SEEING- AND HEARING- IS BELIEVING: For some reason we seem to have become the clearinghouse for people calling to find out why the heck recent cablecasts of council meetings look like they were done by an aggregation of orangutans using the very first video cameras ever made.
"What the heck is with Ho`ike this time" they scream into the phone, regarding what most assume is yet another incompetent screwup by the Kaua`i public access TV outlet.
The video looks like a 10th generation re-dub and the audio sounds like it was recorded in a bathtub ever since the council moved back into the Historic County Building and the "automatic" system they had installed during the renovation was fired up.
And that's when it worked. Last week's meeting was pure torture to view with the sound of 120-decibel white noise accompanying the wide view of the panel, and the rest, when it was audible at all, was recorded at barely a whisper.
But after talking to Ho`ike Managing Director J Robertson this morning, we discovered what we suspected all along- for once Ho`ike isn't to blame.
And starting tomorrow if all goes well the "new" automated, voice-activated recording system will be scrapped in favor of the old human-driven cameras and recording devices with a real live director, Bill "BC" Charles, at the helm.
According to Robertson, he met with Council Chair Jay Furfaro last week and Furfaro has agreed to scrub the new installation that was initiated by former Council Chair Kaipo Asing.
Seems Asing thought that system used in courts was the cat's meow so had it ordered and installed without consulting Robertson or anyone else who understood anything about video.
"It's certainly not broadcast quality" Robertson said, understating the look of the JAVS system and explaining that the cost for decent cameras wouldn't have been very much more.
"I wish they would have worked with us," he said.
But while we had the near-impossible-to-reach Robertson on the phone, we asked another question that has been a matter of discontent for many- why the meetings can't be cablecast live like the rest of the country.
When Time Warner took over the local cable system, they finally finished constructing what is known as the "I-Net" which connects government facilities to the public access's "head end" where they send their signal from.
Roberson said it connects the Historic County Building with the administrative offices in the Round Building and surrounding offices as well as all the fire stations, the police and courts complex, all the county neighborhood centers and schools.
But he says, the reason he can't use it is because the administration has refused to let him have access to the signal from the council and planning and police commission meetings.
He says he tried for years when Erik Knutzen was the county IT chief but that Knutzen told him- as he had told us- that both former Mayor Bryan Baptiste and current Mayor Bernard Carvalho wouldn't let them have the live signal, which has been viewable live in administrative offices for many years now.
Robertson said he talked to Furfaro about using the I-Net to put live meetings on Ho`ike and that Furfaro seemed receptive to the idea of just cutting the administration out as a "middleman" and making the signal available directly from the council to Ho`ike.
So are we counting on viewable council meetings beginning tomorrow or live ones in the near future?
What are we- freakin' idiots?
No, that's a question that only someone who has never dealt with the council or Ho`ike would ask expecting a positive response. As usual we'll believe it when we see it.
Showing posts with label J Robertson. Show all posts
Showing posts with label J Robertson. Show all posts
Tuesday, November 8, 2011
Friday, September 18, 2009
IT’S NOT A TURD- IT’S OUR LIVELIHOOD
IT’S NOT A TURD- IT’S OUR LIVELIHOOD: It’s been nothing short of nauseating to watch the way the western-settler, fat-cat, gentlemen-farmers have screwed any chance of an agriculturally successful future and thus rural island culture for the island by spewing their sense of false entitlement in front of the council and planning commission as they whine and snivel that they should be allowed to violate the state law banning vacation rentals on ag land.
Yet who can blame them for taking advantage of scofflaws like Councilperson Jay Furfaro who introduced the bill to somehow make the illegal legal and once-and-we-hope-not-future Councilperson JoAnn Yukimura who drew up the bill?
We still haven’t seen the cablecast of this week’s disgusting installment of “Screw the Public” (aka Furfaro’s Council Planning Committee meeting) due to the usual Ho`ike incompetence and catch-22 runaround – somehow apparently the captioning wasn’t done at the meeting and is being done now by Ho`ike although the only one who can say exactly what the heck is going on and when it might be on is the always out-of-the-office and incommunicado J Robertson... who in the middle of this mess took Friday off and is, as usual, unreachable until Monday, if then.
