SchMUSINGS: It was actually a dark and stormy night. The rain was harder than the two feet in three days last weekend and hail was pelting the window so hard it woke us up. But we don't have dogs to walk, the electricity was off and the last time we saw the dawn- or even got up, got out of bed and went outside in the dark- was probably 30 years ago when seeing the sunrise was a result of an all-nighter. So we grabbed another blanket and some ear plugs, rolled over and went back to sleep.
Our apologies to Joan Conrow but since we're going to flit around and do it between games today it seems an appropriate way to commence.
First comes the news that former local Kaua`i newspaper editor Nathan Eagle, the other half of the dynamic duo, has landed a gig with his former cohort, joining ace reporter Mike Levine at Civil Beat.
No surprise on this end since whenever, against all odds, our local paper ends up mysteriously hiring someone even halfway competent, they eventually leave for a real publication. But congrats to CB and Nathan. We can only hope that maybe with two (count 'em two) ex-Kaua`i residents CB will treat Kaua`i like we exist.
Better news on the medical marijuana front. SB 2262 which "clarifies that the medical use of marijuana is considered to be consistent with the Pain Patients' Bill of Rights" has passed the senate and first reading in the house. Passage of the bill will mean that chronic pain patients will now have the right to receive medical marijuana in addition to all other appropriate medications.
That is coupled with the death of House Bill 1963 which was the horrendous effort courtesy of Assistant Director of the Department of Public Safety Keith Kamita- an effort also backed by Kaua`i Prosecutor Shaylene Iseri Carvalho- that would have actually removed chronic pain as a condition for which medical marijuana could be recommended. HB 1963 miraculously didn't get a hearing scheduled by the house Judiciary Committee.
Of course in the "now you see it now you don't" Hawai`i State Legislature, nothing is ever approved until it actually gets signed into law and nothing is ever-ever-ever really dead.
Then, from the "shocked-shocked" file, according to Civil Beat, Kaua`i State Senator Ron Kouchi has jumped on the ethically-bankrupt, legalized-bribery bandwagon by holding a Honolulu fundraiser during the legislative session. Last Night's soiree was a hundred-bucks-a-head affair held at the Mandalay restaurant.
Some states ban the practice of holding fund-raisers during a legislative session. But of course in catch-me-if-you-can-Hawai`i, legislators routinely cash in by holding these events in the hopes of scooping up some cash from those who have an interest in seeing the recipient's vote go a certain way on certain soon-to-be-considered bills. Since quid pro quo's are hard if not impossible to prove it's a practice that is looked upon with disgust by good governance and campaign reform mavens everywhere.
The fundraiser by-the-by is being organized by former Kaua`i Deputy County Attorney Harrison Kawate who worked under perennially county-government-employed former County Attorney Lani Nakazawa. We could go on with many more revolving door connections but the next game is starting soon.
Last but certainly not least is the latest dust up involving our always bafflingly buffoonish Prosecutor, the aforementioned reefer-madness adherent, Shaylene Iseri Carvalho.
Those who missed the real story behind the vague coverage in the local newspaper of the horse-abuse case will want to check in with the aforementioned Joan Conrow and read her coverage beginning last Friday.
Seems dear Shay actually threatened to use her prosecutorial discretion to drop the infamous animal cruelty case because one of the animal control officers at Kaua`i Human Society (KHS) got into a dust up with one of Shay's cousin over a complaint about the cousin's barking dogs and then his lack of dog licenses. Shay claimed the officer was trespassing and is a habitual liar whose testimony in the horse case would be unreliable, so Iseri wanted KHS to fire her.
It's a lot more juicy than that so read Joan's coverage.
But Iseri is back this week with more questionable behavior in a series of emails received by most of the attorneys on Kaua`i regarding the formation of a "Kaua'i Bar Bench Committee"- a "working group of attorneys [formed to] discuss and present issues to our judges [regarding] matters pertaining to judicial administration" according to one local attorney.
The group is being put together through the efforts of local attorney Rosa Flores who, after apparently putting in hours of volunteer time on behalf of the "Kaua`i Bar," innocently sent the following email confirming the "members" of the group, apparently "BCCing" almost all of the attorneys on Kaua`i
Subject: Re: KBA Bench Bar Committee Members
Hi Everyone,
I am very happy to announce the Bench Bar Committee Members. We are very fortunate to have had such an amazing amount of interest and support in the creation of this Committee.
Civil (Circuit Court): Dan Hempey
Collections (District Court): Tim Tobin
Landlord/Tenant, Self-Help Center, Legal Aid, Indigent Services: Emiko Meyers
Criminal Defense: June Ikemoto
Family Law: Caren Dennemeyer
Public Defenders: revolving
Prosecutors Office: revolving/unknown
County Attorneys: Justin Kollar
KBA President/Chair: Rosa Flores
KBA Vice-President/Vice-Chair: Shauna Cahill
The private attorneys on the Committee all wear many hats with various specialties, so we'll have a great overlap in coverage at all times. Please feel free to direct concerns, inquiries, comments, etc. that you would like to bring to the attention of our judges to the Committee member representing your particular area of interest. Everyone is also welcome to direct any inquiries to myself or Shauna Cahill anytime.
Committee Members, I will be in touch soon with all of you.
Thank you,
Rosa
This seemingly pleasant note, apparently following a lot of hard work on Flores' part, elicited a disturbing response from Iseri addressed Flores and CCed to around 75 local attorneys (with the original email in the thread) as well as the Kaua`i judges.
Subject: Re: KBA Bench Bar Committee Members
Aloha Rosa,
It would have been considerate of you to have contacted our office to inquire who would be the representative for the OPA because I would have told you clearly, that it would be me. Please put my name down as the representative of our office.
Shay
Okey-dokey. Apparently because the email was sent to the entire Kaua`i bar, Flores felt compelled to reply to the content and the tone of Iseri's response. She wrote:
Talk about a slap in the face for the best of intentions. Thank you for everyone else for their support in this endeavor, and to the volunteer representatives who took the initiative to contact me.
But Iseri wasn't done with Flores and, CCing the other, wrote back:
We did contact you. Your response is very unprofessional.
Unprofessional? Flores had had just about enough and felt she had to set the record straight. She wrote back saying:
As you very well know, I responded to you directly last week following your assertion that your agency should be represented, and in my response I agreed that your agency should be represented. No mention was made from you as to who would be the representative, and I do not have the time to hunt down attorneys from every possible section to see who is willing to attend the meetings. Yours was not the only agency which did not have name for their rep, but they were nonetheless indicated as being part of the committee.
If anyone else is offended that I did not put their names, please know that it was not intentional; my psychic mind-reading skills are not developed to the point at which I would like them to be. And I apologize for yet another unprofessional response from me.
Not having appeared rude and offensive enough Iseri first wrote:
It definitely is another unprofessional response.
finally adding
I also do not want to be a party to anymore unprofessional emails
Finally Flores realized who she was dealing with and ended the futile conversation by stating
Duly noted. Thank you and God Bless!
Isn't this an election year? Seems everyone knows that but Shaylene.
Showing posts with label Nathan Eagle. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Nathan Eagle. Show all posts
Saturday, March 10, 2012
Monday, December 12, 2011
ON AGAIN, OFF AGAIN
ON AGAIN, OFF AGAIN: We've been merciless with our local newspaper, especially since the departure of "Big Mike" Levine who is making quite the name for himself covering the Honolulu City Council for the online news source Civil Beat with the same rabid no-holds-barred coverage he provided for the Kaua`i community.
But what made the era remarkable- especially considering the seemingly determined efforts of the owners and publishers to dumb down the content and bend over for the Chamber of Commerce crowd- was Levine's tag-team partner Editor Nathan Eagle who, despite the orders from above, managed to shine even with a usually semi-literate, untalented group of underlings.
And now it's Eagle's turn to exit as we've learned with a one-way ticket to South America where he plans to both work and play, "hopefully more of the latter."
Eagle, whose last day will be Wednesday, has no idea who his replacement will be but we fear the worst given that the search for a new editor has been ongoing without success.
The facts that the salaries are traditionally of the starvation variety at the paper and that the job has been advertised locally don't instill much hope that anything resembling professionalism will be a trait of Eagle's replacement.
For the uninitiated, there is a "circuit" where many new J-school grads jump on board, travel the country, spend a couple-o-few years working, first at small papers and then gradually larger ones, trying to make their mark and move up the ladder while honing their skills. Many do it because they need the experience- others because they like the lifestyle.
And separate from the chaff, some of the highest quality semolina has come from that job mill.
The thing is that a Hawai`i assignment usually attracts those who will work for less, and many times that is reflected in their work. The Anthony Sommers, Dennis Wilkens, and the Levines and Eagles of the world are the exception rather than the rule. They generally arrive sans family or attachments and, although they sometimes intend to stay a while, they usually eventually depart for bigger and better things, disgusted with the way they've been treated both financially and as to the freedom to report what they actually see without a filter imposed from above.
The Andy Gross episode of a few years back is typical. The then fairly newly-hired Gross started nosing around the sale and operation of the then newly-created electrical "co-op" and eventually had his copy squelched by then weekend-Editor Paul Curtis, a former close associate of Gregg Gardiner, the "founder" of KIUC. With Gardiner at the helm and Curtis writing the copy at the notorious "The Kaua`i Times" they worked to, among other ventures, overturn the Nukoli`i vote, support the Hanalei boaters and champion various other efforts that took a crap on the people of Kaua`i.
So don't expect much when the new editor is named, especially with Publisher and CofC Board Member Randy Kozerski in charge. Kozerski fired the last business editor for perceived disregard of Chamber news and then hired the next one with instructions to pump up the CofC with more and more "positive" coverage.
So get ready to meet the news boss. We can only hope they're the same as the old boss.
