified de facto head of Public Works where he caused the grading and grubbing crisis a while back.
As Baptiste’s top bulldog during the campaign the barely-qualified. huge land-owner has taken an already traditionally incompetent Planning Department and driven it into the ground.
He’s got millions appropriated and set aside for unstarted planning studies and development plans and his rubber stamp planners and befuddled and sycophantic Planning Commission can’t even properly deny a permit the one time they try, getting sued for their incompetence to the point where the County Attorneys had to throw up their hands and settle for the worst development possible.
Then there’s- he’s baaaack- the latest whiplash-of-the-revolving-door largess recipient Wally Rezentes Jr. who can’t seem to get the hang of line-item budgeting so he ignores it since the council is still reeling over the “program based budget” system he officiated over during the Kusaka administration.
He quit the first time when the level of corrupt spending got so out of hand the Mayor was leasing luxury cars from her campaign manager at inflated prices and the Council only found out they gave her the money for it when they saw her driving around in it.
The patronage system we have today actually created jobs that didn’t exist for the truly unqualified like Bernard Carvalho. He preeminently glad-handed every voter he could find during Baptiste’s first Mayoral run and cashed in on his football fame to get appointed as a quasi department head in an insane, hybrid cant-decide-what-it-is Community Assistance conglomeration of Public Works, Planning and a couple of other departments. Then the voters created a Parks and Recreation department for him to screw up.
Guess who’s really responsible for the dog path fiasco? Try Bernard whose “task force” apparently just illegally made the pronouncement that the path was now a park (where dogs are illegal), neglecting to follow the state administrative rules law. He’s the same guy who put together the “task force” to put the teen rehab center in the old dog pound near the culturally iconic salt pans in Hanapepe creating a virtual lynch mob when people found out.
And what about the biggest plum of all- the Conventional Hall manager... a do nothing position that pays well and usually employs the mayor’s best buddy to collect perks and kickbacks by doling out favors under an ambiguous rate sheet system that never undergoes any scrutiny because it’s a separate world over there.
We don’t even want to talk about Public Works, the worst mess of all where the Kusaka and then Baptiste couldn’t even find a crony to fill the position for half of each’s administration.
And once they found a young bright and qualified sucker to take the job they beat down poor Donald Fujimoto into another cover-up artist and administration apologist.
He recently refused to answer Council questions regarding the illegal and crumbling Pono Kai sea wall without going into an illegal executive session even though all the illegalities had been thoroughly discussed in open session previously.
Seem like he’s learned well and will probably be moving on through the revolving door as soon as it’s convenient, which should be soon with a new mayor coming on board.
If Jonathan is not seeing the lack of professionalism in this and every administration and the level of corruption within each department as a problem he’d better either take off the rose colored glasses or quit the Charter Commission so we can find someone who has a little firmer grasp on reality.
We’re not saying the county Manager will do anything to change all of this. What it would do is theoretically make the administrative department heads subject to hiring and firing based on whether the job is getting done since the county manager’s job would be similarly held or lost.
Also, although the manager would be beholden to the political whims of the Council, what it would do in essence is put the decision-making out in the open since the Council would have some control over how the money is spent and a little better chance at getting truthful and transparent testimony out of department heads and other administrative personnel.
And it would take some of those secret decision-making sessions and “task forces” that aren’t subject to the sunshine law and put them, if not under it a little closer to it’s umbrella by having their testimony a little more compellable in open session.
But the critics are right in that if we do have “a” county manger system that it be “the” county manager system that is appropriate and acceptable to the people whom it serves.
It will indeed be an upheaval of political culture if not politics itself to have a new governance system.
The proposal from the two Walters is a start but it doesn’t seem ready for prime time and the deadline is a-comin’ well before we can be sure it’s the right one and one that’s even applicable to state laws.
