YOU GOTTA BELIEVE- YOU JUST GOTTA

YOU GOTTA BELIEVE- YOU JUST GOTTA: Kaua`i Council Chair Jay Furfaro probably regrets saying many things but none more than his indictment of the county's various administrations- their oft-cited penchant "ready, fire, aim" management.

It's looking like another fiasco is in the making as the council once again considers an eight-year-old bill to re-establish camping at the popular Lydgate Park despite the fact that nothing has really changed- at least for the better- since the bill was shelved back in 2005.

Back in the 70's Lydgate was thought by haoles to actually be spelled "Lid-gate" where mainlanders could easily purchase a "lid" of pakalolo from one of the locals' back-yard "money trees," leading to a wild-west milieu and eventually a murder that ended camping there.

The bill was snatched from the jaws of passage out to the full council at last Wednesday's Public Works Committee meeting by Councilperson Mel Rapozo's request for a deferral for two weeks after the rest of the council didn't seem to care about the myriad lies and coverups from Parks and Recreation Department Director Lenny Rapozo.

Lenny Rapozo was aided and abetted by Furfaro who, as usual, put public testimony up front before Rapozo was questioned by the council, making sure that no one but the council itself could point out the naked nature of the emperor.

The biggest dirty little secret of the whole camping at Lydgate venture- other than that virtually no one thinks it's a good idea- is that there is one, count 'em' one, regular men's toilet for the whole campgrounds.

When camping is in full swing it is expected to accommodate up to 400 campers and that doesn't include those using the nearby three soccer fields who are also expected to use the same facilities.

Oh, and by the way, that toilet is broken.

But when council watcher and "nitpicker" Glenn Mickens asked Furfaro about the fact that the number of toilets didn't come anywhere near the state Department of Health (DOH) standards for people-per-potty, Furfaro tried to go into one of his classic misdirectional spiels about how the bathrooms were now American with Disabilities Act (ADA) compliant.

When Mickens tried to clarify what he was asking Furfaro threw one of his puffy-chested hissy-fits chiding Mickens for interrupting his non-responsive answer and refusing to not answer further until later in the meeting when no one was there to stop him from not answering.

The obfuscation didn't really get going until Rapozo took the hot seat, but first the United Public Workers union rep told the council that the three workers that were agreed to back in 2003 were no longer sufficient. With the additional soccer fields and the 150% increase in usage of the park now, even without camping they could barely keep the park clean, especially after picking up dog poop from the dog path first thing every morning.

Even worse were their concerns about workers' security and enforcement issues with overnight drinking permitted in county parks, not to mention the location of the park- snuggled between resorts in the middle of the visitor destination area, directly adjacent to the town of Wailua- and the lack of park rangers after 10 p.m.

The bottom line is apparently that Lenny Rapozo won't budge on the number of maintenance workers- an obstacle which councilmembers also tried to play down so the bill could be passed and the increase in cost for running the campgrounds could be dealt with later, no doubt as a "surprise" to the council.

One of the great moments came when Furfaro was finally free to do his "chronology" without Mickens there. First he told the union rep about the ADA compliance of the bathrooms- failing to mention how the whole campground had to be ripped out and rebuilt in '04 under then "Community Assistance" Director, current Mayor Bernard Carvalho.

Carvalho had authorized putting in the ADA campsites without any clearance or even consultation with either the state disabilities board or the mayor's ADA coordinator, whose office was just down the hall from Carvalho's.

The way they were constructed, people would have had to get out of their wheelchairs and crawl on their bellies to get onto the camping platforms, according to testimony at the time.

Furfaro was describing how the now-almost-rebuilt pavilion in the campground had burned down. The union rep asked "when was that?"

Furfaro responded "at night."

Anyway Rapozo was questioned by Councilmember JoAnn Yukimura whose first question was whether the ADA requirements were done and whether they "satisfied (and were) approved" by the DOH.

Rapozo answered that the "retrofits" were "done."

"Done?" asked Yukimura, seeming perhaps to have differing information.

"Well, in process," said Rapozo, who now admitted that they are still doing the "modifications" and, in answer to when they would be done told the assembled that the pavilion would be done "next week" and finally, after further prodding, that the ADA retrofits would be done "soon thereafter."

Following that little tooth-extraction Yukimura continued asking about the DOH requirements to which Rapozo responded that the bathrooms were indeed "clean."

When Yukimura finally asked specifically about the number of toilets per user and whether the DOH had signed off on that, she was confronted by what now has become a classic "Rapozoism."

"I'm gonna say yes," said Rapozo, "because I've gotta believe that when this concept first came," somebody must have checked with DOH and it was "done right."

Finally he admitted, under more questioning, that "the site hasn’t been changed since its inception."

But apparently no one bothered to go back and look at the minutes of the meetings in 2003 when the original bill was passed allowing camping and 2005 when the current bill revising the first one was introduced.

Because the fact that there weren't enough bathrooms was the reason why then Council Chair Kaipo Asing lit his hair on fire, finally "permanently" deferring the bill until that and a bunch of other matters were addressed by the administration of then-Mayor Bryan Baptiste and his "parks" guy, Carvalho.

Another indication of just how clueless Rapozo is came up when they were discussing the state-mandated administrative or "ad" rules that would have to be "promulgated" once the bill was passed under HRS Chapter 91.

During a discussion of whether the three workers currently employed for the park's maintenance were enough, Rapozo once again told the council that "I gotta believe that" the then-administration thought that there were enough for camping.

Then when Yukimura mentioned that the ad rules would require a public hearing, Rapozo actually responded by saying "not these."

Well Kaua`i does have its own way of doing things and in Lenny Rapozoland perhaps HIS ad rules don't require hearings. But in the state of Hawai`i they do.

Finally, as it looked like the bill just might be sent to the full council with the committee's approval Mel Rapozo- no relation- told the council that "there's one toilet and it's broken," calling for a deferral until they asked the DOH to provide, in writing, what the requirements actually were.

That, Mel Rapozo said, is because he remembered back in both '03 and '05 when one of Asing's famous PowerPoint presentations showed DOH documents stating that the bathrooms did not in fact meet the DOH requirements... they didn't even come close.

And that was just for the campgrounds- without the soccer fields or the pavilion which where not included in the original plans.

"That park is not ready for camping" said Mel before asking for and getting a deferral after embarrassing the rest of the councilmembers who previously had been poised to look the other way at all the same problems that had caused the bill to sit in committee for six years.

On Kaua`i if you want to be "made" in county government and be assured that no matter what kind of scandal you’re involved in- even if you're fired from one job for anything from incompetence to malfeasance- you'll always have an appointed job somewhere, you need to show all that you can sit there an lie to the council with "that's my story and I'm sticking to it" aplomb.

Lenny Rapozo's bonefides for appointment were apparently solely that he was Carvalho's campaign manager. But his ready, fire, aim hall of fame performance last Wednesday, has apparently assured us that we'll have him around to entertain us for years to come.

THE CUL-DE-SAC OF THE GOLDEN ROAD TO UNLIMITED DEACCELERATION

THE CUL-DE-SAC OF THE GOLDEN ROAD TO UNLIMITED DEACCELERATION: Glenn Mickens thought after 17 1/2 years he finally had 'um.

Silly coach.

For almost two decades the former Brooklyn Dodger pitcher and UCLA coach pitched the council a scandal of major proportion, occasionally bringing the mountain to Mohammad by hauling in pieces of asphalt and dumping them on the council's table to show that, not only our our potholed roads in terrible shape but someone was skimming said asphalt off the top resulting in the county getting less coverage per ton than the standard- as we described in detail a couple of years ago.

But that was only the beginning. Mickens suggested that- gasp- politics might be determining the way the roads made the yearly county repaving list after Hale `Ilio Road, where both Mayors Marianne Kusaka and Bryan Baptiste lived, made the list over and over during their years in office while his own Waipouli Road remained on the Tire Warehouse Enrichment and Preservation list.

Over the years, each time the yearly road resurfacing list came up for council approval Glenn tried to corral at least one councilmember into championing his cause and to get to the bottom of the apparent corruption- all to no avail.

Until, it seemed, this year.

For the last few years Coach had been unusually silent on his pet peeve. The reason? The list was never on the agenda. And the reason for that was that, while the council dutifully appropriated money for resurfacing no one in Public Works even bothered to make a list much less spend the money.

So now there was a cool $8 million accumulated in the fund. And that got someone's attention.

After hounding Chair Jay Furfaro for months to find out why on February 23 Mickens tenaciousness was rewarded with an item on the council's agenda saying

C 2011-76 Communication (02/16/2011) from Council Chair Furfaro, requesting the Administration's presence to provide the Council with an update on the County's Islandwide Road Resurfacing Program.