But what made the era remarkable- especially considering the seemingly determined efforts of the owners and publishers to dumb down the content and bend over for the Chamber of Commerce crowd- was Levine's tag-team partner Editor Nathan Eagle who, despite the orders from above, managed to shine even with a usually semi-literate, untalented group of underlings.
And now it's Eagle's turn to exit as we've learned with a one-way ticket to South America where he plans to both work and play, "hopefully more of the latter."
Eagle, whose last day will be Wednesday, has no idea who his replacement will be but we fear the worst given that the search for a new editor has been ongoing without success.
The facts that the salaries are traditionally of the starvation variety at the paper and that the job has been advertised locally don't instill much hope that anything resembling professionalism will be a trait of Eagle's replacement.
For the uninitiated, there is a "circuit" where many new J-school grads jump on board, travel the country, spend a couple-o-few years working, first at small papers and then gradually larger ones, trying to make their mark and move up the ladder while honing their skills. Many do it because they need the experience- others because they like the lifestyle.
And separate from the chaff, some of the highest quality semolina has come from that job mill.
The thing is that a Hawai`i assignment usually attracts those who will work for less, and many times that is reflected in their work. The Anthony Sommers, Dennis Wilkens, and the Levines and Eagles of the world are the exception rather than the rule. They generally arrive sans family or attachments and, although they sometimes intend to stay a while, they usually eventually depart for bigger and better things, disgusted with the way they've been treated both financially and as to the freedom to report what they actually see without a filter imposed from above.
The Andy Gross episode of a few years back is typical. The then fairly newly-hired Gross started nosing around the sale and operation of the then newly-created electrical "co-op" and eventually had his copy squelched by then weekend-Editor Paul Curtis, a former close associate of Gregg Gardiner, the "founder" of KIUC. With Gardiner at the helm and Curtis writing the copy at the notorious "The Kaua`i Times" they worked to, among other ventures, overturn the Nukoli`i vote, support the Hanalei boaters and champion various other efforts that took a crap on the people of Kaua`i.
So don't expect much when the new editor is named, especially with Publisher and CofC Board Member Randy Kozerski in charge. Kozerski fired the last business editor for perceived disregard of Chamber news and then hired the next one with instructions to pump up the CofC with more and more "positive" coverage.
So get ready to meet the news boss. We can only hope they're the same as the old boss.
Tuesday, January 11, 2011
`OHANA MY ASS:
`OHANA MY ASS: The only times Kaua`i makes enough noise to make it into the Honolulu media- aside from when we bleed- is when something is related to a City and County or statewide issue.
So when Mayor Bernard Carvalho decided to end furloughs this week instead of waiting for the money to pay them and put out a press release about it yesterday, not only did the TV news outlets cover it but the Honolulu newspaper assigned an actual reporter, Rosemarie Bernardo, to do a bylined piece quoting the mayors of other islands regarding their furloughs.
But of course the rest of Bernardo’s article was not just a regurgitation of the press release but it was written as if Carvalho’s claim- that the end of the furloughs was primarily due to cost saving measures and new revenue streams- were the absolute gospel, told without any “according to the county” notations for the various financial and fiscal claims.
The article, like the press release, lists not just tons of additional “fees” but actually lists the savings of the money that would have been paid to the furloughed employees and unfilled positions.
Talk about hubris.
But locally at least there was a clue as to what was really going on.
The un-bylined article in the local newspaper- which usually means it was done by the editor, in this case Nathan Eagle- added one tidbit that wasn’t in the press release that put the lie to Carvalho’s claims, noting in the third paragraph:
As of June 30, the county had a surplus of $43.1 million. The unassigned fund balance increased by $10.3 million, or 31 percent, from the prior year, according to the Comprehensive Annual Financial Report for fiscal year 2010.
Unlike other islands Kaua`i had a huge surplus for this financial year- one way beyond the 20% of the actual budget that is the very high end of recommendations for surplus- and never needed to furlough anyone as noted by at least two councilmember at the time the furloughs were demanded by Carvalho last year.
As anyone who was following the whole subject of furloughs statewide remembers, the state and other three counties actually were in budget binds with huge deficits projected. And during the legislative session the state was thinking about stealing the individual counties’ shares of the state transient accommodations tax (TAT) even though it had evolved into a way for counties to obtain their fair share of monies to pay for the impact of tourism on county facilities and services.
All four mayors were gathered at the legislature to beg for their TAT and, after a closed door meeting, Carvalho- the last holdout- suddenly announced that Kaua`i, like the others, was broke enough that the loss of the $12 million the TAT provided the year before would be catastrophic.
But how could it be catastrophic if they had enough money to pay their employees while everyone else in the state was scrambling on the ground for nickels and dimes?
Thus was born the Kaua`i furloughs. Though they were unneeded and unwanted Carvalho allowed himself to be extorted into employee pay cuts and public inconveniences.
Carvalho could have, of course, continued to challenge the legislature and governor in this game of chicken and demand that we not be penalized for having enough to cover our expenses, maintaining that, like the other islands, we were the responsible ones and deserved our share of the TAT.
But instead he screwed his much ballyhooed “team” of county workers.
With this in mind the press release apparently is anticipating this year’s legislative session saying:
Despite the fact that the county is currently in a financially stable position, Finance Director Wally Rezentes, Jr. cautioned that the county must continue to be conservative... not(ing) that there are a number of factors that could negatively impact the budget for fiscal year 2012 that are not under the control of the county such as the transient accommodations tax.
Together we can... cover the mayor’s big fat political `okole at the expense of our county workers’ pocketbooks and the public’s need for services.
So when Mayor Bernard Carvalho decided to end furloughs this week instead of waiting for the money to pay them and put out a press release about it yesterday, not only did the TV news outlets cover it but the Honolulu newspaper assigned an actual reporter, Rosemarie Bernardo, to do a bylined piece quoting the mayors of other islands regarding their furloughs.
But of course the rest of Bernardo’s article was not just a regurgitation of the press release but it was written as if Carvalho’s claim- that the end of the furloughs was primarily due to cost saving measures and new revenue streams- were the absolute gospel, told without any “according to the county” notations for the various financial and fiscal claims.
The article, like the press release, lists not just tons of additional “fees” but actually lists the savings of the money that would have been paid to the furloughed employees and unfilled positions.
Talk about hubris.
But locally at least there was a clue as to what was really going on.
The un-bylined article in the local newspaper- which usually means it was done by the editor, in this case Nathan Eagle- added one tidbit that wasn’t in the press release that put the lie to Carvalho’s claims, noting in the third paragraph:
As of June 30, the county had a surplus of $43.1 million. The unassigned fund balance increased by $10.3 million, or 31 percent, from the prior year, according to the Comprehensive Annual Financial Report for fiscal year 2010.
Unlike other islands Kaua`i had a huge surplus for this financial year- one way beyond the 20% of the actual budget that is the very high end of recommendations for surplus- and never needed to furlough anyone as noted by at least two councilmember at the time the furloughs were demanded by Carvalho last year.
As anyone who was following the whole subject of furloughs statewide remembers, the state and other three counties actually were in budget binds with huge deficits projected. And during the legislative session the state was thinking about stealing the individual counties’ shares of the state transient accommodations tax (TAT) even though it had evolved into a way for counties to obtain their fair share of monies to pay for the impact of tourism on county facilities and services.
All four mayors were gathered at the legislature to beg for their TAT and, after a closed door meeting, Carvalho- the last holdout- suddenly announced that Kaua`i, like the others, was broke enough that the loss of the $12 million the TAT provided the year before would be catastrophic.
But how could it be catastrophic if they had enough money to pay their employees while everyone else in the state was scrambling on the ground for nickels and dimes?
Thus was born the Kaua`i furloughs. Though they were unneeded and unwanted Carvalho allowed himself to be extorted into employee pay cuts and public inconveniences.
Carvalho could have, of course, continued to challenge the legislature and governor in this game of chicken and demand that we not be penalized for having enough to cover our expenses, maintaining that, like the other islands, we were the responsible ones and deserved our share of the TAT.
But instead he screwed his much ballyhooed “team” of county workers.
With this in mind the press release apparently is anticipating this year’s legislative session saying:
Despite the fact that the county is currently in a financially stable position, Finance Director Wally Rezentes, Jr. cautioned that the county must continue to be conservative... not(ing) that there are a number of factors that could negatively impact the budget for fiscal year 2012 that are not under the control of the county such as the transient accommodations tax.
Together we can... cover the mayor’s big fat political `okole at the expense of our county workers’ pocketbooks and the public’s need for services.
Wednesday, December 1, 2010
EVERYTHING OLD IS NEW AGAIN
EVERYTHING OLD IS NEW AGAIN: We’re still counting our blessings that the local newspaper’s Editor Nathan Eagle has taken an “if you want something done right, do it yourself” attitude toward covering county government- a fear-struck moment of seeing Leo Azambuja’s name on an article yesterday notwithstanding.
Although it’s a bit ambiguous, his rewrite of a county press release on the hiring of former Planning Director Dee Crowell as new Director Mike Dahilig’s deputy contained this tidbit the county release left out.
Crowell will replace current Deputy Planning Director Imai Aiu.
We’re not sure whether that’s just a good assumption on Eagle’s part- since the deputy job is non civil service and there’s only one “deputy director” budgeted in planning- or whether the other shoe has actually dropped due to the FBI probe of former Director Ian Costa and Aiu which we reported Monday and so is confirmation that Aiu is actually out of a job too.
It’s not unheard of on Kaua`i to see a former appointee who was forced out to be hired in a civil service position in the same department as happened with County Engineer Cesar Portugal during the Kusaka administration.
But Eagle’s by-lined article was even more revelatory, reporting that the Kaua`i County Council “met behind closed doors” yesterday to discuss the fate of County Clerk Peter Nakamura who apparently cost the county a quarter million dollars in a recently settled EEOC case.