The problems cited in the article as described by various politicians all have to do with this point- fully discussing and vetting the proposal and allowing the Charter Commission to focus on doing the job they are supposed to be doing in studying and vetting systems, compiling data, holding hearings and getting ready to present a full-formed. fully-discussed, fully “right for Kaua`i” proposal for the 2010 election ballot.
It’s time for people like Jonathan to stop feigning ignorance, acknowledge the mess this county’s government is in, much of it due to the patronage system that has evolved under our strong mayoral system.
Jonathan himself has certainly been employed by it long enough to know not only where the bodies are buried but how they got there.
It’s how, not why Jonathan. You’re almost all alone out on that limb. Whether there is a “how” that will be acceptable can only be found if we look for it.
Anyone with your brains knows what the problems are so don’t play dumb with us
Thought the article lacks cohesion and continuity, as if written by the specter of Lester Chang, it does characterize and quote CC Chair Jonathan Chun this way:.
Commission Chair Jonathan Chun said he still didn’t see the need for the proposed amendment.
“What is the problem we are trying to solve?” Chun said. “No one, in my mind, has said what the problem is.
"Every time the question is asked, different answers are given, Chun said.
Maybe because so may things are broken and more are breaking all the time so like the procrastinating unhandy homeowner with the house that’s falling apart, every time you ask “what’s the problem” you get “a different answer”
So let’s assume for argument sake the quote and surrounding material is accurate. It brings up an interesting question
Are you friggin insane Jonathan or just a disingenuous liar trying to squelch the measure for some ulterior motive... because we know you’re not an idiot?
We haven’t exactly been on the County Manager conga line ourselves although we are starting to come around with Walter Lewis and Walter Briant’s specific proposal, even though the proposal itself is extremely problematic and poorly written, disregarding the 89 state laws that would have to be changed to accommodate the lack of an administrative “mayor”
But there are no problems with Kaua`i County government and the strong mayor system that makes every department head job a political appointee, Jonathan? Have you seen these bozos? Have you noticed how mayors are eaten alive when they try to get each new “temp” at the helm to get the department “we-bes” (we be here when you got here we be here when you go) to actually do anything differently?
Have you seen these people give what is laughingly called testimony before the council? Or were you just engulfed by “the fog” as they call it when mumbling incompetents who got their job by campaigning or collecting bundles of cash for the mayor try play their shell games.
The game typically goes like this.
Department head: “Oh I can’t answer that, Wendel has to tell you.”
Councilperson: Where’s Wendel?”
“He’s not here today”
“OK we’ll defer to next week and you get Wendel here”
Wendel comes in next week but no Department head and Wendel says “well I have to ask the department head for more information”
“Where’s he?”
“He’s out of town today”
“OK we’ll defer until next week”
Next meeting there’s the department head but no Wendel
“Wendel’s on vacation”
Finally they get Wendel and the department head there on the same day but either
A) They now say Clayton- who isn’t there- has the real information or
B) The department head testifies, then Wendel testifies and then when they want to get back to the department head he’s
1) left for lunch,
2) left for a meeting or
3) taken a plane to Honolulu
And on and on until the council gives up and moves on to the next calamity caused by an incompetent political appointee department head comes up on the agenda.
For god sake look at Ian Costa. He practically invented “the fog” as the unqualified de facto head of Public Works where he caused the grading and grubbing crisis a while back.
As Baptiste’s top bulldog during the campaign the barely-qualified. huge land-owner has taken an already traditionally incompetent Planning Department and driven it into the ground.
He’s got millions appropriated and set aside for unstarted planning studies and development plans and his rubber stamp planners and befuddled and sycophantic Planning Commission can’t even properly deny a permit the one time they try, getting sued for their incompetence to the point where the County Attorneys had to throw up their hands and settle for the worst development possible.
Then there’s- he’s baaaack- the latest whiplash-of-the-revolving-door largess recipient Wally Rezentes Jr. who can’t seem to get the hang of line-item budgeting so he ignores it since the council is still reeling over the “program based budget” system he officiated over during the Kusaka administration.