But as we reported on March 16 and again on March 22 new County Engineer Larry Dill didn't seem to be coming up with answers to satisfy anyone so Furfaro kept deferring the matter on March 9, March 23, April 6, April 20, and Dill kept coming up with excuses for why he couldn't answer the questions fully.

So Furfaro finally put them in writing and came up with a list of 8 questions based on Mickens' evolving 17 1/2-year-old list of queries.

And, as county engineers have done for decades, Dill kept stalling whether by just not showing up or pulling the old shuffle saying someone else had to answer the question but that person was (check one) in `O`ahu, on vacation, busy in an important meeting or some other lame excuse in the official County Engineers' Big Book of Bullsh*t Answers.

On May 3 Furfaro gave Dill two weeks so of course on May 18 Dill himself was off island.

And finally, last Wednesday, when the agenda item was called by the clerk (not in advance) the sheet with answers to the eight questions was distributed to councilmembers... all SIX of them.

Seems that June 1 was the day that, as everyone in the county knew- including of course Dill- Furfaro was in San Francisco negotiating a lower rate on the county's bonds.

The answers themselves were absurdly brief and non-responsive such as #2 which read

Q- Who is responsible for compiling and maintaining the data regarding paving and repaving

County roads?

A- The Roads Maintenance Division of the Department of Public Works.

The answer to Question #7 was quite revelatory regarding how the roads were chosen for repaving

Q- How does the Department of Public Works determine which roads should be resurfaced?

How are these roads prioritized and what type of criteria is followed?

A- A list of roads to be considered for resurfacing is maintained by the Roads Maintenance

Division. Roads are added to this last due to input from Roads Maintenance personnel or the

public. The Division Head inspects all the roads and prioritizes the roads for resurfacing,

considering:

* Pavement condition

• Volume of traffic

• Potential liability if deferred

• Grouping of roads

In other words using a totally subjective method leaving out "the ones the Mayor wants done".

The rest were a combination of double-talk and non-answers.

You'd think the six remaining councilmembers, having sat through all the crap of the past few months would be champing at the bit to tear Dill a new one. But this being Kaua`i, you'd be thinking wrong.

With Furfaro gone, a quick "Thank you Mr. Dill. Any questions? Hearing none we'll take a vote on the motion to receive this matter. All in favor say aye Motion carried" from Acting Chair Yukimura which brought an end to Mickens' hope that this year- his 80th- might be the one that yields answers and, god forbid, better roads.

Meanwhile back in his labyrinth, the Minotaur turned over, munched a few bones and went back to sleep thinking "life is good"

THE GOLDEN ROAD TO UNLIMITED DEACCELERATION

THE GOLDEN ROAD TO UNLIMITED DEACCELERATION: The resurfacing of county roads- or we should say, the lack of it- is back on the council's agenda tomorrow with new County Engineer Larry Dill once again taking the hot seat.

And although the council has taken a we-don't-want-to-hear-it stance on the past alleged boondoggles and apparently downright corrupt practices regarding the repaving of our decrepit roads- as we detailed last Wednesday- it's hard to see how they go forward without looking at the past, even with the new handy dandy expensive "MicroPaver" software that Dill has touted as the answer to all our problems.

The man who has doggedly pursued the issue for the past 15 years- even bringing in portions of pavement and plopping them on the council's table- Glenn Mickens, has detailed why the past is prologue and today we present his testimony for tomorrow's meeting.

----

First I want to once again thank Chair Furfaro for keeping this roads paving and repaving issue on the agenda.

Obviously after 15 years of trying to find out why we have been wasting millions of tax payers dollars on wrongly paved and repaved roads with no results, you can understand why I am so happy to see this issue being addressed.

Until I see concrete results, I will remain cautiously optimistic with our new "sheriff" in town, Larry Dill, and be hopeful that he can rectify a long time bad situation.

As far as the Micropower system that Larry wants to implement. I am sure that he knows as well as you, Jay, that any computer program is only as good as the information that is put into it----it cannot "solve" any problem by itself.

So the big question and problem is where are we going to get the road by road, mile by mile report from on current conditions and past maintenance?

We need to have the list that has the up-to-date information on the condition of each road containing the condition of the base, the shoulder, the square footage, the thickness plus the last time it was resurfaced.

There is a saying about computers---"garbage in garbage out" and those words will so well fit this issue if proper data is not fed into the computer.
And the bigger question is, where is that data and who's got it or does it need to be gathered? If so, who is gathering it and what kind of accountability is there for whomever is collecting it? I mean will the information come from a political source as was done with Haleilio Road and Kealia Road where picks of roads were totally NOT in the public’s interest.

Plus, if this information is now available, as it certainly should be, then we certainly don't need a new computer program. All that is necessary is to look at this compiled data and use HAPI standards to correct what was wrongly done and pave and repave by HAPI in all work going forward.

And if this data is not available then Larry's job will be monumental in gathering the information necessary to put in his computer in order to do his job. In fact it could take years taking core samples from our roads to diagnose what has been done and what needs to be done.

Whatever course of action Larry chooses to do will take a HUGE budget. Check the equipment HAPI uses in doing their roads and Larry will need this same equipment when paving and repaving. And as he answered in one of the questions given to him, HAPI will definitely cost more initially but will save a lot more money in the long run with the longevity it gives.

Past and present administrations can shoulder the blame for allowing this deterioration to reach such a high level and council's can also share in that blame for funding this illegal (not done by code) work. But what is done is done and from here on the tax payers want to see their dollars used properly and Larry's past experience in Princeville gives me hope that this can be done.

I don't have the time to question our wrong methods of paving---i.e. our using 1 ton of AC to pave 90 square feet needing 1 1/2" compacted instead of using 1 ton of AC to pave 108 square feet for 1 1/2" as this slide rule shows and that all national paving contractors use. Or why we are still dumping cold mix in pot holes instead of using methods stipulated by code.

The problems are many as I have pointed out for so long and, again, if Larry is going to address them he will need a large budget to do it.

And hopefully the administration can tell us why they have changed their method of resurfacing our roads on a yearly basis to one where they "accumulated" or "saved" budgeted money from one or two years and used it in one given year as they have done in the 09-10 budget. It seems to me that there is something very wrong with that methodology.

----

Correction: Yesterday we wrote that the county had paid Sunrise Capitol the $250,000 promised in the settlement agreement. Although we made plain in the body of the article that payment was predicated on the provision of receipts we should have said "agreed to pay up to $250.000." We regret the error.

(PNN)AGREEMENT SHOWS COUNTY PAID SUNRISE SHRIMP FARM $250G TO MITIGATE SPREAD OF "WHITE SPOT" DISEASE FROM LANDFILL

AGREEMENT SHOWS COUNTY PAID SUNRISE SHRIMP FARM $250G TO MITIGATE SPREAD OF "WHITE SPOT" DISEASE FROM LANDFILL

(PNN) -- The County of Kaua`i paid the Kekaha shrimp farm $250,000 in Oct. 2009 to settle a claim that birds were libel to spread the "white spot" virus from the county landfill to the adjacent aquaculture project, according to a settlement agreement released by the county late last week.
The disease shut down a prior attempt at shrimp farming at that location but the landfill was never identified as the source of the virus.

The agreement between farm owners Sunrise Capitol and the county contained a stipulation that the settlement remain confidential unless the information release was prompted by a request under HRS 92F, the Uniform Information Practices Act (UIPA)- a request that was filed by community watchdogs Glenn Mickens and Ken Taylor last week.

The settlement came after "Sunrise Capital, requested a contested case hearing with the Hawaii Department of Health relating to the application filed by the county for a Solid Waste Management Permit for the Kekaha Landfill" and sought "the imposition of permit conditions on the basis of risks to Sunrise’s shrimp farm" according to the agreement.

Under the settlement the county recognized "the immense economic and community benefit that the aquacultural industry provides to the Kekaha area, the Island of Kaua`i, and the State of Hawai`i as a whole" and "the need for support toward securing agricultural and aquacultural activities on Kaua'i."

It goes on to state that:

In conjunction with the termination of the contested case hearing against county, and in consideration of Sunrise's other agreements herein, the Agreement Between Sunrise Capital, hie. and County of Kaua`i County shall provide and pay to Sunrise the sum of Two Hundred Fifty Thousand Dollars And No/100 ($250,000.00) by way of reimbursement for costs and expenses incurred by Sunrise In risk mitigation measures to protect its shrimp farm from shrimp diseases.

The $250,000 is a cap to liability under the agreement meaning Sunrise cannot extract any more money from the county due to contamination from the landfill. Sunrise also had to provide the county with documentation and receipts to prove that the money was indeed spent for mitigation however no receipts were provided along with the settlement agreement released by a county council attorney, Legislative Analyst Peter Morimoto.