But thus far no one that we’ve caught at any meeting considering the bill – either at the planning commission or council- has mentioned that state law- HRS 205- specifically bans overnight accommodations for tourism related ag activities, which former Councilperson Mel Rapozo pointed out and later, at our urging, posted on his new “Straight From the Spleen- er, Heart” blog that replaces his now deleted Kaua`i Politics entry that disappeared after he lost the mayoral election in 2008.
It reads in pertinent part:
(b) Within agricultural districts, uses compatible to the activities described in section 205‑2 as determined by the commission shall be permitted; provided that accessory agricultural uses and services described in sections 205‑2 and 205‑4.5 may be further defined by each county by zoning ordinance. Each county shall adopt ordinances setting forth procedures and requirements, including provisions for enforcement, penalties, and administrative oversight, for the review and permitting of agricultural tourism uses and activities as an accessory use on a working farm, or farming operation as defined in section 165‑2; provided that agricultural tourism activities shall not be permissible in the absence of a bona fide farming operation. Ordinances shall include but not be limited to:...
(2) Requirements and restrictions for accessory facilities connected with the farming operation, including gift shops and restaurants; provided that overnight accommodations shall not be permitted;
That’s why the bill originally called for “non-enforcement agreements” even though the bill didn’t mention what was not being enforced in an hilarious-if-it-weren’t-so-asinine provision that had to be changed because the lobbyists and lawyers couldn’t ask for it without doubling over with laughter.
It’s hard to say who the worst jerkwad- or wads- in all this is/are. But when you look at the ag VCR owners who testify it’s hard not to start by blaming them for their own so-called predicament.
After flying in from LA on their magic wallets and cutting up most of the non-subdividable prime ag lots for their luxury homes driving prices for ag land beyond all farming business viability, they now are all suddenly “po' workin’ folk” who regurgitate-on-cue this “oh pity me- and in this bad economy no less- I’ll lose my land if I can’t have my illegal vacation rental- nooo oooone ever toooold meeeee” and similar drivel that just makes you want to scream.
Apparently if you have been illegally running, oh let’s say a drug ring and the cops failed to bust you then we need to let you keep up your trade because it feeds your family or some other irrelevant bullshit.
Next thing you know we’ll be grandfathering in all those who have been breaking into tourist’s cars – we have certainly not been enforcing that law either as the guy who, it was reported this week, has been arrested 74 times and is still on the loose can testify.
But worse is that we haven’t even heard a peep out of any councilperson challenging these chuckleheads as they file before them and blame everyone but themselves after they bought their land presumably with the required full disclosure so knowing full well what the rules were.
Of course the same goes for some of the requests for farm worker housing- or some who even want to put their own house on land they bought on the cheap precisely because it came without any “density” to build a house- and even the ones who, like Councilperson Tim Bynum, live on an “ag condo” so have apparently been violating the law requiring houses on ag land to be “farm dwellings” and so presumably have some nexus to a farming operation other than a mango tree in the yard.
Actually before any of these bills, as the law cited above says, what the county needs to do is to enact an ag tourism bill although even then state law specifically bans overnight accommodations in any ag tourism venture.
But instead of fulfilling that state mandate we’re the first to identify “unimportant” ag lands so we can sell of the rest of our agricultural capability to the next California cretin.
Oh and of course there’s plenty of blame left over for the local newspaper which so far has yet to quote HRS 205’s provision banning overnight tourist accommodations on ag land in the half dozen articles on the bill.
And in case anyone forgets, ALL TVRs outside the designated Visitor Destination Areas, no matter what the zoning, are and always were (since 1976) illegal no matter what Yukimura said and did in trying to make the existing ones legal by grandfathering them in rather than redoubling enforcement efforts.
But then of course the county is noted if not famously persistent for fixing what they don’t like under state law or our charter with an illegal ordinance as in the case we cited Wednesday.
Finally all this couldn’t be done without the complicity of the Planning Commission and Planning Director Ian Costa- along with his hand picked staff of sycophants- whose incompetence and out-and-out corruption has been well documented in this and other spaces.