Eagle fails to mention that the meeting was apparently not duly agendaed, as it does not appear on the county council web site, perhaps not trying to toot his own horn in ferreting out the secret confab.
But Eagle’s main story is one he’s been championing since last week- including in a weekend editorial- regarding whether the council should hire an executive search team to look for a county clerk, writing”
Community members have voiced their concerns over the cost of an executive search while others have said such a process is necessary in this instance.
But the question for the council may not be a matter of best practices vs. cost but a matter of fear and necessity.
In the wake of Police Commission Chair Michael Ching’s ethics case- where Ching was unceremoniously dumped for merely stating his preference for former Chief KC Lum during the process of the commission’s deliberations on hiring a new chief- local boards who hire and fire department heads are apparently scared bleepless to do the job themselves.
When the police commission hired a chief after Lum’s departure they indeed got the council to appropriate money for a professional search for a new chief even though they had apparently already decided to hire current Chief Darryl Perry, who had come in second in the process of hiring Lum.
Since then there have been no other hirings or firings by boards or commissions- the heads of the Fire, Liquor, and Personnel Departments remain on the job- although now of course the planning commission will be hiring a new permanent planning director too.
Any taint of favoritism of one candidate over another during the hiring process will naturally be seen as an ethics violation based on the precedent of the Ching case- which is, according to the county charter, binding on future cases until and unless it’s overturned by the Board of Ethics (BOE).
And indeed what the council does will also be seen as a precedent for the planning commission who will either take a hiring of a county clerk without a search as a green light for a simple selection process or take the hiring of professional search consultant as a signal they had better follow suit.
Though of course it’s silly to think that hiring a consultant is now going to be mandatory for all county boards and commissions that hire their department heads, so was the ethics case against Ching who was essential skewered for doing what he was supposed to do- picking one candidate and convincing the others that the person is the best one for the job.
The political repercussions of spending money on a search may be minor compared to those of going through a process of another trumped up ethics case based on the political persecutions of the past.
But of course the Ching case was a bed made by a past council- one that included the two new council returnees- and one in which the current members will have to lay.
Although it’s a bit ambiguous, his rewrite of a county press release on the hiring of former Planning Director Dee Crowell as new Director Mike Dahilig’s deputy contained this tidbit the county release left out.
Crowell will replace current Deputy Planning Director Imai Aiu.
We’re not sure whether that’s just a good assumption on Eagle’s part- since the deputy job is non civil service and there’s only one “deputy director” budgeted in planning- or whether the other shoe has actually dropped due to the FBI probe of former Director Ian Costa and Aiu which we reported Monday and so is confirmation that Aiu is actually out of a job too.
It’s not unheard of on Kaua`i to see a former appointee who was forced out to be hired in a civil service position in the same department as happened with County Engineer Cesar Portugal during the Kusaka administration.
But Eagle’s by-lined article was even more revelatory, reporting that the Kaua`i County Council “met behind closed doors” yesterday to discuss the fate of County Clerk Peter Nakamura who apparently cost the county a quarter million dollars in a recently settled EEOC case.
Eagle fails to mention that the meeting was apparently not duly agendaed, as it does not appear on the county council web site, perhaps not trying to toot his own horn in ferreting out the secret confab.
But Eagle’s main story is one he’s been championing since last week- including in a weekend editorial- regarding whether the council should hire an executive search team to look for a county clerk, writing”
Community members have voiced their concerns over the cost of an executive search while others have said such a process is necessary in this instance.
But the question for the council may not be a matter of best practices vs. cost but a matter of fear and necessity.
In the wake of Police Commission Chair Michael Ching’s ethics case- where Ching was unceremoniously dumped for merely stating his preference for former Chief KC Lum during the process of the commission’s deliberations on hiring a new chief- local boards who hire and fire department heads are apparently scared bleepless to do the job themselves.
When the police commission hired a chief after Lum’s departure they indeed got the council to appropriate money for a professional search for a new chief even though they had apparently already decided to hire current Chief Darryl Perry, who had come in second in the process of hiring Lum.
Since then there have been no other hirings or firings by boards or commissions- the heads of the Fire, Liquor, and Personnel Departments remain on the job- although now of course the planning commission will be hiring a new permanent planning director too.
Any taint of favoritism of one candidate over another during the hiring process will naturally be seen as an ethics violation based on the precedent of the Ching case- which is, according to the county charter, binding on future cases until and unless it’s overturned by the Board of Ethics (BOE).
And indeed what the council does will also be seen as a precedent for the planning commission who will either take a hiring of a county clerk without a search as a green light for a simple selection process or take the hiring of professional search consultant as a signal they had better follow suit.
Though of course it’s silly to think that hiring a consultant is now going to be mandatory for all county boards and commissions that hire their department heads, so was the ethics case against Ching who was essential skewered for doing what he was supposed to do- picking one candidate and convincing the others that the person is the best one for the job.
The political repercussions of spending money on a search may be minor compared to those of going through a process of another trumped up ethics case based on the political persecutions of the past.
But of course the Ching case was a bed made by a past council- one that included the two new council returnees- and one in which the current members will have to lay.
Tuesday, November 23, 2010
NOTHING LIKE BEING THERE
NOTHING LIKE BEING THERE: And speaking of getting “quitted” it appears the brief tenure of the worst reporter in the local newspaper’s annuls (yes, even Lester Chang) has ended after a week or so’s absence of the name of Leo Azambuja from the paper’s pages and today’s coverage of yesterday’s council’s organizational meeting by council neophyte Vanessa Van Voorhis.
For the record Editor Nathan Eagle did not return multiple emails seeking information on Azambuja’s job status.
Although the pedestrian coverage appeared adequate we can’t help wonder whether it’s a disease or a habit of the paper’s reporters to use the kind of “lede” that first day J-school students are warned against.
Professor: They know there was a meeting yesterday because you’re writing about it. Pick something that happened there- the most important thing- and put it at the top, in 25 words or less. Then follow the “inverted triangle” format- Don’t report events chronologically but by order of importance.
But speaking of neophytes- at least as far attending or even watching council meetings- Joan Conrow has her own first hand account today.
It’s nice to occasionally have the two newspaper experience on Kaua`i but someone was obviously having a bit of fun with both Van Voorhis and Conrow on the subject of having the meeting open to the public.
As we wrote last week, a few councils have actually done their organizational business in open session. The issue is always whether they appear to have been scripted.
But Van Voorhis wrote that “(o)fficials said the meeting was unprecedented in that it was the first time a Kaua`i County Council held such a caucus open to the public” while Conrow said “in a nod to 'transparency and open government' — words rendered as meaningless as pristine and sustainability — the new County Council did its organizing for the first time in public”.
Oh well. If either decides to attend on a regular basis they’ll get the hang of not believing a word of what they’re hearing and only half of what they’re seeing.
But we were especially taken aback by this quip from Conrow whose malice toward Tim Bynum has been hardly concealed of late:
Tim said he was expecting Councilmembers to have “equal and equitable access to the key documents that are theirs” before going on to say he wants to structure the Council so that decisions made in Executive Session are made public. That way, you see, he won’t have to risk violating executive privilege by leaking them to a certain blogger.
Ah, engaging in libel per se now, eh Joan?
For the record our report on the Margaret Hanson Sueoka suit last month was based on having attended council meetings for many years which enabled us to go back to our notes and decipher the background of the Margaret Hanson EEOC harassment case, without any conversation whatsoever on the subject about it with Bynum.
Seeing recent executive sessions listed to evaluate Nakamura’s performance right after one to consider the Hanson settlement helped tip us off. Then, upon hearing the council’s discussion of the plethora of harassment suits including an oblique reference to a case “right here” in council services- and knowing that deputies in the county attorney’s office serve both the administration and the council- we realized that perhaps Hanson’s suit may not have had anything to do with her experiences with the administration, as we had previously theorized.
Years of leg work- something our bum back prevents us from doing these days- paid off.
We remembered the incident with Nakamura years ago and sure enough when we checked our files from the era, it turned out that it was Hanson that was the deputy county attorney assigned to the council at the time- the one who was harassed by her then-boyfriend County Clerk Peter Nakamura, according to many council regulars and employees of council services at the time.
As they say, we deny the allegation and we deny the alligator- we did not seek, receive nor use any illegally obtained information in our report.
It’s all especially strange considering Conrow’s final statement:
In the end, Tim got what he wanted in terms of committee assignments, and so did JoAnn. The question now is whether they’ll also get something else they want — an executive search firm to find a new County Clerk. Mel and Derek said they like current Clerk Peter Nakamura and Nadine had to recuse herself because he’s her brother-in-law.
I know why Tim doesn’t like Peter, but I’m not sure what JoAnn has against him. I’m pretty sure he had to go through Seven Habits when he was her planning director.....
Maybe that search is because Nakamura’s actions in harassing Hanson cost the county the $250,000.
Actually JoAnn wasn’t enamored with Steve Covey and “The Seven Habits of Truly Disingenuous and Irritating Assholes” when she was mayor. As a matter of fact it was because of her 180 from the micromanaging of where every paperclip went as mayor to seeking to become the consummate politician when the voters threw her out of office, that she turning to Covey.
Funny story here- at the actual first “public” organizational meeting of the council when Yukimura returned to elective office after a hiatus, we actually asked Yukimura whether she was going to support Nakamura’s reappointment and she replied “why wouldn’t I- he was my planning director”... which we always thought to be a strange statement in and of itself because the planning commission appoints the planning director... which of course reinforced her penchant for micromanagement reputation.
So Round and Round the Mulberry Bush they go and it helps to see every council meeting for a decade plus and report on county government for 25 years if you want to be able to tell the monkeys from the weasels.
For the record Editor Nathan Eagle did not return multiple emails seeking information on Azambuja’s job status.
Although the pedestrian coverage appeared adequate we can’t help wonder whether it’s a disease or a habit of the paper’s reporters to use the kind of “lede” that first day J-school students are warned against.