The agreement stipulated that:

Preliminary to the execution of this Agreement by the county and Sunrise, Sunrise has provided to the county documentation and studies related to the spread and outbreak of the white spot syndrome virus in shrimp. Sunrise has further represented to the county that Sunrise believes that the risk mitigation measures that Sunrise plans to undertake are appropriate given concerns with the expansion of the Kekaha Landfill and will help promote the security of Sunrise's shrimp aquaculture activities in Kekaha.

The settlement also calls for "an ordinance to ban commercial and nonresidential raw, uncooked shrimp from the Kekaha Landfill and landfills operated by the county concern with potential contamination."

An ordinance was passed shortly after the agreement was signed with that provision buried in an otherwise unremarkable bill dealing with the landfill and the county's Solid Waste Division under the Department of Public Works.

The agreement calls for the county to:

instruct its site controllers at the Kekaha Landfill and transfer stations to inspect and spot for incoming loads of raw, uncooked shrimp. Before disposal thereof, county site controllers will strongly urge a disposer to boil the raw, uncooked shrimp. Should a disposer decline, the site controllers will order a disposer to place the raw, uncooked shrimp in sealed containers and double bag them before it is accepted into the landfill. This process is similar to what county site controllers require for the disposal of asbestos, dead animals, and offal.

The county has however never publicized the disposal procedures or announced any "ban" on raw shrimp from the landfill.

The confidentiality section states that:

Unless disclosure is required by HRS Chapter 92F or other applicable law, the Parties agree and hereby acknowledge that the alleged facts and circumstances giving rise to any and all Claims being released herein and the fact that the Parties have agreed to forever resolve and compromise a dispute between them, and the terms and conditions of this Agreement shall, except as otherwise provided in this Paragraph 12, remain strictly confidential.

As to other information pursuant to the Mickens/Taylor request, "Council Services will be providing you with a written response within ten business days as required by 92F," according to an email from Morimoto accompanying the settlement.

The release of the document came last month after Taylor noticed a small blurb in the paperwork for a money bill, unrelated for the most part to the settlement that referred to the $250,000 "extracted" from the county using the word settlement, as reported (here here and here) by PNN over the past two weeks.

Taylor had to go to Lihu`e to retrieve the paperwork because, despite promises to the contrary by the county council, they still do not post the paperwork for agenda items on-line and rather require an in-person visit to obtain a paper copy.

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.

BLOVIATIN' IN THE WIND

BLOWVIATIN' IN THE WIND: Was anyone really expecting that Council Chair Jay Furfaro would keep his promise to have information "in seven days" on what appeared to be a "settlement" which "extracted $250,000" from the county related to windbourne trash from the Kekaha landfill causing white spot disease at the adjacent shrimp farm?

We didn't think so but there's always one....

As we reported a week ago, as part of the paperwork on Bill #2397 appropriating $417,000 for the landfill, the Department of Public Works' Solid Waste Division cryptically revealed that:

The Shrimp Farm extracted approximately $250,000 to provide assurance that the white spot syndrome would be mitigated flying trash within there (sic) property and laying (sic) in their ponds that could potentially lead to the spread of the disease. The cost of mitigation beyond the settlement is questionable as well as the negative publicity that could have a direct impact on our future landfill siting efforts.(emphases added).

Despite Furfaro's promise seven days later, when the bill came up on last week's agenda, Furfaro once more balked at revealing too much about it saying he wasn't even sure whether there was, in fact, any money paid.

What he did reveal was that the matter was the subject of three different closed door, executive sessions (ES) of the council back in 2009- on Sept. 23rd , Oct. 7th and Oct. 14th.

But although the county's on-line archive of agendas does not go back that far, the actual notices from those agenda's- which Furfrao handed out at the meeting- don't mention any "claims" or "lawsuits" or "settlements," only a discussion of issues with the landfill.

Now Furfrao promises to have "more information" in ten more days which, to no one's surprise, would put any revelation three days after next Wednesday's expected second and final reading of Bill #2397- after which the matter will not appear on any future agendas.

Although Furfrao cited the Office of Information Practices (OIP) May 2003 opinion letter No. 03-07 which says that certain decision making can be made in ES, it doesn't include lawsuit settlements and certainly doesn't excuse misleading agendas that fail to mention the discussion of possible claims and/or lawsuits- which appears to be the case here.

The strangest part of this is that Furfaro apparently needs 17 days to find out what council watchdog Glenn Mickens found out in about five minutes with a call to Finance Director Wally Rezentes' office last Friday afternoon.

Mickens simply asked Rezentes if there was a settlement with the shrimp farm and when the office called back just before closing the answer was "no"- there is no record of any payment or settlement.

Mickens and fellow "nitpicker," former council candidate Ken Taylor, who brought the matter to public attention, promise to bring it up again this Wednesday and try to get some answers before it disappears from the council agenda forever.

--------

We are sorry to have to announce that we are going on a curtailed posting schedule for the immediate future. In addition to the onslaught of college basketball tournaments we're also dealing with some other, more personal challenges that have us distracted enough that we feel like our work would suffer if we tried to keep the same schedule. We will be posting- just not five days a week but more intermittently. Please check back often- or use the "RSS feed" or email us at gotwindmills(at)gmail(dot)com to sign up for emailed postings.

We do hope to return to a more regular posting schedule sometime in the future. Thank you all for your incredible support over the last three years.

MR. GREEN AND MR. BROWN

MR. GREEN AND MR. BROWN: The trap-door to the rat hole opened wide again at last Wednesday’s council committee meetings as the latest in a series of what we like to call “gush and flush” sessions found the council doing the gushing over the Kaua`i Visitor’s Bureau’s (KVB) proposed flushing of $200,000 into the cesspool of unaccountable tourism promotion.

But if you thought the council was giddy over the last two-part million dollar money toss- as we discussed here, here, here and here- this time, with the departure of former Councilperson Lani Kawahara, the council unanimously managed to fall over each other to praise KVB’s Sue Kanoho and the county’s Director of Economic Development George Costa, despite the fact that there was no mechanism for any check on whether any more tourists came as a result of the spending.

Things were off to a bad start when it was revealed that the way this worked was not with Kanoho coming to Mayor Bernard Carvalho- who proposed the bill- and asking for certain amounts for certain “programs” but rather the mayor telling her we had $200,000 to spend and asking her to come up with ways to spend it, according to Costa.

And astonishingly enough expenditures for the six “programs” added up to $200,000.

One of the most bizarre was $20,000 for a thinly explained plan to latch onto something called the “American Girl” dolls fad, an uber-high-end giant Barbie complete with clothes and, in the case of the latest model, a Hawaiian “Kanani” model replete with a paddle and paddle board (items sold separately) as well as a fake newspaper “The Hawaiian Breeze" which apparently mentions Kaua`i along with our mythical town of “Waipuna”.

There was a plan to go to some stores and “enhance” in-stores displays but no mention of how there would be any tourists who come here because of the expenditure- as opposed to the doll itself- although Councilperson Nadine Nakamura said she was “very excited” about it because her daughter went though the craze and so, she suspected, it would induce “upscale” visitors to come.

Yup that’s what we elected her for- basing spending decisions on personal anecdotes.

The other five programs were all proposed with no absolutely no way to check whether they attracted even one visitor and not one councilperson asked about how they knew their money was being “well spent”- a phrase repeated ad nauseum.

We say “proposed with” because Kanoho and Costa had one worry- even though they had apparently been assured that no one on the council had any qualms about the effect of the expenditure, the last time out their presentation had been ruined, not just by the now-departed Kawahara but by “nitpickers” Glenn Mickens and Ken Taylor.

So they set up a special meeting with them to get them to go along with the program.

And that seemingly worked because Mickens, seemingly in exchange for his support, insisted on some feedback.

According to Kanoho, “because of Glenn Mickens- and solely because of Glenn Mickens” in the KVB “surveys” that you see being given at the airports by clip-board bearing minions, they will now ask if they came due to the “American Girl” doll or due to seeing a movie shot on Kaua`i ($10,000 was budgeted for “film promotion press trip")... although there was no direct connection between that and the money spent.

But the real topper came when Councilperson Mel Rapozo- who also failed to ask about feedback or any way to rate the success of the six programs- brought up the horror of visitor complaints, especially ones that go viral like what he described as a “Facebook video” (which we couldn’t find- anyone got a link to this?) on the horrendous condition of the boarded up, cesspool overflowing bathrooms at Salt Pond.

That elicited defensive spiels by Costa and Kanoho about how whenever a complaint comes up that threatens to get spread either by word of mouth or online, they take the time to follow-up by- get this- making sure the tourist at least gets an explanation or apology or some kind of as, er, ring kissing.

