SILENT BUT DEADLY

SILENT BUT DEADLY: We're old enough to remember when there were still "water closets"- those big boxes installed way up on the wall above toilet bowls that, when you pulled the chain, released a torrent of water so noisy that everyone in the restaurant had to pause conversation until the sound of the flash flood had subsided.

When the W/Cs were removed, their replacements were still loud but at least they weren't conversation halters. And now of course we have the ultra-silent modern toilets that barely make a sound.

But for the most silent flush of all, you had to attend last Wednesday's Economic Development Committee meeting of the Kaua`i County Council.

For those who are new to these pages, it was all part of the latest "Gush and Flush" as we've come to call them- sessions where councilmembers fall all over themselves to throw money at Kaua`i Visitor's Bureau and associated events, first gushing over what a great job Director Sue Kanoho is doing and then promising to flush another hundred grand or so down into the cesspool of tourism promotion.

No matter what the economy has done to our "biggest industry" in recent years- biggest only if you count all the money that never sees the shores of Kaua`i- it's always a wonder to behold what a great job Kanoho has done with the money the council appropriated, even though there has never been a verified connection between each flush and the council's subsequent gush.

Two years ago Kanoho told the council how "down is the new up" followed by "flat is the new up" last year. And of course with occupancy up and numbers of direct flights to Kaua`i increasing, Kanoho and her county overseer, Economic Development Chief George Costa, were all too ready to breath in the wondrous air of success even though they, as always, couldn't show any correlation between whatever the figures are and the taxpayer money spent on promotion.

And, as they are wont to do, the council couldn't contain themselves at the election-year-news that their foresight in appropriating the money was rewarded with such rousingly successful promotions.

The council of course knows someone is watching occasionally so this time they conveniently failed to post the agenda on-line until the Monday before the meeting so that not only wasn't the agenda item in the local newspaper but those who get the agenda via an emailed link didn't get it until Tuesday. That meant that nitpickers Glenn Mickens and Ken Taylor, who have been trying to publicly point out all of this for years, didn't even know there was a meeting much less the subject of it.

There was one attempt to counterbalance the obscene self-congratulatory proceedings by Gusher-In-Chief, Councilperson JoAnn Yukimura, who asked for proof that increases in occupancy were somehow correlated with the million dollars in "stimulus money" the council threw at KTA over the last couple-a few-years or so.

And, as if Yukimura didn't know the answer, Kanoho was all too happy to inform her that those numbers were "proprietary."

"So I shouldn't be happy to see high occupancies because they aren't real?" asked Yukimura.

Kanoho hemmed and hawed and was about to launch into one of her patented ebullient doubletalk explanations when Yukimura baled her out to let her know that she was only questioning the occupancy numbers because they had to be accurate or any semblance of validity for purposes of the newly-enforceable general plan- due for update this or next year- would be a joke.

Well, at least she seems to have a firm grasp of the obvious.

Usually one gush and flush is enough for one day but since they had gone to all the trouble of making sure no one knew what was on the agenda, they also revisited the cash they have been throwing at The Kaua`i Marathon for many years... money that, we were apparently assured at the last meeting, wouldn’t be forthcoming anymore.

Anyone expecting what was said six months ago by councilmembers to be repeated again without someone sitting there at the testimony table and reminding them of it was sorely disappointed. Apparently, the $120,000 that was off again, on again, off again is now on again, pending approval at budget time when the appropriation won't stand out like a sore thumb among all the rest of the cash thrown at the county's woes.

Actually- and we're somewhat guilty of burying the lede here- there was a bit of news from the meeting from Councilmember Mel Rapozo who somehow got to bring up the subject of the Wailua Golf Course. Unbelievably enough, in the year 2012, they don't take credit cards.

Yet increasing the number of rounds played by tourists has been the focus of the council and administration for a decade as the amount of taxpayer money the county has had to use to subsidize the supposedly self-sustaining golf course has grown almost every year in that time to around a half-million bucks in this year's budget.

Rapozo pointed out how many, himself included, use ONLY credit cards when they travel and don't ever use ATMs because they doesn't trust them.

Kanoho then announced that the county had finally, at great expense, gotten an ATM machine at the course. But that doesn't help people who want to book a round from the mainland and it really doesn't help those without a debit card because the amount charged for a "cash advance" on credit cards can be exorbitant.

Kanoho at first claimed that they now take credit cards only to be told by Rapozo that staff had called that very morning to verify that credit cards were still not welcome at the golf course.

The way the gush and flush works best is when no one bothers to challenge it. Only then does the modern silent toilet work to cover-up the stench of the way we throw money at tourism without any indication it does thing-one to bring more visitors here... assuming indiscriminate urging of Kaua`i visitation is what we want in the first place rather than cultivating a niche in a directed, precise- and of course verifiable- manner.

There's a well known hoax that claims that the flush commode was invented by a man named Crapper. But those who think that's the biggest lie in potty history have never been to an economic development session of the Kaua`i County Council.

THINKING INSIDE THE ENVELOPMENT

THINKING INSIDE THE ENVELOPMENT: Leave it to a joke-of-a-legislator like Jimmy Tokioka to introduce a joke-of-a-bill to take care of a no-joke problem.

The matter of guide books that list places from which we routinely have to drag dead tourists isn’t new. It’s been the subject of many more than a handful of county council discussions over the past decade or so with emergency room Dr. Monty Downs leading the way in pushing the Kaua`i Visitors’ Bureau (KVB) to get off their duffs and put pressure on the authors to de-list the most demonstrably dangerous locations after his umpteenth time of having to go out and “inform” an Ultimate Guide Book-clutching family that their loved one(s) didn’t make it.

Admittedly the way to go about fixing it isn’t passing a law to allow lawsuits against writers if they irrelevantly include instructions that urge trespassing in some kind of absurd end run around the actual problem.

But nonetheless it’s a subject which predictably brought out the usual gang of sociopaths, blaming the victims and assuring us that they would never be so stupid- while giving evidence to the contrary with every post.

We invite them- and the two “newspaper” editors who predictably screamed about first amendment rights- to call Dr. Downs. We’re sure he’d be happy to invite them over to the hospital next time the ambulance is on the way so they can watch him pull the sheet over a bloated corpse that was a vibrant individual an hour before. Perhaps he’ll let them inform the family.

Of course we wouldn’t think of criticizing something without offering a solution.

We’ve been hypercritical of the obscene amount of money that the county council throws at KVB without any accountability just so they can be seen as providing money to the tourist trade- the old gush and flush.

So, our solution? Two words: bubble wrap.

That’s right, bubble wrap. We simply get the airlines to greet every arriving passenger and swathe them in bubble wrap.

And it need not be that cumbersome a process like piecing sections together with duct tape or something. With county funds the KVB could simply offer a contract for zip-up, reusable, bubble wrap suits, prefabricated and read to wear... off the rack so to speak.

We’ll still need legislation to force them to wear them at all times but at least that kind of law would address the issue head on. Of course we’ll have to exempt those with a local driver’s license since we never do stupid things.

Or maybe KVB could publish a warning list of dangerous specific references in specific guidebooks and distribute them to deplaning visitors. Afterall, the answer to free speech is more free speech.

Nah, that would be too easy. Besides they’re too busy finding ways to waste the money to keep a list like that. And it might pop the real bubble- the obligatory promotional impression given by the tourism industry that you can leave your caution at home because nothing bad could possibly happen in “paradise.”

Bubble-wrapping is the kind of creative thinking Kaua`i needs. We’re frankly surprised it hasn’t been proposed already at the anonymous dimwit roundtable, which is already in regress.