YOU WANT IT WHEN?

YOU WANT IT WHEN?: We tried- we really did.

But once again, like clockwork, our "little buddy" Leo Azambuja, apparently watched a different county council committee meeting than we did a week ago Wednesday (October 28).

Although the agenda item was a report on the new landfill, what actually happened apparently went completely over Azambuja's head.

The acronym MRF- standing for Materials Recovery Facility- never saw the light of day in the article on the meeting. But it was the central topic of discussion after it was discovered that, despite the desperate need for a MRF to move forward on curbside recycling, the administration, as many have feared, is apparently going to wait for the process of siting the new landfill and completing an environmental impact statement to even start actually building a MRF.

That's because, according to Councilperson JoAnn Yukimura, the administration of Mayor Bernard Carvalho is apparently so enamored of their vision for a Resource Recovery Facility at the same location as the new landfill that they won't even consider anything else.

Rather than starting the process now separately from the landfill siting- which won't be done until at least 2020 according to the administration's presentation- there were no plans presented to indicate that the administration even considered trying to get the MRF "done yesterday" so to speak, in order to divert trash from the old, nearing-capacity landfill so as to buy time for siting a new one.

That would mean construction of an MRF won't even start until June of 2016, Yukimura indicated after looking at the administration's timeline.

Not only that but siting the MRF and other resource recovery facilities inland and near the new landfill is a numbskull idea for a number of reasons despite widespread claims that it "sounds logical."

First of all, as Yukimura and Councilperson Tim Bynum both pointed out, hauling the recyclables far inland- where the presumed new landfill site is- and then back to the harbor will increase costs immensely. But siting the MRF near the harbor would actually make sense so apparently it wasn't considered by the administration.

What no one mentioned is the massive mix of trucks going in and out will cause unneeded congestion costing time and money. And of course if the facilities are too close to the landfill itself, it would put the kibosh on expansion into the area where the facilities are sited.

The reality is that, despite the fact that a MRF was supposed to be completed this year according to the Integrated Solid Waste Program the county approved years ago- and that the "pilot" curbside recycling program had to be suspended for lack of a MRF- there is apparently still no fire under the butts of the Department of Public Works to get the process started except as part of the landfill siting process.

County Engineer Larry Dill did come forward to say that the administration was supposedly working separately on a MRF but it seems like a CYA afterthought. It came only after former County Engineer and current Environmental Services Officer Donald Fujimoto seemed incredibly befuddled by the criticism, apparently because the administration has been so stuck on the concept of putting all the trash-related stuff in one place that they didn't see the need for a MRF as being the most important solid-waste-related project for the county right now.

The whole matter will be back on the agenda soon because the discussion was continually being cut short since the subjects of the MRF and the old landfill weren't even on the agenda.

But the fact that even after the embarrassment of having to cut short the pilot curbside recycling program, even after the passage of a new zero waste resolution by the council AND administration, even though the current landfill's life apparently won't get us to the opening of a new landfill and it's filling up faster than it was supposed to and even though all those recyclables are going into the current landfill because there is no MRF, the administration is still in la-la land with their grand plan for their one-stop opala palace.

Excuse us while we look for a place to get sick.

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.

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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.

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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.

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.