Yes, they reiterated we do “follow-up.”

But the council, sensing an opportunity to look like they were doing their jobs, did pick up on this one and started asking the two if they actually followed up with the appropriate administration department- usually public works- to make sure that these complaints-waiting-to-happen were fixed in a timely manner... like with the Salt Pond cesspool that took weeks to pump whereas anyone else gets theirs pumped the next day.

After a series of back and forths with the council asking if they “followed up with the administration” and the two saying “yes, we followed up” with another story about calling or emailing the person who complained, Council Chair Jay Furfaro- never one to miss an opportunity to make it look like a good idea was his- directed Costa to “make that phone call” to the administration next time he gets a complaint.

With committee passage the council’s hand is now poised on the lever and this Wednesday they will complete the flush when, to no one’s surprise, they pass the bill without even ascertaining if anyone actually came due to the million dollars of taxpayer money they threw away last year.

The bigger question of course is why the hotels, the airlines, the resort developers and the rest of the tourism industry that takes literally billions off island can’t do they own spending or give KVB the money and why KVB has to beg the council for cash from the county’s coffers.

We’re not holding our breath for that- although it would be nice to breathe clean air without having to flush $200,000 down the crapper to cover the stench of these KVB-served and council-swallowed turds.

SLIP-SLIDIN’ AWAY

SLIP-SLIDIN’ AWAY: Hyperbole notwithstanding, the worst reporter in the world at the worst newspaper in the world, Leo Azambuja of our local newspaper, seems to be making an effort to learn what constitutes a “lede”- the journalistic slang for the “lead”, the opening sentence that covers the “who, what, when, where and why” in about 25 words or less, as part of the inverted triangle that puts the most important information nearer the top and the less important stuff further down.

So Azambuja’s article on the fate of the “county manager” proposal that was before the Charter Review Commission is, on the surface, a step forward as he reported:

Kaua‘i’s strong mayoral form of government won’t be changing this election.

After several community meetings, the Charter Review Commission’s Special County Governance Committee last week unanimously voted down a proposal to ask voters this fall if they would like to see the Garden Island governed by an appointed county manager instead of an elected mayor.

Now perhaps it’s our fault because in the virtual reams of criticism of Azambuja’s apparent lack of journalistic training or ability we forgot to mention the most important part of the lede- that the information be ACCURATE.

Silly us for thinking that that went without saying.

As we reported a day short of a month ago, in actuality, according to the recommendation section of the SCCG’s Report to the Kauai County Charter Review Commission- which apparently Azambuja failed to read critically, understand or comprehend:

Special Committee on County Governance, by unanimous vote, recommend(ed) against placing a measure for a Council-Manager form of government on the 2010 General Election ballot. The committee, accordingly, recommends the adoption of this report, and further recommends that the issue of a Council-Manager form of government be postponed indefinitely.

What actually happened “last week”- at the July 26 meeting of the full Charter Review Commission to be precise- is that the full commission voted to accept the recommendation of the SCCG- something Azambuja could have found out by going to the county web site he cited as an information source at the end of the article, since he apparently failed to attend the all important meeting.

From there it only gets worse. So we decided to use the skills we gained as a teaching assistant to the legendary local newspaper editor Jean Holmes while she taught-and we attended- her journalism classes at Kauai Community College in the 80’s to take a blue pencil to Azambuja’s Adventures in Newswriting Wonderland.

Next Azambuja writes:

“The large majority of people didn’t see it as a desirable necessary change from the current situation,” said Patrick Stack, who chairs the three-member committee. North Shore resident Joel Guy and former reporter Jan TenBruggencate are the other members.

While that’s technically accurate it’s omits the most important information showing that he didn’t understand the SCCG report because, as we reported, they plainly based their recommendation on the a rationale that makes the decision anything but arbitrary or capricious, saying:

The Special Committee was constrained by the authority given the Charter Review Commission under the existing Kaua`i County Charter. Section 24-03 of the County Charter contains this authority: "In the event the commission deems changes are necessary or desirable, the commission may propose amendments to the existing charter or draft a new charter which shall be submitted to the county clerk." (Emphasis added) This is a key point. The Charter Review Commission is not authorized, as many public testifiers suggested, to place an item on the ballot simply to allow voters to express their choice.

Instead of emphasizing or even reporting that- as the SCCG did- Azambuja chose to stress what the committee insisted did not influence their decision at all writing:

“The large majority of people didn’t see it as a desirable necessary change from the current situation,” said Patrick Stack, who chairs the three-member committee. North Shore resident Joel Guy and former reporter Jan TenBruggencate are the other members.

From there the writing itself becomes a bizarre exercise in trying to write about something Azambuja didn’t quite get, as evidenced by his incorrect lede. He “writes”:

If the commission approved the proposal, voters would decide at the next election Nov. 2 if the mayor should be replaced by a county manager.

That tortured bit of the mother tongue mixes the future looking “if” with the past tense “approved” returning to the future “would decide”. The correct way to express the thought might be to say:

"If the commission HAD approved the proposal, voters would HAVE decideD at the next election Nov. 2 if the mayor should be replaced by a county manager."

In addition this indicates that somewhere he did understand that it was the full commission not the SCCG that acted last week although he could have just conflated the committee and the commission. Either way it’s particularly mis-informative in any number of ways.

One of the rookie mistakes made in J-School is the unattributed opinion over which the prof usually scribbles “Sez who?”. And skipping down a little further is this language-challenged, unattributed “Azambujism”:

If the measure would be adopted, it would likely be stricter to meet qualifications for the county manager than for the U.S. president.

We won’t even attempt to dissect or diagram that one.

One of the things a newswriting class teaches is to avoid negative characterization of the person you are quoting. There’s noting wrong with the neutral word “said” but, unless it’s well explained and under extreme circumstances where it’s called for, reporters should avoid using pejorative terms like “claimed”, “boasted” or “admitted” or use of prejudicial adverbs. But in characterizing a quote from Glenn Mickens. a proponent of the county manager proposal, Azambuja wrote:

He admitted the county manager system wouldn’t be a cure for all, and if it didn’t work, the island could return to the mayor system of governance.

You get the idea.

Back in the 90’s our solid waste mess was almost as bad as it is today and then-Mayor Maryanne Kusaka was called before the council to explain why, given the “crisis” she insisted on having the bumbling, bungling, uneducated and inexperienced Troy Tanigawa in charge of the Solid Waste Division of the Department of Public Works- someone activist and original “nitpicker” Ray Chuan used to characterize as one of the “protecteds”.

Even when, after council interrogation, it became apparent Tanigawa- who is still in the position today- was incapable of handing the situation Kusaka wouldn’t give up on Troy telling the council she was willing to “send him back to school” rather than replace him.

Though we all rolled in the council chambers isles at that one perhaps if Editor Nathan Eagle won’t look for someone with basic newswriting skills from among the many out of work journalistic casualties of the Honolulu newspaper “merger” debacle- and pay them more than the local paper’s notorious starvation wages- at this point we’d even settle for the “Tanigawa Solution”.

Or at least spring for a textbook Nathan.

JAWS OF DEFEAT/SAY IT AIN’T SO

JAWS OF DEFEAT: About a week or so back we got a thus-far-unpublished letter to the editor from Horace Stoessel, the father of the 20.02(D) controversy- the man who first had the temerity to ask the Kaua`i Board of Ethics (BOE) to enforce the charter.

In it he surprisingly said he would compromise and support the “carve out” exemption for charitable organizations when county officials appear on behalf of private interests before county boards, commissions and agencies in order to get the rest of the provision enforced.

So today’s news that the Ethics Board has (had a) change of heart and voted to uphold the law after all the silliness of the past couple of years came as something of a shock.

Even Mark Hubbard who fought the hardest to make a mockery of the law voted for it although, according to reporter Mike Levine he still has remnant schizophrenic, double-talking tendencies in refusing to admit the past rulings clearing Hubbard and others were a mistake.

And of course, as the people’s champion former BOE member Rolf Bieber told Levine the proof will be in the pudding since, as we’ve seen, just because a clear statue exists it doesn’t mean people with conflicts will do what Hubbard suggested in saying exactly what we’ve written dozens of times:

(W)ith this interpretive rule, it’s now different than we’ve voted in the past, and I would have been in error in going before the County Council. I should not do that again, or I should quit my position on the Board of Ethics. I have a choice.”

It’s certainly a black eye for the gang of administration stooges at County Attorney Alfred “E. what me worry” Castillo’s office who didn’t even bother to do enough research to turn up the state ethics commission letter that convinced the BOE that they didn’t have any cover to continue to carve out exemptions or create “absurd result” excuses for their illegal activities.