But apparently this bill trying to make the illegal legal is sailing right along because the last person to blame- all the members of the public- have sat on their thumbs and let the stream of asshole gentleman farmers trying to cash in on the stumblebums in county government, to dominate testimony on the bill.
With once again apologies to Casey Stengle, can’t anyone here play this game?
Yet who can blame them for taking advantage of scofflaws like Councilperson Jay Furfaro who introduced the bill to somehow make the illegal legal and once-and-we-hope-not-future Councilperson JoAnn Yukimura who drew up the bill?
We still haven’t seen the cablecast of this week’s disgusting installment of “Screw the Public” (aka Furfaro’s Council Planning Committee meeting) due to the usual Ho`ike incompetence and catch-22 runaround – somehow apparently the captioning wasn’t done at the meeting and is being done now by Ho`ike although the only one who can say exactly what the heck is going on and when it might be on is the always out-of-the-office and incommunicado J Robertson... who in the middle of this mess took Friday off and is, as usual, unreachable until Monday, if then.
But thus far no one that we’ve caught at any meeting considering the bill – either at the planning commission or council- has mentioned that state law- HRS 205- specifically bans overnight accommodations for tourism related ag activities, which former Councilperson Mel Rapozo pointed out and later, at our urging, posted on his new “Straight From the Spleen- er, Heart” blog that replaces his now deleted Kaua`i Politics entry that disappeared after he lost the mayoral election in 2008.
It reads in pertinent part:
(b) Within agricultural districts, uses compatible to the activities described in section 205‑2 as determined by the commission shall be permitted; provided that accessory agricultural uses and services described in sections 205‑2 and 205‑4.5 may be further defined by each county by zoning ordinance. Each county shall adopt ordinances setting forth procedures and requirements, including provisions for enforcement, penalties, and administrative oversight, for the review and permitting of agricultural tourism uses and activities as an accessory use on a working farm, or farming operation as defined in section 165‑2; provided that agricultural tourism activities shall not be permissible in the absence of a bona fide farming operation. Ordinances shall include but not be limited to:...
(2) Requirements and restrictions for accessory facilities connected with the farming operation, including gift shops and restaurants; provided that overnight accommodations shall not be permitted;
That’s why the bill originally called for “non-enforcement agreements” even though the bill didn’t mention what was not being enforced in an hilarious-if-it-weren’t-so-asinine provision that had to be changed because the lobbyists and lawyers couldn’t ask for it without doubling over with laughter.
It’s hard to say who the worst jerkwad- or wads- in all this is/are. But when you look at the ag VCR owners who testify it’s hard not to start by blaming them for their own so-called predicament.
After flying in from LA on their magic wallets and cutting up most of the non-subdividable prime ag lots for their luxury homes driving prices for ag land beyond all farming business viability, they now are all suddenly “po' workin’ folk” who regurgitate-on-cue this “oh pity me- and in this bad economy no less- I’ll lose my land if I can’t have my illegal vacation rental- nooo oooone ever toooold meeeee” and similar drivel that just makes you want to scream.
Apparently if you have been illegally running, oh let’s say a drug ring and the cops failed to bust you then we need to let you keep up your trade because it feeds your family or some other irrelevant bullshit.
Next thing you know we’ll be grandfathering in all those who have been breaking into tourist’s cars – we have certainly not been enforcing that law either as the guy who, it was reported this week, has been arrested 74 times and is still on the loose can testify.
But worse is that we haven’t even heard a peep out of any councilperson challenging these chuckleheads as they file before them and blame everyone but themselves after they bought their land presumably with the required full disclosure so knowing full well what the rules were.
Of course the same goes for some of the requests for farm worker housing- or some who even want to put their own house on land they bought on the cheap precisely because it came without any “density” to build a house- and even the ones who, like Councilperson Tim Bynum, live on an “ag condo” so have apparently been violating the law requiring houses on ag land to be “farm dwellings” and so presumably have some nexus to a farming operation other than a mango tree in the yard.
Actually before any of these bills, as the law cited above says, what the county needs to do is to enact an ag tourism bill although even then state law specifically bans overnight accommodations in any ag tourism venture.