Professor: They know there was a meeting yesterday because you’re writing about it. Pick something that happened there- the most important thing- and put it at the top, in 25 words or less. Then follow the “inverted triangle” format- Don’t report events chronologically but by order of importance.
But speaking of neophytes- at least as far attending or even watching council meetings- Joan Conrow has her own first hand account today.
It’s nice to occasionally have the two newspaper experience on Kaua`i but someone was obviously having a bit of fun with both Van Voorhis and Conrow on the subject of having the meeting open to the public.
As we wrote last week, a few councils have actually done their organizational business in open session. The issue is always whether they appear to have been scripted.
But Van Voorhis wrote that “(o)fficials said the meeting was unprecedented in that it was the first time a Kaua`i County Council held such a caucus open to the public” while Conrow said “in a nod to 'transparency and open government' — words rendered as meaningless as pristine and sustainability — the new County Council did its organizing for the first time in public”.
Oh well. If either decides to attend on a regular basis they’ll get the hang of not believing a word of what they’re hearing and only half of what they’re seeing.
But we were especially taken aback by this quip from Conrow whose malice toward Tim Bynum has been hardly concealed of late:
Tim said he was expecting Councilmembers to have “equal and equitable access to the key documents that are theirs” before going on to say he wants to structure the Council so that decisions made in Executive Session are made public. That way, you see, he won’t have to risk violating executive privilege by leaking them to a certain blogger.
Ah, engaging in libel per se now, eh Joan?
For the record our report on the Margaret Hanson Sueoka suit last month was based on having attended council meetings for many years which enabled us to go back to our notes and decipher the background of the Margaret Hanson EEOC harassment case, without any conversation whatsoever on the subject about it with Bynum.
Seeing recent executive sessions listed to evaluate Nakamura’s performance right after one to consider the Hanson settlement helped tip us off. Then, upon hearing the council’s discussion of the plethora of harassment suits including an oblique reference to a case “right here” in council services- and knowing that deputies in the county attorney’s office serve both the administration and the council- we realized that perhaps Hanson’s suit may not have had anything to do with her experiences with the administration, as we had previously theorized.
Years of leg work- something our bum back prevents us from doing these days- paid off.
We remembered the incident with Nakamura years ago and sure enough when we checked our files from the era, it turned out that it was Hanson that was the deputy county attorney assigned to the council at the time- the one who was harassed by her then-boyfriend County Clerk Peter Nakamura, according to many council regulars and employees of council services at the time.
As they say, we deny the allegation and we deny the alligator- we did not seek, receive nor use any illegally obtained information in our report.
It’s all especially strange considering Conrow’s final statement:
In the end, Tim got what he wanted in terms of committee assignments, and so did JoAnn. The question now is whether they’ll also get something else they want — an executive search firm to find a new County Clerk. Mel and Derek said they like current Clerk Peter Nakamura and Nadine had to recuse herself because he’s her brother-in-law.
I know why Tim doesn’t like Peter, but I’m not sure what JoAnn has against him. I’m pretty sure he had to go through Seven Habits when he was her planning director.....
Maybe that search is because Nakamura’s actions in harassing Hanson cost the county the $250,000.
Actually JoAnn wasn’t enamored with Steve Covey and “The Seven Habits of Truly Disingenuous and Irritating Assholes” when she was mayor. As a matter of fact it was because of her 180 from the micromanaging of where every paperclip went as mayor to seeking to become the consummate politician when the voters threw her out of office, that she turning to Covey.
Funny story here- at the actual first “public” organizational meeting of the council when Yukimura returned to elective office after a hiatus, we actually asked Yukimura whether she was going to support Nakamura’s reappointment and she replied “why wouldn’t I- he was my planning director”... which we always thought to be a strange statement in and of itself because the planning commission appoints the planning director... which of course reinforced her penchant for micromanagement reputation.
So Round and Round the Mulberry Bush they go and it helps to see every council meeting for a decade plus and report on county government for 25 years if you want to be able to tell the monkeys from the weasels.
Thursday, September 23, 2010
NEW BLOOD ON THE TRACKS
NEW BLOOD ON THE TRACKS: Today’s announcement that two- count ‘em two- actual college graduates with journalism degrees have been employed by the local newspaper comes as a shocking yet pleasant surprise... sort of.
While it’s nice to see real journalists hired- Vanessa Van Voorhis covering “business” and Andrea Frainier, “lifestyle”- it doesn’t change the fact that the more newsy government and police reporters are a little- or maybe a lot- less professional, although the government reporter Leo Azambuja has shown some improvement.
Though unfortunately that hasn’t led him to obtain the kind of expertise possessed his predecessor Mike Levine- no shame there- we still sometimes wonder whether he’s even trying.
In all fairness his editor Nathan Eagle could have made sure coverage of the ethically-challenged and oft incompetent Board Of Ethics (BOE) continued when Levine left for big city climes. But apparently neither Eagle nor Azambuja seem interested in covering BOE meetings and more importantly continuing Levine’s quest for BOE documents beyond replacing Levine’s name with Azambuja’s at their document-containing “Sunshine” web page.
But lucky live Kaua`i and not Bell California where the lack of citizen oversight led to obscene salaries for county officials.
Next time you see the trolls start criticizing our “nitpickers” remember that the only news we’ve been getting about the BOE lately has come from Horace Stoessel whose latest report on the BOE’s September 17 meeting- in the form of an as yet unpublished letter to the editor- describes the latest round of fear and loathing.
Here’s Horace’s report- see ya on the other side.
CREDIT WHERE CREDIT IS DUE
In May Deputy County Attorney Mona Clark advised the Board of Ethics that County Code Section 3-1.7(d) absolutely prohibits the kinds of outside employment referenced in requests for advisory opinions involving four members of the Planning Department.
At its meeting on September 17 the Board reviewed a written opinion from Attorney Clark repeating and expanding the advice she gave in May and concluding: “It is the County Attorney’s opinion that an employee cannot create a work product for a private employer which the employee would reasonably expect the employer to submit to the Planning Department without a violation of K.C.C. 3-1.7 occurring.”
The Board acted accordingly and continued to set an example for other agencies by releasing the privileged opinion, which is available from the Office of Boards and Commissions.
I wish I could say that the quality of the May-to-September process leading to the Board’s decision matched the quality of the decision itself and the principled advice it was based on. However, the process left a trail of unanswered questions.
In light of the Charter requirement that a request for advisory opinion must be answered within thirty days, I think the most obvious question is, why did it take so long for the Board to answer this request, especially when its answer was based on the same advice it received on day one?
A short letter like this cannot do justice to the question. Suffice to say that it leads to numerous other questions pertaining to policies (and lack of policies), procedures and communication (or lack of communication) involving the Mayor’s office and Planning, Personnel, and County Attorney offices as well as the Board of Ethics.
I do not question the motives or integrity of county employees. I do say that there is plenty of room for improving governmental processes. One way to improve the processes is for agencies and citizens to extend mutual respect to and expect mutual accountability from each other.
What Horace doesn’t mention here is that rather than doing their job in a timely manner the BOE’s notorious inability to read plain English has caused them to request that the charter commission- another body whose meetings have been unattended by local newspaper reporters since Levine left- submit a charter amendment to voters to give the BOE more time to futz around.
The announcement of this year’s charter amendments will be forthcoming presently but if this change, and one to allow the mayor to consolidate power by taking away the police, fire and planning commissions’ ability to hire and fire their respective department heads, are typical of their work this year an across the board “no” vote from the electorate would seem to be a no-brainer.
Whether the news that will allow people to make informed decisions on proposed charter changes will reach them through their “newspaper of record” is anyone’s guess.
But at least they’ll have timely and accurate information about who opened a new scissors and scotch tape store and whose baby lu`ua served the best malasadas in Waimea.
While it’s nice to see real journalists hired- Vanessa Van Voorhis covering “business” and Andrea Frainier, “lifestyle”- it doesn’t change the fact that the more newsy government and police reporters are a little- or maybe a lot- less professional, although the government reporter Leo Azambuja has shown some improvement.
Though unfortunately that hasn’t led him to obtain the kind of expertise possessed his predecessor Mike Levine- no shame there- we still sometimes wonder whether he’s even trying.
In all fairness his editor Nathan Eagle could have made sure coverage of the ethically-challenged and oft incompetent Board Of Ethics (BOE) continued when Levine left for big city climes. But apparently neither Eagle nor Azambuja seem interested in covering BOE meetings and more importantly continuing Levine’s quest for BOE documents beyond replacing Levine’s name with Azambuja’s at their document-containing “Sunshine” web page.
But lucky live Kaua`i and not Bell California where the lack of citizen oversight led to obscene salaries for county officials.
Next time you see the trolls start criticizing our “nitpickers” remember that the only news we’ve been getting about the BOE lately has come from Horace Stoessel whose latest report on the BOE’s September 17 meeting- in the form of an as yet unpublished letter to the editor- describes the latest round of fear and loathing.
Here’s Horace’s report- see ya on the other side.
CREDIT WHERE CREDIT IS DUE
In May Deputy County Attorney Mona Clark advised the Board of Ethics that County Code Section 3-1.7(d) absolutely prohibits the kinds of outside employment referenced in requests for advisory opinions involving four members of the Planning Department.
At its meeting on September 17 the Board reviewed a written opinion from Attorney Clark repeating and expanding the advice she gave in May and concluding: “It is the County Attorney’s opinion that an employee cannot create a work product for a private employer which the employee would reasonably expect the employer to submit to the Planning Department without a violation of K.C.C. 3-1.7 occurring.”
The Board acted accordingly and continued to set an example for other agencies by releasing the privileged opinion, which is available from the Office of Boards and Commissions.
I wish I could say that the quality of the May-to-September process leading to the Board’s decision matched the quality of the decision itself and the principled advice it was based on. However, the process left a trail of unanswered questions.