Throughout the whole debacle people have asked basically “what the heck is the difference?.. it’s not as if this will magically clean up the corrupt, old boy network of the board and commission system”.

No it won’t. They will still try to make sure that if you wear the kings uniform you carry the kings sword. We’ve spoken to four people currently serving as a mayoral appointees who confirm that board and commission chief John Isobe made sure that they “support the mayor” before getting an appointment.

But it will shake out the most conflicted- those with an obvious reason to play the “one hand washes the other”, revolving-door game.

It also gives heart to those who still believe that a small, dedicated, persistent group- in this case Bieber, Stoessel, Rob Abrew and Glenn Mickens who did what most or can’t do... show up- can effect change even if it is incremental. Their success couldn’t have come about without Levine’s detailed news coverage and others like Charley Foster and Joan Conrow whose blog posts helped keep the issue before the public.

If they’re anything like us, these people do battle with the entrenched cronies not for the rare victory like this but for the fight itself because they have trouble living with themselves if they don’t.

As the Happy Camper might say, “hats off”, “kudos” and “three cheers” for them the real service-oriented citizens of Kaua`i.

----------

SAY IT AIN’T SO: Speaking of Levine it looks like the inevitable is about to come to pass. According to John Temple, the editor of “Peer News”, the nascent online Hawai`i news venture (thanks to Ian Lind for the heads up):

I’m happy to report that we’ve now hired the editorial team that will launch our new news service for Honolulu and Hawaii...

(T)he reporter hosts at Peer News will include:

Mike Levine, currently a reporter and assistant news editor at The Garden Island newspaper on Kauai. Mike has worked as a journalist on Kauai for a couple of years, after picking lettuce and acting as a tour guide there. He also worked for Fodor’s to update the Kauai section of the 2010 Hawaii Guidebook and Kauai Guidebook 3rd Edition. Mike worked as a news desk editor and writer at NBA.com before moving to Kauai. He’s a graduate of Lehigh University and the rare reporter to have majored in journalism and minored in material science and engineering.

We’re not sure if this means Mike will be leaving the local newspaper and apparently he will still be covering Kaua`i even if he does. But a statewide news services is unlikely to cover the detail of local Kaua`i news that his reporting has provided.

---------

We’ve off for the weekend tracking how soon we’re eliminated from the basketball pool. We’ll be back with a tear-stained entry Monday.

STRAW MAN STRONG MAN

STRAW MAN STRONG MAN: The great talking-past-each-other debate on the “proposed” county manager (CM) system between retired former Judge Al “let ‘em go” Laureta and county watchdog Glenn “hope springs eternal” Mickens continued in the letters to the editor column of the local newspaper today with “Yogi” Mickens “it’s better because it’s better” response to Alfred E. Laureta’s “what, me worry?” demand to know “what’s broken” in Kaua`i county government.

As we’ve said before while we aren’t exactly on the CM conga line we certainly can articulate what the some of the problems are and have done so especially in the past month or so albeit in a cursory manner.

We hope to try to get into some more detail as to what doesn’t work and what kind of specific changes to the charter would be appropriate to address those impediments to good governance over the next few weeks.

But another letter today, this one from Democratic party leader Linda Estes, brings up an issue that has been bandied about although, from Estes letter, it apparently is largely misunderstood.

Everyone we’ve heard speak on the matter contends that Kaua`i has a “strong mayor” system. But Estes makes an argument that in fact:

Kaua`i has a weak mayor form of government because the mayor cannot appoint several of the department heads. Civil Service, Police, Fire, Water, Planning and Liquor are critical departments in county government and the mayor, at this time, cannot appoint the people to head those departments. If he cannot appoint them, how can he hold them responsible for the operation of their departments?

The proposal to put those departments under the direct authority of the mayor should be on the 2010 ballot. Then, if it passes, the people of Kaua`i can decide at a later date if they prefer a county manager or a strong mayor form of government.

First of all the term “strong mayor” derives from what the mayor’s powers are as opposed to those of the county council’s- the traditional balance of power between legislative and administrative branches of government.

The strongest parts of the mayor’s powers on Kaua`i stem from the total ban on any interference by the council in administrative matters enshrined in our charter.

The only way the council can compel the mayor or his/her appointees to appear and answer questions is under one provision that requires the council to launch an official investigation to do so. Otherwise, as we detailed recently, the administration can refuse to even explain how it plans to spend- or in fact did spend- the money the council appropriated or acted upon a piece of legislation passed by the council.

That’s why you see the words “requests the presence of the administration to discuss...” on council agendas.

Another strength of our administrative branch is the power to appoint almost every single member of the administration- except for the county attorney and those that, as Estes points out, are appointed by a board or commission - without confirmation by the council.

Here too the mayor, as most all administrators do, naturally has more power than the council since he selected the members of those boards and commissions (B&Cs) for the most part and the council can only disapprove them. As a matter of fact the council cannot even remove them without the mayor asking that they be removed.

There are some B&Cs where the mayor and council each appoint three members each and those members select one more. But, illustratively, it should be remembered that the original charter did not have this provision and it only arose because of the strength of the mayor... it’s an example of how the original charter was designed to provide for an extremely strong mayor.

There are other provisions that strengthen the mayor’s power as opposed to those of the council but essentially the mayor has a thumb on the balance of power everywhere except for appropriating money or passing ordinances.

Even there there is diminished accountability and, as we’ve seen, administrative rules promulgated by the administration sometimes carve out loopholes in ordinances that are less than specific- some that actually conflict with the law- leaving the council the option of liking it or lumping it... or suing the administration in court, as happened in the “constitutional” budget crisis during the Yukimura administration

The six departments that Estes cites are the exceptions and were set up that way because those specific departments it was thought would be the most subject to political interference and members of the public should be entrusted to make the hiring and firing decisions- with the “check” on their power being that they are appointed and confirmed by elected officials.

But few can argue that that system has worked well. What has happened in practice is that because the department heads have no set terms after which they must face re-approval or renewal of their contracts it becomes almost impossible for a board to remove them.

As a matter of fact there is no procedure for removal of the appointee in the administrative rules any of board with appointment power.

With the staggered three year terms and a two term limits for B&C members after a while few of any of those who appointed the department heads are on the current board and the employee becomes the boss and in fact mentors the members and advises them when they meet.

As a matter of fact, some members have no idea that they are empowered to remove the department head if they want to. And most wouldn’t know how to do it if they did.

Estes suggests that putting them under the mayoral appointment system would solve that problem. But then we’re right back where we started with politics playing a large part in the hire, no council approval and of course a lack of continuity when administrations change- which, when these appointing B&Cs were originally set up, could have been every two years.

But rather than throw out the baby with the bathwater a few fixes might be in order.

The first is a set term for board-appointed department heads. A charter provision calling for a standard contract length- say three years although it could be otherwise- along with a template for a required re-evaluation and re-hire protocol would go a long way to re-imbue the members with a sense that they are indeed in charge.

A charter provision could be somewhat detailed or leave the fleshing out to an ordnance and administrative rules. But right now there is no standard and these department heads become entrenched serving for decades without so much as an opportunity for their appointing authority to really look at their job performance without appearing to be “making waves” or “rocking the boat”- something that, on Kaua`i almost insures they will not be serving on B&C’s very long as the recent Rolf Bieber episode so clearly demonstrates.

Other than the police department we can’t think of a B&C that ever removed a sitting department head... or even attempted to do so. And technically the police commission didn’t do that either, causing the political free for all surrounding Chief KC Lum’s “removal” (he actually retired).

But the contention that Kaua`i has a weak mayor system and that strengthening it is the answer is to cherry pick one “exception that proves the rule” and use it to define the whole system rather than taking a broad perspective when examining the charter and how it plays out in reality.

A charter amendment calling for all mayoral appointments to be confirmed by the council would go a long way toward equalizing the balance of power along with a modification of the strict no-interference clause. Many jurisdictions allow for subpoena power for the legislative branch without launching a formal investigation- and in fact legislative approval of all department heads is the norm across the country.

As we’ve said before, with a requirement for a certain educational and experiential standard and council approval the current charter provision for the Administrative Assistant (AA) could become the very “county manager” that proponents seek. Perhaps the addition of an independent panel that would submit of list of possible hires would be a wise addition to the process of selection of the AA.

We’ll try to get into more specific problems with the charter and possible fixes over the next month or so but suffice to say that the same ends that the CM proponents seek could be accomplished through narrower targeted amendments to the structure expressed in the charter without scaring the b’jeezus out of a citizenry that may be adverse to a “rewrite” of the charter” and/or “eliminating the mayor”- both things that amount to “experiments” and rightly make voters apprehensive.

-------

We’ll be playing with our new chew toys and a bit intermittent over the next two week. If we’re not here, we’re there- so there, hear?