He quit the first time when the level of corrupt spending got so out of hand the Mayor was leasing luxury cars from her campaign manager at inflated prices and the Council only found out they gave her the money for it when they saw her driving around in it.
The patronage system we have today actually created jobs that didn’t exist for the truly unqualified like Bernard Carvalho. He preeminently glad-handed every voter he could find during Baptiste’s first Mayoral run and cashed in on his football fame to get appointed as a quasi department head in an insane, hybrid cant-decide-what-it-is Community Assistance conglomeration of Public Works, Planning and a couple of other departments. Then the voters created a Parks and Recreation department for him to screw up.
Guess who’s really responsible for the dog path fiasco? Try Bernard whose “task force” apparently just illegally made the pronouncement that the path was now a park (where dogs are illegal), neglecting to follow the state administrative rules law. He’s the same guy who put together the “task force” to put the teen rehab center in the old dog pound near the culturally iconic salt pans in Hanapepe creating a virtual lynch mob when people found out.
And what about the biggest plum of all- the Conventional Hall manager... a do nothing position that pays well and usually employs the mayor’s best buddy to collect perks and kickbacks by doling out favors under an ambiguous rate sheet system that never undergoes any scrutiny because it’s a separate world over there.
We don’t even want to talk about Public Works, the worst mess of all where the Kusaka and then Baptiste couldn’t even find a crony to fill the position for half of each’s administration.
And once they found a young bright and qualified sucker to take the job they beat down poor Donald Fujimoto into another cover-up artist and administration apologist.
He recently refused to answer Council questions regarding the illegal and crumbling Pono Kai sea wall without going into an illegal executive session even though all the illegalities had been thoroughly discussed in open session previously.
Seem like he’s learned well and will probably be moving on through the revolving door as soon as it’s convenient, which should be soon with a new mayor coming on board.
If Jonathan is not seeing the lack of professionalism in this and every administration and the level of corruption within each department as a problem he’d better either take off the rose colored glasses or quit the Charter Commission so we can find someone who has a little firmer grasp on reality.
We’re not saying the county Manager will do anything to change all of this. What it would do is theoretically make the administrative department heads subject to hiring and firing based on whether the job is getting done since the county manager’s job would be similarly held or lost.
Also, although the manager would be beholden to the political whims of the Council, what it would do in essence is put the decision-making out in the open since the Council would have some control over how the money is spent and a little better chance at getting truthful and transparent testimony out of department heads and other administrative personnel.
And it would take some of those secret decision-making sessions and “task forces” that aren’t subject to the sunshine law and put them, if not under it a little closer to it’s umbrella by having their testimony a little more compellable in open session.
But the critics are right in that if we do have “a” county manger system that it be “the” county manager system that is appropriate and acceptable to the people whom it serves.
It will indeed be an upheaval of political culture if not politics itself to have a new governance system.
The proposal from the two Walters is a start but it doesn’t seem ready for prime time and the deadline is a-comin’ well before we can be sure it’s the right one and one that’s even applicable to state laws.
The problems cited in the article as described by various politicians all have to do with this point- fully discussing and vetting the proposal and allowing the Charter Commission to focus on doing the job they are supposed to be doing in studying and vetting systems, compiling data, holding hearings and getting ready to present a full-formed. fully-discussed, fully “right for Kaua`i” proposal for the 2010 election ballot.
It’s time for people like Jonathan to stop feigning ignorance, acknowledge the mess this county’s government is in, much of it due to the patronage system that has evolved under our strong mayoral system.
Jonathan himself has certainly been employed by it long enough to know not only where the bodies are buried but how they got there.
It’s how, not why Jonathan. You’re almost all alone out on that limb. Whether there is a “how” that will be acceptable can only be found if we look for it.
Anyone with your brains knows what the problems are so don’t play dumb with us
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