In light of the Charter requirement that a request for advisory opinion must be answered within thirty days, I think the most obvious question is, why did it take so long for the Board to answer this request, especially when its answer was based on the same advice it received on day one?
A short letter like this cannot do justice to the question. Suffice to say that it leads to numerous other questions pertaining to policies (and lack of policies), procedures and communication (or lack of communication) involving the Mayor’s office and Planning, Personnel, and County Attorney offices as well as the Board of Ethics.
I do not question the motives or integrity of county employees. I do say that there is plenty of room for improving governmental processes. One way to improve the processes is for agencies and citizens to extend mutual respect to and expect mutual accountability from each other.
What Horace doesn’t mention here is that rather than doing their job in a timely manner the BOE’s notorious inability to read plain English has caused them to request that the charter commission- another body whose meetings have been unattended by local newspaper reporters since Levine left- submit a charter amendment to voters to give the BOE more time to futz around.
The announcement of this year’s charter amendments will be forthcoming presently but if this change, and one to allow the mayor to consolidate power by taking away the police, fire and planning commissions’ ability to hire and fire their respective department heads, are typical of their work this year an across the board “no” vote from the electorate would seem to be a no-brainer.
Whether the news that will allow people to make informed decisions on proposed charter changes will reach them through their “newspaper of record” is anyone’s guess.
But at least they’ll have timely and accurate information about who opened a new scissors and scotch tape store and whose baby lu`ua served the best malasadas in Waimea.
Tuesday, August 10, 2010
(PNN) LOCAL PAPER’S BUSINESS EDITOR ZICKOS FIRED DUE TO BUSINESS COMMUNITY COMPLAINTS
LOCAL PAPER’S BUSINESS EDITOR ZICKOS FIRED DUE TO BUSINESS COMMUNITY COMPLAINTS
(PNN) -- The local newspaper’s Business Editor, Coco Zickos, was fired last week because, she was told, the business community was unhappy with her reporting and she was doing too many environmental articles.
According to Zickos on August 4 she was called to a meeting with Editor Nathan Eagle and Human Resources Director Tamra Wedemeyer where she was told by Eagle that she was “not a good fit anymore” and to gather her belongings and go.
However Zickos says that when Eagle left the room Wedemeyer essentially told her that it was “not personal but you've been doing a lot of environmental stuff but not involved enough in the business community and the business community is unhappy with your business reporting” although she could not recall the precise words used by Wedemeyer
She says Eagle told her it was not her writing or journalistic skills but her “performance” that was at issue, saying she was pushed to attend more chamber of commerce promoted events and didn’t always do so.
“It was a total shock” Zickos said in a telephone interview conducted yesterday afternoon. “There was no warning- nobody ever pulled me aside and said there were any problems.”
Although no one said so, Zickos said she suspects the firing was at the behest of Publisher Randy Kozerski.
Although in the past the paper’s business editors also covered the “environmental” beat Zickos says she was not originally hired to cover environmental issues but, since that was her passion, she asked and was given permission to cover the beat.
Some sources who asked not to be identified said that it might have been the content of her environmental coverage such as the series on bacterial counts at local beaches that upset tourism industry officials who would rather bad news that could effect visitor count be squelched.
This is not the first time the paper’s business editor has left the paper due to complaints over content that upset some in the business community. Editor Andy Gross quit after being told to stop covering Kaua`i Island Utilities Coop (KIUC) issues raised by co-op members by current Police and Courts Editor Paul Curtis who was weekend and assistant editor at the time.
Curtis was then let go by the Editor Adam Harju due to the incident but has returned to the paper under Eagle.
Before that Curtis was employed by KIUC founder Gregg Gardiner at The Kaua`i Times newspaper before it was bought out by TGI.
Zickos says she guesses that she angered some powerful people in the business community somehow although she didn’t venture a guess as to whom that might be.
Though she said she had no experience or training in journalism she said she “learned a lot” by working at the paper.
Pressed with the $64 question often raised by PNN as a reason why journalistic skills and experience are apparently given short shrift during hiring- especially given the number of experienced journalists out of work after the “merger” of the Honolulu newspapers- Zickos would only give her salary “range” of “between 12 and 15 dollars an hour”.
The paper has apparently not as yet hired a new business and/ or environmental editor and Zickos’ name has been purged on the staff page.
For the record Zickos did not initiate contact with PNN, we sought her out for this story.
(PNN) -- The local newspaper’s Business Editor, Coco Zickos, was fired last week because, she was told, the business community was unhappy with her reporting and she was doing too many environmental articles.
According to Zickos on August 4 she was called to a meeting with Editor Nathan Eagle and Human Resources Director Tamra Wedemeyer where she was told by Eagle that she was “not a good fit anymore” and to gather her belongings and go.
However Zickos says that when Eagle left the room Wedemeyer essentially told her that it was “not personal but you've been doing a lot of environmental stuff but not involved enough in the business community and the business community is unhappy with your business reporting” although she could not recall the precise words used by Wedemeyer
She says Eagle told her it was not her writing or journalistic skills but her “performance” that was at issue, saying she was pushed to attend more chamber of commerce promoted events and didn’t always do so.
“It was a total shock” Zickos said in a telephone interview conducted yesterday afternoon. “There was no warning- nobody ever pulled me aside and said there were any problems.”
Although no one said so, Zickos said she suspects the firing was at the behest of Publisher Randy Kozerski.
Although in the past the paper’s business editors also covered the “environmental” beat Zickos says she was not originally hired to cover environmental issues but, since that was her passion, she asked and was given permission to cover the beat.
Some sources who asked not to be identified said that it might have been the content of her environmental coverage such as the series on bacterial counts at local beaches that upset tourism industry officials who would rather bad news that could effect visitor count be squelched.
This is not the first time the paper’s business editor has left the paper due to complaints over content that upset some in the business community. Editor Andy Gross quit after being told to stop covering Kaua`i Island Utilities Coop (KIUC) issues raised by co-op members by current Police and Courts Editor Paul Curtis who was weekend and assistant editor at the time.
Curtis was then let go by the Editor Adam Harju due to the incident but has returned to the paper under Eagle.
Before that Curtis was employed by KIUC founder Gregg Gardiner at The Kaua`i Times newspaper before it was bought out by TGI.
Zickos says she guesses that she angered some powerful people in the business community somehow although she didn’t venture a guess as to whom that might be.
Though she said she had no experience or training in journalism she said she “learned a lot” by working at the paper.
Pressed with the $64 question often raised by PNN as a reason why journalistic skills and experience are apparently given short shrift during hiring- especially given the number of experienced journalists out of work after the “merger” of the Honolulu newspapers- Zickos would only give her salary “range” of “between 12 and 15 dollars an hour”.
The paper has apparently not as yet hired a new business and/ or environmental editor and Zickos’ name has been purged on the staff page.
For the record Zickos did not initiate contact with PNN, we sought her out for this story.
Wednesday, August 4, 2010
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.
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.
Wednesday, July 14, 2010
WHAT’S HE BEEN SMOKIN’?
WHAT’S HE BEEN SMOKIN’?: Where- or more to the point who- do we blame for the impossibly contrived and deceitful “reefer madness” in an article by clueless police beat reporter Paul Curtis in today’s local paper.
We could start with Curtis himself for the unchallenged regurgitating of the equally clueless KPD officer Mark Ozaki’s presentation to a church group.
Not even the DEA itself claims that (t)hose hooked on the “new,” more-potent, quick-growing strains of Kaua`i marijuana are... break(ing) into homes and vacation rentals seeking money to fund their habits”
Habits? Oh nooo- they must be mainlining it nowadays Gertrude.
But that’s just for starters. Later Ozaki claims that “(w)hat used to take a year now takes less than a month as these new pot plants can go from seed to harvest in 28 days”.
A whole lot of medical pot patients would like to get their hands on those seeds especially if they grow a biologically ridiculous “strain... comprised of 60 to 70 percent tetrahyrdocannabinol, compared to less than 20 percent just a few years ago”.
Ooooo- dat's some sticky bud. Stop holding out on us Mark. If that’s da kine the cops smoke think what a great recruiting tool it’d be.
Perhaps Curtis is just warning us that this crap is actually what these people think is factual and that it’s being foisted on our kids who know of course all this is an over the top pack o’ lies and so assume whatever pinheads like Ozaki claim about deadly drugs like ice is equally fabricated.
But if so, where is the rebuttal- a staple of the usual “he said she said reporting”.
Curtis makes it worse with the tired old post hoc proctor hoc fallacy of “the gateway drug theory” which is belied by the fact that those at the top of the societal rung commonly use the sacred herb regularly.
Did you know that most pot smokers started out on mothers milk? And all of them breath oxygen?
We might blame Editor Nathan Eagle whose credibility at the helm of the paper has taken a nose dive since reporter Mike Levine left and ceased to keep him honest if not for the fact that Curtis is now the “assistant editor” who has no higher editor on days that Eagle is off.
We could say that this parochially backward and insidiously destructive mindset begins at the top with kindly old brain-dead Chief Darryl Perry and his merry men of mental midgets at the police commission who seems satisfied with presenting this D.A.R.E style drivel rather than putting officers on the beat to do other things... like maybe, oh, maybe, let’s say... solve murders or something.
Congrats all around for doing the impossible- making KPD even more of a laughing stock.
But really it begins and ends with our elected officials who haven’t got the guts to stop this kind of frittering away of resources on green harvest operations, busting medical users (as the article describes) and of course devoting a full-time officer on a short-staffed force to spread utter bull-sh*t to our kids and other equally gullible groups like churches and business groups.
With public pressure the council on the Big Island has taken matters into their own hands, cutting off funding for the choppers and forcing the police department to stop busting users.
Until we put some pressure on our council to buy a clue- and some political guts- we’ll continue to see this kind of drivel in our faces over coffee each morning.