PAVLOV’S PRIDE:

PAVLOV’S PRIDE: Our post on Monday regarding the infuriating way Councilperson Jay Furfaro protects the Minotaur’s labyrinth though the use of pompous paternalism and obfuscation- preferring to see it as stewardship- drew a few emails affirming that the observation is not ours alone with one lamenting the fact that, instead of listening he gets huffy and acts “hurt” when people have the temerity to point this out to him.

Another contained an illustrative story from “nitpicker” Glenn Mickens that stood out and, with his permission, we are highlighting it here today.

For me, Jay is probably the most knowledgeable person on the council BUT as you said his "pompous, paternalistic, know it all persona" AND his sway with the political wind attitude keeps him from being a fine people's representative.

When the Olohena Bridge was being debated in the chambers---the contractor needed a money bill for $500 thousand to go ahead with the project--at 4:30AM a few years ago Jay voted to give them the money bill!!! Jay was the one to bring up the fact that the Acrow people could build the same bridge for well under $1 million whereas Unlimited got $4.8 million for building it. I picked up on this issue and got together with the Acrow people and confirmed that they could and would build this bridge for the well under $1 million dollar price. PLUS Acrow could put the bridge in place in one to two days whereas Unlimited took 3 months to build theirs and had traffic detoured for miles while construction was being done!!!

When Jay told me that he "had" to vote for the money bill I told him it would shoot down any chance for Acrow to build it but he just walked away. Obviously the political wind (or other ulterior motive???) influenced his decision and this was just another example of Jays make up. And, at vote time on that morning it was a 3 to 3 vote for the money bill and the "great" Jo Ann voted to give them the money bill and the deal was done. Even the Mayor was there till 4:30 (making sure that his buddies got what they wanted) and I lived in his back pocket telling him he was doing the wrong thing.

Maybe you remember this whole incident, Andy, but I had the entire Wailua Homesteads neighborhood fighting against this Unlimited bridge---a small bridge over a "ditch" (so designated on the map) that cost the tax payers $4.8 million dollars and not under $1 million that Acrow would have built it for.

And, Andy, the Kilauea bridge was built for a cost of over $12 million whereas I personally asked the Acrow people (when they were on Island) for an estimate and they said for under a million dollars!!!! Talk about rip offs. And remember that these Acrow bridges are built around the world and we have 4 of them on Kauai (Federal, State and County approved) plus the bridge across the Wailua River will be Acrow so you tell me what is going on???

---------

And to give true meaning to Veteran’s Day we present one veteran’s thoughts... all you have to do is just substitute Afghanistan for Viet Nam and Taliban for Viet Cong to show nothing ever changes...



And for all you FISHionados we’ve also found bit of old Bizerkley:

BIG DOG ASPIRATIONS

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

LOVE AT FIRST BITE

LOVE AT FIRST BITE: After perusing today’s news in the local paper this morning and reading Board of Ethics (BOE) watchdog Horace Stoessel’s description of the latest debacle in the continuing quest for enforcement of charter provision 20.02(d)- examined in excruciating detail in this space including our three part report (see left rail)- we just happened to turn back to the “Kaua`i News” page and scroll down past today’s entries to catch an article seen only in the “previous headlines” section entitled “TOMORROW'S NEWS — $3M requested for special counsel since 2007”.

Apparently reporter Michael Levine’s quest for county documents is bearing fruit and County Attorney Al Castillo is giving up long-sought documents after they were requested by Levine in the name of the local newspaper.

The new, apparently permanent page at the paper’s website shows that Levine received the list of 42 county appropriations for outside council dating back to January 2007 along with the case and amounts for each.

But that list is something anyone could have compiled albeit with a painstaking examination of past agendas and “recap memos” although the latter have just recently been made available.

The big accomplishment is in getting the BOE to give up the actual disclosure statements of various recent applicants for various board and commission members.

In the past the BOE has kept these statements under close wraps and actually edited them and blacked out the potential conflicts of interest that violated 20.02(d) as well as other information calling it “an invasion of privacy” even though they are called “public disclosure documents”.

Although it is certainly not a complete list – they appear under two separate links- a quick run-through shows on first blush a pattern of appearance before other boards and commissions on behalf of private interests on the part of many of the applicants heretofore unreported.

Another pattern is illegible handwriting making many of the documents virtually useless.

But one statement stands out for simply it’s lack of any information- and it’s one that is an all-important link to what happens with huge stacks of county, state and federal taxpayer monies.

Though few will recognize the name Randy Finlay- whose address and phone number are not blacked out as the law requires- anyone who has passed by a road repaving or construction project will recognize the name of the company he owns and runs- Unlimited Construction.

His application to continue to be a member of the Cost Control Commission (CCC) is devoid of any information required and instead lists “no change” on all the information points required to be included when one fills out the form.

But what’s interesting in the fact that he is serving on the CCC when his company has been complicit in one of the biggest-yet underreported rip-offs on the island.

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% thinker 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.

And when Mickens presented the facts for the umpteenth time- as he has to each new council and individually to all new councilmembers over the last decade plus- one of the suggestions has been to have the CCC look into it.

Of course the more basic question is whether someone who bids on tens of millions of dollars worth of county contracts should be serving on a county commission where he might be considering cost savings such as investigating county road repaving methodologies and contracts.

Mickens’ full detailed written testimony before the council from this year’s budget hearings in April is presented at the end of this post for all those who want to fully understand this scam that has been going on for years with the apparent complicity of Unlimited Construction as well as Niu construction which Mickens mentions in his testimony

We’ll be getting out the fine tooth comb in coming days for the other disclosures, as well as filing for the statements for the council, mayor, department heads and their deputies and the rest of the sitting board and commission members covered by the pubic disclosure laws.

In the meantime we welcome you to peruse the current ones and let us know anything you might find missing from the forms or less than apparent conflicts raised by the disclosures.

-------

Glenn Mickens’ Testimony April 2009:

Our code for resurfacing roads as outlined in your Standard Details manual shows a thickness of 1 1/2". Two bids that Ryan was nice enough to give me both show the same specifications---1 1/2".If you will check the Asphalt Paving Job Calculator that all paving contractors use or if you will use simple mathematics, you will see that by using 1 TON of asphalt (AC) to pave 108 square feet, you will get a thickness of 1 1/2".

Yet, if you will refer to the memo I have from public works you will see that we use 1 Ton of AC to pave 90 square feet.

Also a check of the 07-08 Island Wide Resurfacing list will verify that we ARE using this 1 ton of AC to pave 90 square feet. A check of the calculator will show that 1 Ton of AC per 90 square feet will give a thickness of about 1 7/8"

To put this into perspective:
If we pave 1 mile of road using the 1 ton per 90 sq ft. we would use 1056 tons of AC. At today's price of about $200 per ton that cost would be 1056 x $200 or $211,200.

By using the 1 ton of AC to pave 108 sq. ft. (to give the 1 1/2" that code specifies) we would need 880 tons to pave 1 mile or, 880 x $200 = $176,000.

Thus we are spending $35,200 MORE for each mile of road that we pave. Since we have 300 miles of county roads on Kauai that means it is costing the tax payers $10,560,000 more by using the county method over the correct method.

You might argue that we are getting 3/8" more AC put on our roads but the contractors are bidding on 1 1/2" so they would lose money if their bid was for 1 1/2" and they put down 1 7/8". Also, I have picked up pieces of AC from our roads (I walk 4 miles a day over them) and they are less than an inch thick. So not only are we not getting the extra 3/8" we are paying for, we are not even getting the 1 1/2" that be bid specifies.

So, the questions are, (1) why are we using the 1 ton of AC to pave 90 sq ft. instead of the correct 1 ton to pave 108 sq ft.? (2) Where is the extra AC going or where is the money going that is costing us more? (3) Shouldn't the weight ticket at the AC plant and the core samples taken from the roads match the amount of money we are being charged for?

Also for clarity, In the 2 bids that Ryan gave me from Niu and Glover. Glovers bid (cost per ton) on 10 roads went from $268 to $762 or an average of $416 per ton all in the Waimea district, close to their plant. This was for phase 2.
Niu appears to have gotten the bid (both they and Glover for 06-07) for phase 1 on the North Shore. Their bid per ton was for an average of $224 so why this huge difference in the bids that they were awarded.

My next question. Why are we not following the Hawaii Asphalt Paving Industry (HAPI) standards for paving our roads? Both Grace Pacific and Glover are members of HAPI and they abide by their recommended paving methods.

When I spoke to a roads engineer from Glover he told me that he has asked and suggested to Public Works that they use HAPI standards but was told that our county doesn't have the funds to do it that way Thus we are being penny smart and dollar stupid as even if our roads would cost more to originally pave they will last 15 to 20 years (WITHOUT POTHOLES) or deterioration instead of being in the shape they are in now.