But instead of fulfilling that state mandate we’re the first to identify “unimportant” ag lands so we can sell of the rest of our agricultural capability to the next California cretin.
Oh and of course there’s plenty of blame left over for the local newspaper which so far has yet to quote HRS 205’s provision banning overnight tourist accommodations on ag land in the half dozen articles on the bill.
And in case anyone forgets, ALL TVRs outside the designated Visitor Destination Areas, no matter what the zoning, are and always were (since 1976) illegal no matter what Yukimura said and did in trying to make the existing ones legal by grandfathering them in rather than redoubling enforcement efforts.
But then of course the county is noted if not famously persistent for fixing what they don’t like under state law or our charter with an illegal ordinance as in the case we cited Wednesday.
Finally all this couldn’t be done without the complicity of the Planning Commission and Planning Director Ian Costa- along with his hand picked staff of sycophants- whose incompetence and out-and-out corruption has been well documented in this and other spaces.
But apparently this bill trying to make the illegal legal is sailing right along because the last person to blame- all the members of the public- have sat on their thumbs and let the stream of asshole gentleman farmers trying to cash in on the stumblebums in county government, to dominate testimony on the bill.
With once again apologies to Casey Stengle, can’t anyone here play this game?
Wednesday, February 18, 2009
GONE TO THE DOGS
GONE TO THE DOGS: The absurdist and wise guy existentialist in us sometimes begs to ask “if a tree doesn’t fall in the forest, does it not make a sound?”..
But somehow that’s a pretty appropriate conundrum for the Kaua`i public access outlet Ho`ike Community TV where, until we called today, they hadn’t received any calls regarding the fact that they’d been off the air since last week.
Some might think it’s because no one noticed but when it comes to Ho`ike it’s just that no one bothered because they knew they would be simply wasting their time complaining.
We spent a three day weekend vainly searching for last Wednesday’s county council meeting which for some reason obviously related to incompetence is usually shown for the first time on Friday nights- an unchanged remnant from the days when council meetings were held on Thursdays
Today, after much badgering for information on the stated “technical problems” the most we could get was that they are attempting to get things going again through their technical people- who just happen to be in Texas- and that they will play both last week’s and this weeks meetings when- or if- they ever fix it.
In their usual tight lipped way they refused to say exactly what the problem was, when it might be fixed or whether the last council meeting would even be cablecast more than once- or whether there would be any kind of announcement of it’s scheduling.
They refused to notify us when it does get on so that we could notify others.
The saga of ineptitude at Ho`ike has begged for exposure for many years, even since we abandoned our Parxist Conspiracy Newsmagazine program after seven years when we were assaulted by a 500 pound employee for trying to tape a public Ho`ike Board of Directors meeting and banned from the premises.
Most other access advocates and producers have simply given up on getting any original programming produced or even on the air other than the usual fare of religious programming and ads for non-profits organizations.
The board was taken over by the evangelical church in the 90’s and the public was shut out of public access governance, as we covered in news stories at the time.
While the access organization on Maui, Akaku, is widely acclaimed feeds their programming on-line and is as high tech, open and accessible as any in the country- all on a budget similar to Ho`ike- access on Kaua`i is virtually unused, many say by design.
While the rest of the video world has gone digital, Ho`ike still reportedly routinely rejects material on DVDs and requires antiquated VHS tapes to be submitted if one wants to get their self produced program on the air.
And don’t try to ask why because the general manage J Robertson is widely known as a totally unreachable figure who, if you do somehow get through to him by accident, will lie to your face until you catch him at it... and sometimes even afterward.
So why does this poster child for ineptitude continue to be the ones that tape- and we mean tape- the council meetings?
Well guess what- the council and administration like it that way just fine thank you since it’s much less likely that you’ll get to see the council meetings if they are either unavailable when they are supposed to be on (as they often are), scheduled at different arbitrarily selected and unannounced-in-advance times or otherwise stale by the time they get on the air.