We could start with Curtis himself for the unchallenged regurgitating of the equally clueless KPD officer Mark Ozaki’s presentation to a church group.
Not even the DEA itself claims that (t)hose hooked on the “new,” more-potent, quick-growing strains of Kaua`i marijuana are... break(ing) into homes and vacation rentals seeking money to fund their habits”
Habits? Oh nooo- they must be mainlining it nowadays Gertrude.
But that’s just for starters. Later Ozaki claims that “(w)hat used to take a year now takes less than a month as these new pot plants can go from seed to harvest in 28 days”.
A whole lot of medical pot patients would like to get their hands on those seeds especially if they grow a biologically ridiculous “strain... comprised of 60 to 70 percent tetrahyrdocannabinol, compared to less than 20 percent just a few years ago”.
Ooooo- dat's some sticky bud. Stop holding out on us Mark. If that’s da kine the cops smoke think what a great recruiting tool it’d be.
Perhaps Curtis is just warning us that this crap is actually what these people think is factual and that it’s being foisted on our kids who know of course all this is an over the top pack o’ lies and so assume whatever pinheads like Ozaki claim about deadly drugs like ice is equally fabricated.
But if so, where is the rebuttal- a staple of the usual “he said she said reporting”.
Curtis makes it worse with the tired old post hoc proctor hoc fallacy of “the gateway drug theory” which is belied by the fact that those at the top of the societal rung commonly use the sacred herb regularly.
Did you know that most pot smokers started out on mothers milk? And all of them breath oxygen?
We might blame Editor Nathan Eagle whose credibility at the helm of the paper has taken a nose dive since reporter Mike Levine left and ceased to keep him honest if not for the fact that Curtis is now the “assistant editor” who has no higher editor on days that Eagle is off.
We could say that this parochially backward and insidiously destructive mindset begins at the top with kindly old brain-dead Chief Darryl Perry and his merry men of mental midgets at the police commission who seems satisfied with presenting this D.A.R.E style drivel rather than putting officers on the beat to do other things... like maybe, oh, maybe, let’s say... solve murders or something.
Congrats all around for doing the impossible- making KPD even more of a laughing stock.
But really it begins and ends with our elected officials who haven’t got the guts to stop this kind of frittering away of resources on green harvest operations, busting medical users (as the article describes) and of course devoting a full-time officer on a short-staffed force to spread utter bull-sh*t to our kids and other equally gullible groups like churches and business groups.
With public pressure the council on the Big Island has taken matters into their own hands, cutting off funding for the choppers and forcing the police department to stop busting users.
Until we put some pressure on our council to buy a clue- and some political guts- we’ll continue to see this kind of drivel in our faces over coffee each morning.
Monday, May 17, 2010
AND YOU CAN QUOTE THAT
AND YOU CAN QUOTE THAT: After submitting to a shave and a bone cut (40,000 bits) to rid us of scapular-acromion and clavicular bone spurs inside our other (right) shoulder last Thursday- sans last September’s titanium-screw rotator cuff repair which, with complications, took six months to sort-of heal up, “fixing” our left shoulder)- we’ve had a lot of spare time for one of our favorite activites this past weekend... perusing the movable feast of on-line news from across the world.
On Sunday we had even more time than expected after turning to our local Kaua`i newspaper and finding, after one brief shining moment in which its content approximated a real newspaper, they’ve hit rock bottom again and begun a new era of incompetent, kissy-faced, fluff and puff, thus regaining their late-‘80’s through mid-‘00’ moniker The Garbage Island.
This is the actual list of headlines which passed for Sunday’s entire on-line local “news” section (note that the quotation marks on “news” are the kind you make in the air denoting that it’s anything but), each indicating pretty clearly the extent of the content of each:
KCC graduates offer hope, Obituaries for Sunday, May 16, 2010, Don’t let them forget it is your tax dollar (Lowell L. Kalapa’s usual drivel), Walkers show support for nonprofits, Volunteers’ aloha makes difference, Students celebrate the Earth, Kaua`i Sovereign Volunteers Award winners, Kaua`i residents graduate from University of Portland, Nutrition seminar set for Tuesday, Students help divert phone books from landfill, Free vehicle window tint inspections next week, Weekly Roadwork Index for Sunday, May 16, 2010, and Public Meetings for Sunday, May 16, 2010.
Rock bottom news can only be provided by rock bottom “writers” (again those air quotes): in this case 1) new guy Leo Azambuja, the language-challenged, rank-amateur government reporter we “mentioned” (yes again) a few weeks back, 2) Paul Curtis the oft fired and rehired “professional” (uh-huh) whose “please like me Mr. Newsmaker” reporting has been instrumental in the derivation of the Garbage Island label over the past couple for decades and 3) the always prolific Dennis Fujimoto who, though he’s been the paper’s photographer for decades so is of course the most literate among the current crop of crappy “correspondents” (of course).
But wait- on Sunday there’s a business news page, which this week, if it’s possible, was even more vapid and insipid than usual due to 4) our own Miss Malaprop, Coco Zickos who took an embrace the suck attitude toward our “flighty fluffmeister” review of her work as (here we go again) ‘Business Editor”
This week in addition to the always boring regurgitation of press releases in News & Notes for Sunday, May 16, 2010, People on the Move for Sunday, May 16, 2010, News & Events for Sunday, May 16, 2010 and People on the Move for Sunday, May 2, 2010 and another in her series of “huh?”, off-deadline-style meanderings, is a piece headlined Has Kaua`i seen the recession’s end?.
The use of a question in a news story headline and its place on the journalistic no-no list aside, Zickos’ “story” (you bet) and it’s content can be summed up in one hilarious “qualifying the previously unqualified- and doing so twice” second sentence, destined we hope to be saved by some professor for a J-school their list of howlers:
Apparently the recession is over, some economists say.
Or maybe, apparently, not.
Current Editor Nathan Eagle has a lot to answer for here although we’re not sure how much of a leash Publisher Randy Kozerski provides him. Based on his clear, decently informative although nothing-to-write-home-about, rather pedestrian coverage of the government beat- which preceded his stint as Editor- Eagle certainly knows his ass from his news-hole-in-the-ground in the journalism world.
Perhaps seeing the first enterprise reporting (and even on occasion investigative work) since the departure of legendary Editor Jean Holmes and her ace reporter Bill LeGro in 1982, made for delusional expectations on our part.
We’ve got to accept the fact that Mike Levine has gone to his reward over at Civil Beat, Now he’s busy schmoozing with paid lobbyists and candidate shills who’ve paid $20 to take turns on the soap box within the gated-community in what Larry Geller (see forth comment on article) theorizes is just an auto-renewal scam for CB (and EBay) owner Pierre Omidyar’s Pay-Pals’ test of a business model for paid, on-line-newspaper subscriptions (much like the Superferry was a model to sell the armed forced similar “littoral” boats.)
Everything old is new again... same as it ever was... but can’t anyone here play this game?
-----
Depending on our level of “discomfort”, frequency of follow-up with the Doc and the supply and effectiveness of these little white pills, we may or may not be, apparently some say, intermittent in posting over the next week or so.
(Pardon the interruption- try to do better next time- Nathan Eagle: go to your room).
On Sunday we had even more time than expected after turning to our local Kaua`i newspaper and finding, after one brief shining moment in which its content approximated a real newspaper, they’ve hit rock bottom again and begun a new era of incompetent, kissy-faced, fluff and puff, thus regaining their late-‘80’s through mid-‘00’ moniker The Garbage Island.
This is the actual list of headlines which passed for Sunday’s entire on-line local “news” section (note that the quotation marks on “news” are the kind you make in the air denoting that it’s anything but), each indicating pretty clearly the extent of the content of each:
KCC graduates offer hope, Obituaries for Sunday, May 16, 2010, Don’t let them forget it is your tax dollar (Lowell L. Kalapa’s usual drivel), Walkers show support for nonprofits, Volunteers’ aloha makes difference, Students celebrate the Earth, Kaua`i Sovereign Volunteers Award winners, Kaua`i residents graduate from University of Portland, Nutrition seminar set for Tuesday, Students help divert phone books from landfill, Free vehicle window tint inspections next week, Weekly Roadwork Index for Sunday, May 16, 2010, and Public Meetings for Sunday, May 16, 2010.
Rock bottom news can only be provided by rock bottom “writers” (again those air quotes): in this case 1) new guy Leo Azambuja, the language-challenged, rank-amateur government reporter we “mentioned” (yes again) a few weeks back, 2) Paul Curtis the oft fired and rehired “professional” (uh-huh) whose “please like me Mr. Newsmaker” reporting has been instrumental in the derivation of the Garbage Island label over the past couple for decades and 3) the always prolific Dennis Fujimoto who, though he’s been the paper’s photographer for decades so is of course the most literate among the current crop of crappy “correspondents” (of course).
But wait- on Sunday there’s a business news page, which this week, if it’s possible, was even more vapid and insipid than usual due to 4) our own Miss Malaprop, Coco Zickos who took an embrace the suck attitude toward our “flighty fluffmeister” review of her work as (here we go again) ‘Business Editor”
This week in addition to the always boring regurgitation of press releases in News & Notes for Sunday, May 16, 2010, People on the Move for Sunday, May 16, 2010, News & Events for Sunday, May 16, 2010 and People on the Move for Sunday, May 2, 2010 and another in her series of “huh?”, off-deadline-style meanderings, is a piece headlined Has Kaua`i seen the recession’s end?.
The use of a question in a news story headline and its place on the journalistic no-no list aside, Zickos’ “story” (you bet) and it’s content can be summed up in one hilarious “qualifying the previously unqualified- and doing so twice” second sentence, destined we hope to be saved by some professor for a J-school their list of howlers:
Apparently the recession is over, some economists say.
Or maybe, apparently, not.