In other words when the county issues an RFP they do not specify replacing the old cracked base or putting a leveling course down before the final layer---all HAPI specifications. So why don't we ask for more money in the budget and do the job right with whatever funds we have?

And, if I understood what Ryan told me, we used the 07-08 budget for resurfacing for the 08-09 year and thus, instead of paving more roads with the extra money we got in 07-08 (I believe it was over $3 million) we are actually repaving less since we have less money. I asked this question since I have never seen the budget for 08-09. If I am wrong maybe Ryan can correct me.

At about $200 per ton for AC today and a budget of under 2 million dollars a year, we are only capable of paving about 10 miles of roads. That means it would take 30 years to pave all 300 miles of our county roads plus by using these incorrect methods of paving our roads will only remain a mess.

The shoulders of our paved and repaved roads. In the bid contract it states that the level of the shoulders will be put back to the level of the newly resurfaced road BUT that it will be done by Public Works. Many of our repaved roads have never had the shoulders fixed to these standards and it is a hazard. I have addressed this to PW many times but it still has not been taken care of. .

Striping our roads. I have addressed this to Donald many times and he said that unless the road is at least 20 feet wide it is their POLICY not to stripe them. This "POLICY" should be changed as it is dangerous for vehicles driving at night or in rain not to have a reference point or for opposite driving vehicles to stay on their side of the road. Hauiki road is a good example of this as it was just repaved, is 18' wide and has no stripe.

Pot Holes. Code states that pot holes will be cut on a square or rectangular pattern, new 4" of base course put in, and 2" of AC compacted into the hole. All we do now (and have done in my 20 Years on Island) is dump cold mix in the hole (sometimes with water still in it) do not compact it, and it is gone after the next rain. So we waste our time, material, and manpower doing the job wrong----this MUST be changed.

Picking the roads to be resurfaced. There is no methodology as to which roads are to be paved. As long as we only have finite money in the budget for roads repaving and can only do about 10 miles a year, we need to pick the heaviest traveled roads and the ones that are in the worst shape. But this isn't done. As an example Kealia Road was resurfaced in the 05-06 budget year at a cost of $250,800. This road has few homes along it---most of it with none---but it was still repaved. A 2000 acre subdivision is going in at the top of this road but the tax payers shouldn't have to pay the cost of a road that benefits a developer.

DOGGED PERSISTENCE

DOGGED PERSISTENCE: The bill we’ve been following to appropriate $85,000 to help the Kaua`i Police Department (KPD) with recruiting is up for final passage on Wednesday but not before both a bang and a whimper at last week’s Public Safety Committee meeting.

On Jan. 15 we posted the prepared public hearing testimony of council watchdog Glenn Mickens questioning the need to throw money at the problem without first finding out why we are so dismally behind other islands in keeping our force fully staffed.

Mickens also maintained that the “morale problem”- upon which much of the shortage was blamed for years- hasn’t gotten any better since the ouster of Chief KC Lum and the installation of Chief Darryl Perry.

And on Jan. 20 we reported on the reaction of Council Chair Kaipo Asing at the Jan 14 hearing, generally excoriating Mickens for his attempt to link the shortage to morale and just about calling him a liar regarding the numbers from other islands' departments.

The bang at last Wed.’s (Jan 21) committee meeting was the sound of Mickens' explosive report after he called each department on each island and got the accurate figures.

And the whimper was the way a silent Asing simply skulked out of the council chambers after Mickens’ presentation without any recognition of Mickens' work or an apology for his diatribe the previous week during the “public hearing”- where by law council members are supposed to refrain from comment on public testimony.

Mickens' testimony – reproduced in full below- said that

HCPD (Hawaii County) has a total of 432 police officer positions and 9 of those are unfilled at this time. Meaning that they are about 2% from being completely full.

HPD (Oahu) has a total of 2134 officers and only 10 of those are unfilled or 1/2 of 1%.

Maui PD has 367 officers with 36 vacancies meaning about 10% are unfilled.

And our department according to our organizational chart on our Web site has 141 total officers with 23 vacancies or 16.3%.

And our numbers are actually it’s even worse now than when they were posted

At it’s Jan 23 meeting the Kaua`i Police Commission heard a report from the chief that the latest figure is that we are 28 not 23 officers short and we currently do not even have a recruiting class in progress.

And there was discussion among commissioners about how we can expect a slew of retirements in the near future with many “reaching 20 (years service)” very soon.

The chief reported that a class starting on Feb 2 has 13 recruits, but there are about 40 names on a list of those who passed the test and another 80 on a waiting list to take the test.

It’s not clear if the council had these numbers, but in response to at least one aspect of Mickens testimony, a Councilperson Jay Furfaro-introduced amendment to the bill was passed.

While the original bill required that the department use $65,000 of the money to hire a “consultant”, the amendment would allow them to hire someone (Mickens suggested using a retired officer) to simply run the required “background checks” on applicants since that is apparently why, though there are 120 people who have applied, only 13 are in the current class.

It should be noted that no one from KPD ever appeared before the council to answer questions regarding the bill or on recruiting in general. Nor was there even a request by any council member to have anyone from the department present.

That may be the first time we’ve ever seen a departmental appropriation bill sail though the council without the presence of department personnel at some point to answer questions and shepherd the bill through.

Much of the discussion, especially from Councilperson Dickie Chang, centered around finding out what the other islands’ departments were doing that was working so well and applying it to recruiting on Kaua`i. But it is unknown if that message will reach KPD brass because they simply weren’t there to hear it.

Bill 2296 is expected to pass unanimously on second reading this Wed at the full council meeting which begins at 9 a.m.

Glenn Mickens' Testimony on KPD recruiting :

In my testimony at the Public Hearing on 1/14 I made some statementsbasically trying to back up my theory that this council shouldn't be approving $85 thousand for a consultant and for advertising to get more police on our force.

I made the statement that "I understood" that our other Islands had their police positions filled and since SHOPO sets salaries for the entire state, pay is not, in my opinion, the biggest problem with recruiting. As Jay said, it is part of the entire problem but probably not the largest.

My friend, Council Chair Asing, basically stated that the numbers I was giving for other island's employment status were wrong.

So I called the police departments on Oahu, the Big Island and Maui. What I found out was very interesting.

HCPD (Hawaii County) has a total of 432 police officer positions and 9 of those are unfilled at this time. Meaning that they are about 2% from being completely full.

HPD (Oahu) has a total of 2134 officers and only 10 of those are unfilled or 1/2 of 1%.

Maui PD has 367 officers with 36 vacancies meaning about 10% are unfilled.

And our department according to our organizational chart on our Web site has 141 total officers with 23 vacancies or 16.3%.

So, it appears that besides our unfilled positions of 16.3%, the other Islands are much closer to being 100% full and this was my point. Instead of Kaipo questioning my figures I am sure he could have called the other police departments to confirm or deny the accuracy of my numbers.

Council member Chang made a very good observation at the last meeting when he said that if the other Islands have their positions filled, our department should take a page from their book and find out what they do to fill vacant positions. In fact I complimented the other departments when I spoke to them for their method of hiring and retaining their officers.

So, it would appear prudent to me to do as someone has suggested to help solve some of our problems. Find a retired officer or someone with police experience, put them on an 89 day hire, pay them from the unfilled budget (saving about $79 thousand of the $85 thousand being asked for) and thus not task a working officer with the recruiting responsibility and putting that persons work load on another officer which could only increase problems in the force.

Also, the council passed and adopted Resolution # 2005-65 Draft 1 on December 1, 2005. This resolution established a council investigating committee to investigate the Kauai Police Department.

Since all aspects of the police department were to be looked into under Charter Section 3.17----which must have included hiring and retention practices---the reasons for not being able to fill most vacancies must have been identified. So why are we wanting to spend $85 thousand to duplicate what was done or should have been done?

Again, I am opposed to Bill 2296 and do not believe that the proposed $85 thousand will solve the problem that it was meant to address.

MORE DOG; LESS PONY

MORE DOG; LESS PONY: Since there don’t seem to be any significant political events in Washington or Honolulu today and tomorrow we thought we’d provide one final diatribe regarding last Wednesday’s council meeting.

One item we neglected to mention in the lead up to the meeting where a three month buildup of delayed items were dispatched was draft Bill 2300 which would “transfer” $833,696 of taxpayer money to support the supposedly self-supporting Wailua Golf Course and another $600,291 to the pay for sewers which are also supposed to pay for themselves through fees..

For the uninitiated there are several “enterprise” funds in the county that are supposed to support ventures via user fees rather than through the property tax money which is collected and deposited in the “General Fund”.