Council meeting should and could- with the flip of a switch and at zero cost- be streamed live on-line and even cablecast live according to testimony routinely given at council meetings for years by Professor Ed Coll, an information technology specialist at Kaua`i Community College, as well as other producers and technically adept videographers .
But while promises are made by the council yearly to get it together nothing ever happens. Not only won’t they act, they are content to allow the administration to actually oversee the Ho`ike contract to produce tapes of the meetings- a contract that was awarded when it was written specifically for them.
Even though the state sunshine law requires that recordings of meetings be maintained as public records and the council is required to maintain their own records, the recordings of the meetings are the kuleana of the mayor’s office and to actually get copies of them one has to go to- you guessed it- Ho`ike.
And if the lack of public outrage- as evidenced by the fact that no one even complained that the meeting hadn’t aired at its scheduled times until we called today- is any indication things will stay the way they are for some time to come.
But somehow that’s a pretty appropriate conundrum for the Kaua`i public access outlet Ho`ike Community TV where, until we called today, they hadn’t received any calls regarding the fact that they’d been off the air since last week.
Some might think it’s because no one noticed but when it comes to Ho`ike it’s just that no one bothered because they knew they would be simply wasting their time complaining.
We spent a three day weekend vainly searching for last Wednesday’s county council meeting which for some reason obviously related to incompetence is usually shown for the first time on Friday nights- an unchanged remnant from the days when council meetings were held on Thursdays
Today, after much badgering for information on the stated “technical problems” the most we could get was that they are attempting to get things going again through their technical people- who just happen to be in Texas- and that they will play both last week’s and this weeks meetings when- or if- they ever fix it.
In their usual tight lipped way they refused to say exactly what the problem was, when it might be fixed or whether the last council meeting would even be cablecast more than once- or whether there would be any kind of announcement of it’s scheduling.
They refused to notify us when it does get on so that we could notify others.
The saga of ineptitude at Ho`ike has begged for exposure for many years, even since we abandoned our Parxist Conspiracy Newsmagazine program after seven years when we were assaulted by a 500 pound employee for trying to tape a public Ho`ike Board of Directors meeting and banned from the premises.
Most other access advocates and producers have simply given up on getting any original programming produced or even on the air other than the usual fare of religious programming and ads for non-profits organizations.
The board was taken over by the evangelical church in the 90’s and the public was shut out of public access governance, as we covered in news stories at the time.
While the access organization on Maui, Akaku, is widely acclaimed feeds their programming on-line and is as high tech, open and accessible as any in the country- all on a budget similar to Ho`ike- access on Kaua`i is virtually unused, many say by design.
While the rest of the video world has gone digital, Ho`ike still reportedly routinely rejects material on DVDs and requires antiquated VHS tapes to be submitted if one wants to get their self produced program on the air.
And don’t try to ask why because the general manage J Robertson is widely known as a totally unreachable figure who, if you do somehow get through to him by accident, will lie to your face until you catch him at it... and sometimes even afterward.
So why does this poster child for ineptitude continue to be the ones that tape- and we mean tape- the council meetings?
Well guess what- the council and administration like it that way just fine thank you since it’s much less likely that you’ll get to see the council meetings if they are either unavailable when they are supposed to be on (as they often are), scheduled at different arbitrarily selected and unannounced-in-advance times or otherwise stale by the time they get on the air.
Council meeting should and could- with the flip of a switch and at zero cost- be streamed live on-line and even cablecast live according to testimony routinely given at council meetings for years by Professor Ed Coll, an information technology specialist at Kaua`i Community College, as well as other producers and technically adept videographers .
But while promises are made by the council yearly to get it together nothing ever happens. Not only won’t they act, they are content to allow the administration to actually oversee the Ho`ike contract to produce tapes of the meetings- a contract that was awarded when it was written specifically for them.
Even though the state sunshine law requires that recordings of meetings be maintained as public records and the council is required to maintain their own records, the recordings of the meetings are the kuleana of the mayor’s office and to actually get copies of them one has to go to- you guessed it- Ho`ike.
And if the lack of public outrage- as evidenced by the fact that no one even complained that the meeting hadn’t aired at its scheduled times until we called today- is any indication things will stay the way they are for some time to come.
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