Current Editor Nathan Eagle has a lot to answer for here although we’re not sure how much of a leash Publisher Randy Kozerski provides him. Based on his clear, decently informative although nothing-to-write-home-about, rather pedestrian coverage of the government beat- which preceded his stint as Editor- Eagle certainly knows his ass from his news-hole-in-the-ground in the journalism world.
Perhaps seeing the first enterprise reporting (and even on occasion investigative work) since the departure of legendary Editor Jean Holmes and her ace reporter Bill LeGro in 1982, made for delusional expectations on our part.
We’ve got to accept the fact that Mike Levine has gone to his reward over at Civil Beat, Now he’s busy schmoozing with paid lobbyists and candidate shills who’ve paid $20 to take turns on the soap box within the gated-community in what Larry Geller (see forth comment on article) theorizes is just an auto-renewal scam for CB (and EBay) owner Pierre Omidyar’s Pay-Pals’ test of a business model for paid, on-line-newspaper subscriptions (much like the Superferry was a model to sell the armed forced similar “littoral” boats.)
Everything old is new again... same as it ever was... but can’t anyone here play this game?
-----
Depending on our level of “discomfort”, frequency of follow-up with the Doc and the supply and effectiveness of these little white pills, we may or may not be, apparently some say, intermittent in posting over the next week or so.
(Pardon the interruption- try to do better next time- Nathan Eagle: go to your room).
Monday, March 8, 2010
MORE POOP ON THE PATH
MORE POOP ON THE PATH: It’s been a week and a half now since the jaw dropping news from Joan Conrow that none other than Kaua`i Humane Society (KHS) chief Becky Rhoades
was indeed cited on Jan. 29 for having a dog on a section of the Path where dogs are not allowed. Hers was one of five citations issued since the ordinance took effect on Dec. 1, 2008.
And indeed in an email, county spokesperson Mary Daubert confirned to Joan that:
Dr. Becky Rhoades was cited on Jan. 29 for having a dog in a section ofthe multi-use path where dogs are not allowed.
Since the ordinance took effect on Dec. 1, 2008, 5 citations have beenissued to people who had dogs on sections of the multi-use path wheredogs are not allowed.
But nary a word out of the local newspaper whose editors, we’re quite sure read Joan’s Kaua`iEclectic reports where, despite the “blog” disguise, many major local stories are broken on a regular basis.
Now you would think this is man bites dog stuff. A leash law violation in and of itself is not front page news. One by the head of KHS might be although it might actually be more of an embarrassment.
But, as Joan wrote:
Yes, this is the very same Dr. Becky Rhoades who is continually preaching responsibility among dog owners, who launched a citizen’s patrol to ensure people were picking up their dog’s doodoo on the Path and who told the County Council:
“I honestly believe we will have better dog stewardship if we pass these ordinances,” she said.
Can you say ironic?
Joan is such a nice lady that the word she chose was ironic. We’d prefer to drop the “i” and add “mo”.
The fact that the one person who led the fight to allow dogs on one certain portion of the dog, er, bike path and was even put in charge of education as to where to and more importantly where not to walk your dog would care about the potential negative publicity of getting a ticket.
She obviously is concerned enough about negative publicity that, in the same article Joan cited she also said:
“This is a really important time for Kaua‘i,” Kaua‘i Humane Society Director Becky Rhoades said. “To be known as a dog-hating visitor attraction is not what we want to be known for.”
But maybe she has no need to be concerned. Especially if we remember who would be the one to report on the police and courts.
That would, at the risk of stealing Keith Obermann’s shtick, the “worst reporter in the world”, Paul Curtis- the same one who splashes headlines above articles about poor misguided, usually drug addicted kids who go astray, assuring that integration into the community after either rehab or jail time will be twice as hard, increasing chances for recidivism.
As Joan pointed out earlier back in June of 2009, this is nothing new from Curtis when it comes to Rhodes and KHS, writing
I’m so glad I’m one of those people who naturally wakes up early and so am able to enjoy the dawn of each day. It fortifies me with a good feeling that persists even through exposure to the news — not that you could call The Garden Island’s article on a Poipu animal cruelty case that. Reporter Paul Curtis completely threw objectivity out the window in his coverage and allowed himself to become a propaganda machine for the Kauai Humane Society.
I’ve noticed this every single time the paper covers stories that obviously come from the Humane Society. The reporters let director Becky Rhoades say any kind, with nary a glimmer of any other point of view. She did the same thing last month in a piece on roosters confiscated from a chicken fight.
Now no one wants to learn of dogs starving and rotting in their kennels, but there’s also the issue of trying —heck, slandering — a person in the newspaper, especially when he’s awaiting trial. And I couldn’t help but wonder if the KHS offensive was an attempt to CYA. I mean, they reportedly found a dead dog in this guy’s kennels in March, and after seeing everything was hunky dory in April, the enforcement officer stopped following up.
Come on. People don’t go from having a dead dog in a kennel to being model pet owners in a month. Surely a tad more oversight was warranted.
Today’s article notes:
The case is a bit puzzling to Rhoades, she said, because KHS offers free food, owner educational assistance, spay and neuter services, and other services, no questions asked.
What Dr. Becky in her self-righteousness doesn’t seem to understand is that many people do not view the Humane Society as a helpful resource where they’re likely to get assistance “no questions asked” – especially if they’re hunters.
A good reporter has that “nose for news” and when they are being bullsh-tted and sold a bill of good they use that nose to sniff around and find out what’s really going on and why they feel like something doesn’t add up
They don’t just act as regurgitating scribes who allow themselves to join a “Confederacy of Dunces” and spread the self-serving propaganda of some PR hack or mealy-mouth CEO.
We’ve been very lucky lately that the local paper has put the dynamic duo of Mike Levine and Nathan Eagle in charge of daily operations.
Their one mistake until now has been in bringing back Curtis who, as weekend editor during the Adam Harju reign was fired for interfering with a series of stories by Business Editor Andy Gross investigating KIUC. Gross quit in protest over what was essentially a published apology to KIUC for Gross’ series of articles, written by Curtis.
Come one guys- how much longer does this have to go on? There’s no shortage of good reporters without job these days- why do we have to put up with someone who has to put a smiley face on any story about the comfortable and afflict only the already afflicted?
was indeed cited on Jan. 29 for having a dog on a section of the Path where dogs are not allowed. Hers was one of five citations issued since the ordinance took effect on Dec. 1, 2008.
And indeed in an email, county spokesperson Mary Daubert confirned to Joan that:
Dr. Becky Rhoades was cited on Jan. 29 for having a dog in a section ofthe multi-use path where dogs are not allowed.
Since the ordinance took effect on Dec. 1, 2008, 5 citations have beenissued to people who had dogs on sections of the multi-use path wheredogs are not allowed.
But nary a word out of the local newspaper whose editors, we’re quite sure read Joan’s Kaua`iEclectic reports where, despite the “blog” disguise, many major local stories are broken on a regular basis.
Now you would think this is man bites dog stuff. A leash law violation in and of itself is not front page news. One by the head of KHS might be although it might actually be more of an embarrassment.
But, as Joan wrote:
Yes, this is the very same Dr. Becky Rhoades who is continually preaching responsibility among dog owners, who launched a citizen’s patrol to ensure people were picking up their dog’s doodoo on the Path and who told the County Council:
“I honestly believe we will have better dog stewardship if we pass these ordinances,” she said.
Can you say ironic?
Joan is such a nice lady that the word she chose was ironic. We’d prefer to drop the “i” and add “mo”.
The fact that the one person who led the fight to allow dogs on one certain portion of the dog, er, bike path and was even put in charge of education as to where to and more importantly where not to walk your dog would care about the potential negative publicity of getting a ticket.
She obviously is concerned enough about negative publicity that, in the same article Joan cited she also said:
“This is a really important time for Kaua‘i,” Kaua‘i Humane Society Director Becky Rhoades said. “To be known as a dog-hating visitor attraction is not what we want to be known for.”
But maybe she has no need to be concerned. Especially if we remember who would be the one to report on the police and courts.
That would, at the risk of stealing Keith Obermann’s shtick, the “worst reporter in the world”, Paul Curtis- the same one who splashes headlines above articles about poor misguided, usually drug addicted kids who go astray, assuring that integration into the community after either rehab or jail time will be twice as hard, increasing chances for recidivism.
As Joan pointed out earlier back in June of 2009, this is nothing new from Curtis when it comes to Rhodes and KHS, writing
I’m so glad I’m one of those people who naturally wakes up early and so am able to enjoy the dawn of each day. It fortifies me with a good feeling that persists even through exposure to the news — not that you could call The Garden Island’s article on a Poipu animal cruelty case that. Reporter Paul Curtis completely threw objectivity out the window in his coverage and allowed himself to become a propaganda machine for the Kauai Humane Society.
I’ve noticed this every single time the paper covers stories that obviously come from the Humane Society. The reporters let director Becky Rhoades say any kind, with nary a glimmer of any other point of view. She did the same thing last month in a piece on roosters confiscated from a chicken fight.
Now no one wants to learn of dogs starving and rotting in their kennels, but there’s also the issue of trying —heck, slandering — a person in the newspaper, especially when he’s awaiting trial. And I couldn’t help but wonder if the KHS offensive was an attempt to CYA. I mean, they reportedly found a dead dog in this guy’s kennels in March, and after seeing everything was hunky dory in April, the enforcement officer stopped following up.
Come on. People don’t go from having a dead dog in a kennel to being model pet owners in a month. Surely a tad more oversight was warranted.
Today’s article notes:
The case is a bit puzzling to Rhoades, she said, because KHS offers free food, owner educational assistance, spay and neuter services, and other services, no questions asked.
What Dr. Becky in her self-righteousness doesn’t seem to understand is that many people do not view the Humane Society as a helpful resource where they’re likely to get assistance “no questions asked” – especially if they’re hunters.