And for years the golf course, despite the fact that the council has put it into a category where it’s supposed to support itself through greens fees, has quietly gobbled up a goodly chunk of cash from the general fund usually in an “after the fact” appropriation to make up the difference.

The council of course hasn’t just raised just the fees but simply acquiesces to the “golf lobby” by stealing tax money to “replenish the Golf fund”

The golf lobby as one would expect is comprised of a lot of business executives and appointed county officials who just happen to be generous with the campaign bucks come election time.

So, in an attempt to link everything to our “tough economic times”, Council Vice Chair Jay Furfaro told Glenn Mickens- who dared to put a finger in the swirling eddy and interrupt the auto-pilot flushing of this year’s money-down-the-drain- that this year the excuse was that the number of rounds of golf was down so we were nearly two-thirds of a million dollars short this time.

Of course Furfaro offered no numbers, reports or statistics but in his inimitable paternalistic fashion told Glenn and fellow council members not to worry their pretty little heads because he had already asked around and that was the answer and that was that and sit down and shut up.

The problem is he didn’t say why the sewer fund was that short.

Is the sewer fund also a victim of the economic slowdown? Is there not enough ,er- ah, “solid waste” gong into the system now? Or, to put it more bluntly, are we experiencing a crap shortage? Perhaps people are eating less. Or maybe those soaring porcelain prices are driving up the cost of faculties?

Why, just like the golf fund, it couldn’t possibly be because of council mismanagement in not setting fees that would be self sustaining, as the law they themselves passed mandates.

Nah, they wouldn’t do that. Although what they are full of in the council chambers these days may explain the shortage of it flowing through the sewage meters.

On to a couple of predictable outcomes of a couple of matters we wrote about last week.

Guess what happened when the Food Bank’s Executive Director and Ethics Board member Judy Lenthall came to the council to thank them for last year’s appropriation to expand participation in the food stamp program and lobby for more

As we feared would happen a week ago Monday not only didn’t she proclaim her lobbyist status but paid no attention to the law that forbade her from representing the Food Bank before the council while she sits on the Ethics Board, which routinely washes clean the dirty deeds of the council..

Former council candidate Bruce Peas, who has sought to enforce a state law and council rule requiring lobbyists to state they are lobbying when they come to testify, got up to question the matter and attempted to actually read aloud Section 20.02 of the county charter – a provision voters refused to change in the fall which forbids the type of conflict of interest in which Lenthall was engaging.

And to no one’s surprise Council Chair Kaipo Asing- who has been cleared of ethics violations by the Ethics Board in the past- cut Pleas off saying that “only the Food Bank is on the agenda” which caused Pleas to crawl back to his seat instead of insisting on his right to testify about how the action on agenda item was illegal.

But that brief little show was nothing compared to the smoke and mirrors on the bill to appropriate money for recruiting more police officers..

After Glenn Mickens read his testimony which we published last week regarding money for Kaua`i Police Department (KPD) recruiting and the continuing if not worsening low morale on the force, Asing was adamant that Glenn’s figures were wrong.

Asing offered no numbers of his own of course because Mickens was the only one in the room that had checked- and double checked the day after the meeting- his figures on recruitment and the ties to “morale”... both of which have only worsened since Chief KC Lum was railroaded out of office.

Then Furfaro put on his tap shoes and did his usual shtick of claiming he checked with everybody and there was nothing to worry Glenn’s pretty little head about and it seemed that the old soft shoe has been successful until new Councilmember “TV’s Dickie Chang” took the “stage” as he is wont to do.

But anyone expecting the usually smooth talking Chang to rattle off his prattle and easily banter with Mickens would have been be shocked to hear and see a quite obviously nervous and flustered Chang stammer and trip over his words in trying to get to the heart of the issue of “morale” among Kauai’s finest..

He did get out though that he knows that “morale is at an all time high” as evidenced by the “Cop on Top” event he covered on his TV program and some bike race where the guys on the force were letting new chief Perry win until he only lost “due to a flat tire”.

“Morale at the police force has gotten leaps and bounds” he non-sequitorily ended, possibly referring to the “leap” of the “cop” to the “top” of Safeway to raise money for charity and the “bound” Perry experienced when the rubber met the road and his tire tired.

Forget your afternoon “stories”. Forget your reality shows. We suggest that for a good- and free- evening of comedy, tragedy and all around entertainment you tune to the government access channel 53 at 7 p.m.

If this keeps up you won’t be disappointed.

COUNCIL: TRUST US; PUBLIC: WHY WOULD WE?

COUNCIL: TRUST US; PUBLIC: WHY WOULD WE?: In a stinging rebuke to the pleas of the community the Kaua`i County Council unanimously abandoned the campaign promises of most and closed its doors to discuss public policy and future legislation regarding the newly adopted charter amendments in executive session.(ES)

At their Wednesday meeting last week each member asked to public to “trust us” to discuss only what they called “potential lawsuits” resulting from as yet un-discussed and un-drafted legislation to implement what has come to be known as the “Citizen’s General Plan Charter Amendment” passed last fall.

As PNN noted a week ago Friday, the state Sunshine Law strictly prohibits the discussion of public policy in meetings closed to the public and none of the councilpersons offered any explanation as to why this wouldn’t apply to all discussions of pending or contemplated legislation.

All of those who testified were almost livid at the council. Bruce Peas, whose unsuccessful run for council last year was centered around open and good governance, noted how the three new council members had joined him on an open government platform.

“This was done before and left a bad taste in people’s mouth” he said of closed meetings to hide politically sensitive, public policy matters under the guise of a “potential” for lawsuits.

Rich Hoeppner who helped organize the petition effort to put the measure on the ballot- a measure that ties tourism development to the county’s general plan by forcing the council to either give the plan “teeth” or issue zoning permits by themselves- was most blunt in his opposition to the ES.

“If there’s no actual litigation there’s no justification. Future litigation is not grounds for going into executive session now” he told councilmembers adding that “a vote against an ES would be a vote to gain the respect of the public”..

Another former council candidate Scott Mijares said he agreed with Hoeppner and Pleas asking that in crafting an ordinance the discussion be conducted “in an open forum and see what the public wants”.

Council watchdog and open governance stalwart Glenn Mickens attacked the fact that there was no specific reason for the public policy discussion to exclude the public and wondered aloud why the council was always “trying to circumvent the will of the public”.

“The public deserves to hear the rationale for an executive session” he said.

Another candidate who ran on an open government platform, Ken Taylor said he was “really saddened” and called the move to hide public policy “the first time it is on the agenda.... totally disrespectful of the community”

He called for an “open dialogue on the issue” and asked ”if issues come up that call for (an ES) then so be it. But have the dialogue in public.”

Then the council tried to grill the deputy county attorney of the week, Darren Suzuki, as to the legality of going into ES but Suzuki refused to okay it or for that matter reject it saying “it’s up to you” and pointing out how it was a political decision

No matter what and which way the council asked Suzuki about whether it was legal to go into ES, Suzuki repeated the mantra of “the agenda posting is correct. If you want more information, put it in writing” and then his office will respond with an opinion.

Councilmembers, then started to bring up some the problems of implementing the charter amendment, beginning with Jay Furfaro who spoke of many of the implementation problems PNN documented last year.

But that’s where council discussion began and ended when Chair Kaipo Asing shut the discussion down in an attempt to keep it behind closed doors.

In a second round of public testimony Taylor called the discussion Asing shut down “the exact kind of dialogue that should go on in public”.

Mijares called the discussion “extremely frustrating” saying “everything you do has legal ramifications” accusing the council of “sending the wrong massage (because) the public is not involved “

That was followed by a round of hand-wringing from each council members with each saying the pubic must “trust us” but offering no justification for that trust.

But at the end when it was her turn it appeared Councilperson Lani Kawahara might oppose the executive session when she asked Asing if he could “separate the vote” from two other proposed ES’ on the agenda, both regarding current lawsuits against the county.

When Asing asked her “which one don’t you want?” Kawahara asked for a recess.

And after the recess she had apparently been pressured into voting with the group saying ”all the councilmembers talked to me” and that she “will vote yes (and) ask the public to trust us”.

And with that the council voted for the ES and when they came back to public session they did not discuss it further.

Reached for comment over the weekend Kawahara indicated that she regretted her vote even though it would not have stopped the council from clearing the room and meeting in secret.

She told PNN that "I will be much more reluctant the next time I’m asked to approve of executive sessions of this nature. I’m still learning, and I will make mistakes" .

Kawahara said that she is still subject to a “big learning curve” as a new council member and remains committed to open governance and transparency.

She also said she plans to meet informally with the staff of OIP in O`ahu on Tuesday for a comprehensive briefing on the sunshine law and executive sessions.