A good reporter has that “nose for news” and when they are being bullsh-tted and sold a bill of good they use that nose to sniff around and find out what’s really going on and why they feel like something doesn’t add up
They don’t just act as regurgitating scribes who allow themselves to join a “Confederacy of Dunces” and spread the self-serving propaganda of some PR hack or mealy-mouth CEO.
We’ve been very lucky lately that the local paper has put the dynamic duo of Mike Levine and Nathan Eagle in charge of daily operations.
Their one mistake until now has been in bringing back Curtis who, as weekend editor during the Adam Harju reign was fired for interfering with a series of stories by Business Editor Andy Gross investigating KIUC. Gross quit in protest over what was essentially a published apology to KIUC for Gross’ series of articles, written by Curtis.
Come one guys- how much longer does this have to go on? There’s no shortage of good reporters without job these days- why do we have to put up with someone who has to put a smiley face on any story about the comfortable and afflict only the already afflicted?
Thursday, July 2, 2009
A LOAD ON THE PAPER
A LOAD ON THE PAPER: The dynamic duo of “new” blood at the local paper in the personages of Editor Nathan Eagle and Assistant Editor Michael Levine has brought a new era of, if nothing else, clear concise writing and reporting on Kaua`i.
But wouldn’t you know someone would go and ruin it with the rehiring of perhaps the worst writer and most ethically challenged reporter in the paper’s and island’s history, Paul Curtis.
Curtis, who has been hired and fired at the paper more than once over the last couple of decades, is the master of sycophantic reporting and has a skill for writing entire articles having no idea what he’s writing about or what the “real story” is.
Today’s Curtis entry, headlined “Mayor asks Commission to defer pay raises” tells us that “Mayor Bernard Carvalho Jr. has asked the county Salary Commission to defer pay raises for himself and county department heads scheduled to take effect Dec. 1”.
Curtis regurgitates Carvalho’s letter to commission Chair Gini Kapali- a former mayoral appointee to several positions over the past decade plus- explaining that, in order to fulfill a campaign promise, he was asking the commission to rescind a 7% increase due in December.
But then there are these seemingly contradictor paragraphs:
The matter is expected to be on the agenda of the Salary Commission’s meeting July 14, said Mercedes Youn of the county Boards and Commissions Office.
In a letter transmitting the salary resolution to the County Council for its consideration, Kapali said the County Charter provides for the commission salary resolution to become effective without concurrence of the mayor and council if not rejected by a super majority of five members of the council within 60 days of its adoption.
How the letter could have been sent when the matter was not yet on the agenda isn’t explained, although presumably he’s referring to a resolution from earlier this year that would be rescinded if the Salary Commission decides to do as Carvalho requests.
This all too typical example of Curtis’ disjointed reporting is but a cog in the overall myopic presentation of the half-truths that Tokioka and Carvalho are trying to foist on the taxpayer because actually the 7% increase is only the last increment of a series of pay raises that have seen the Mayor’s salary go from $75,000 in June of 2007 to $114,490 today.
A 25% across the board increase for department heads, deputies, the county council and various other non-civil service appointees in July of 2005 was followed by 7% increases in both January and December 2008.
The last is scheduled for Dec. 1 2009.
The amount that Carvalho personally would be forgoing would have only raised his salary to $122,504, a raise of a little over $8,000 after close to $40,000 in raises recently.
Of course the fact is that the Mayor could have asked for the rescinding of some of those recent raises but the ever uninquisitive Curtis never asked about that much less tried to put what Carvalho and Tokioka were spoon feeding him in any kind of context.
Not only that but the salary ordinance calls for a salary “range” under the control of the hiring authority for each position giving the mayor the power to pay many of them less than the maximums.
According to the article Tokioka said that going the Salary Commission route was “the easiest way” to freeze salaries and apparently not asking what the other alternative are was also the easiest way for Curtis to avoid either working harder or embarrassing his friend Beth.
What Curtis is doing back at the paper is anyone’s guess. There’s certainly no shortage of out of work reporters these days many with excellent journalistic skills.
Perhaps no one remembers the Andy Gross fiasco.
Gross was an first-rate Business Editor with a Columbia School of Journalism degree a few years back who was not just a skilled writer and reporter but had lived on the island before working for the paper. He actually had a penchant for reporting the truth and digging deeper than the surface reporting that Curtis and other defenders of the realm at the paper have routinely spit out over the years.
Curtis, acting as weekend editor at the time, tried to censor, severely edit and essentially squelch a series of investigatory reports regarding operations at Kaua`i Island Utilities Co-op (KIUC) by Gross causing Gross to quit in disgust. all according to multiple sources at the paper and, they say, Gross himself.
Curtis was fired over the incident but now that Editor Adam Harju, who fired Curtis, is gone apparently no one is left that remember- or wants to remember- the incident.
Curtis got his start in reporting as a mouthpiece for the Nukoli`i developers at the now defunct “Kaua`i Times”, a newspaper that was specifically started to battle the citizen’s petition efforts to block the development at the old dairy, where the resort sticks out like a sore thumb in the middle of nowhere between Lihu`e and Wailua today.
We’re certainly not saying that we actually oppose the salary increases although we suspect many taxpayers do. We actually think that some positions were severely underpaid prior to Jan. 2007.
The council’s salaries went from the low $30,000’s to the mid-50’s and all that’s left to do now is to make them full time positions and rid them of conflicts-of-interest inherent in the outside employment mandated in the past by the old low salaries and their current part-time status.
But surely Tokioka’s PR spin on the “magnanimous” move by her boss deserves more context than the lazy reporting style Curtis has exhibited on the island over the last 25 years.
But wouldn’t you know someone would go and ruin it with the rehiring of perhaps the worst writer and most ethically challenged reporter in the paper’s and island’s history, Paul Curtis.
Curtis, who has been hired and fired at the paper more than once over the last couple of decades, is the master of sycophantic reporting and has a skill for writing entire articles having no idea what he’s writing about or what the “real story” is.
Today’s Curtis entry, headlined “Mayor asks Commission to defer pay raises” tells us that “Mayor Bernard Carvalho Jr. has asked the county Salary Commission to defer pay raises for himself and county department heads scheduled to take effect Dec. 1”.
Curtis regurgitates Carvalho’s letter to commission Chair Gini Kapali- a former mayoral appointee to several positions over the past decade plus- explaining that, in order to fulfill a campaign promise, he was asking the commission to rescind a 7% increase due in December.
But then there are these seemingly contradictor paragraphs:
The matter is expected to be on the agenda of the Salary Commission’s meeting July 14, said Mercedes Youn of the county Boards and Commissions Office.
In a letter transmitting the salary resolution to the County Council for its consideration, Kapali said the County Charter provides for the commission salary resolution to become effective without concurrence of the mayor and council if not rejected by a super majority of five members of the council within 60 days of its adoption.
How the letter could have been sent when the matter was not yet on the agenda isn’t explained, although presumably he’s referring to a resolution from earlier this year that would be rescinded if the Salary Commission decides to do as Carvalho requests.
This all too typical example of Curtis’ disjointed reporting is but a cog in the overall myopic presentation of the half-truths that Tokioka and Carvalho are trying to foist on the taxpayer because actually the 7% increase is only the last increment of a series of pay raises that have seen the Mayor’s salary go from $75,000 in June of 2007 to $114,490 today.
A 25% across the board increase for department heads, deputies, the county council and various other non-civil service appointees in July of 2005 was followed by 7% increases in both January and December 2008.
The last is scheduled for Dec. 1 2009.
The amount that Carvalho personally would be forgoing would have only raised his salary to $122,504, a raise of a little over $8,000 after close to $40,000 in raises recently.
Of course the fact is that the Mayor could have asked for the rescinding of some of those recent raises but the ever uninquisitive Curtis never asked about that much less tried to put what Carvalho and Tokioka were spoon feeding him in any kind of context.
Not only that but the salary ordinance calls for a salary “range” under the control of the hiring authority for each position giving the mayor the power to pay many of them less than the maximums.
According to the article Tokioka said that going the Salary Commission route was “the easiest way” to freeze salaries and apparently not asking what the other alternative are was also the easiest way for Curtis to avoid either working harder or embarrassing his friend Beth.
What Curtis is doing back at the paper is anyone’s guess. There’s certainly no shortage of out of work reporters these days many with excellent journalistic skills.
Perhaps no one remembers the Andy Gross fiasco.
Gross was an first-rate Business Editor with a Columbia School of Journalism degree a few years back who was not just a skilled writer and reporter but had lived on the island before working for the paper. He actually had a penchant for reporting the truth and digging deeper than the surface reporting that Curtis and other defenders of the realm at the paper have routinely spit out over the years.
Curtis, acting as weekend editor at the time, tried to censor, severely edit and essentially squelch a series of investigatory reports regarding operations at Kaua`i Island Utilities Co-op (KIUC) by Gross causing Gross to quit in disgust. all according to multiple sources at the paper and, they say, Gross himself.
Curtis was fired over the incident but now that Editor Adam Harju, who fired Curtis, is gone apparently no one is left that remember- or wants to remember- the incident.
Curtis got his start in reporting as a mouthpiece for the Nukoli`i developers at the now defunct “Kaua`i Times”, a newspaper that was specifically started to battle the citizen’s petition efforts to block the development at the old dairy, where the resort sticks out like a sore thumb in the middle of nowhere between Lihu`e and Wailua today.
We’re certainly not saying that we actually oppose the salary increases although we suspect many taxpayers do. We actually think that some positions were severely underpaid prior to Jan. 2007.
The council’s salaries went from the low $30,000’s to the mid-50’s and all that’s left to do now is to make them full time positions and rid them of conflicts-of-interest inherent in the outside employment mandated in the past by the old low salaries and their current part-time status.
But surely Tokioka’s PR spin on the “magnanimous” move by her boss deserves more context than the lazy reporting style Curtis has exhibited on the island over the last 25 years.
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