DOIN’ THE MATH: We’ve already got our grandson pouncing on one of our “favorite” TV news “teaser” lines- that their next story will reveal “facts” that “may or may not” be true. It’s a close second in entertainment value to much used corollary “ Is it true? The answer might surprise you”
Then again it might not.
So when greeted with a headline in today’s local paper proclaiming that “Council terms could be 4 years” we couldn’t help but see the joke contained therein.
Because we’ve lost track now of how often Kaua`i voters have rejected extending terms for councilmembers but it’s got to be around half a dozen times in the last 30 years.
It’s been an old standby for every charter commission, along with districting which has also been soundly defeated every time no matter how it’s been presented because both are, for good reason, firmly entrenched in the political culture of Kaua`i.
Though we seem to return corrupt incumbents at an inexplicable rate, we at least want to keep them on their toes with two year terms. And we want to vote for all seven because, as a close knit island, we can see the folly and potential boondoggling in pitting one area against another.
But we can look to an article from the previous day to figure out why, despite the rejection of the four year council terms over and over, charter commissions repeatedly try to shove it down our throats.
The shocking resignation of Carol Ann Davis Bryant - as characterized by reporter Michael Levine- is another of those also that would have been better characterized as a “may or may not be” surprise, especially when you look at Davis’s reported explanation.
Picking up where her late husband left off, Carol Ann Davis-Briant championed the county manager system of government for Kaua`i. But on Monday she said her attempts have been stymied, announcing her resignation to shocked colleagues on the Charter Review Commission.
“Since I began serving on the commission, efforts to provide information about the manager system to the commission and to have it actively considered by the commission as a potential proposal for submission to the Kaua`i voters as an amendment to our county charter have been systematically blocked,”...
“I have concluded that I am facing a systematic barrier which is being imposed by the commission, the Office of Boards and Commissions and the county attorney to prevent the consideration of a responsible proposal of a county manager form of government which I feel is supported by many Kaua`i residents,” she said...
She said the government “does not function properly” because four entities — the Kaua`i County Council, the Office of the Mayor, the Office of Boards and Commissions and the Office of the County Attorney — are all vying for control of the island.
Though Bryant may or may not be learning for the first time how those four entities interact to squelch any reform- or for that matter attempts to enforce laws, rules and regulations they don’t like- for most others, including her late husband Walter, it’s another one of those “shocked-shocked to find corruption in our county government... you’re winnings sir” state of affairs.
Those winnings stretch out for two years at present and you have to be blind or equally corrupted not to see who benefits from four year terms for the council- the special interests who financially install their sycophants as well as the sycophants themselves
It certainly isn’t the public which has more reason this year than in any in the recent past to clamor for change after being regaled with tales of schemes-behind-the-scenes fear and loathing through the emperor-has-no-clothes revelations of fed-up council reformers Tim Bynum and Lani Kawahara.
Our council is a bad joke across the island, across the state and even, in some pockets, across the country. The only thing that would compound that is to give them double the time between elections to make double the trouble.
Is there anyone who thinks that giving these self-serving blowhards a four year contract will make them better legislators?
Our advice to the see, hear and speak no evil members of the charter review commission is, “don’t ask”- it’s been asked and answered over and over since Sherman Shiraishi’s father Clinton asked decades ago.
We fear it may or may not be the last time for a while we’ll be insanely asked the same questions expecting a different answer.
Wednesday, September 30, 2009
Tuesday, September 29, 2009
BARKING IN THE DARK
BARKING IN THE DARK: Joan Conrow’s recent interview with Kaua`i Police Department (KPD) Chief Darryl Perry in the Hawai`i Independent begins with Perry’s depiction of what he found when he took office saying:
When Police Chief Darryl Perry started work on Kauai two years ago, he was startled to find that his office lacked not only transition reports, but even such rudimentary supplies as a pencil and stapler.
“I wondered what else I would find if the basics were missing,” Perry recalled during a KKCR radio interview that I conducted with him on Thursday afternoon.
He soon discovered that much more was missing from the long-troubled department, including an internal affairs division, certain records, modern policies, good morale, and leadership. The force had some 30 vacant positions, and no disciplinary action had been taken against officers for the previous three years, resulting in a backlog of about 20 cases.
Whether this is due to ignorance of what happened before he took office along with a lack of comprehension of the laws governing the police commission and department or is the result of a selective memory is a matter only Perry himself can clarify.
But it’s essential that light be shed on some of the misconceptions and misperceptions that might result from reading the veiled passive aggressive allegations.
Let’s start with the complaint regarding processing of complaints.
There has been a fundamental problem of ambiguity and lack of clarity with the processing of complaints on Kaua`i since the county charter was adopted.
The relevant charter provisions read:
Section 11.03. General Powers of the Commission. The police
commission shall:
C. Receive, consider and investigate charges brought by the public against the conduct of the department or any of its members and submit a written report of its findings to the chief of police within ninety days.
Section 11.06. Discipline and Removal. The dismissal, suspension, or demotion of any police officer or employee in the police department shall be under procedures set forth by civil service laws and regulations.
There is nothing further stated in the charter as to what happens then. The problem has been that the HAR (Hawai`i Administrative Rules) are not of much help either. As a matter of fact they call for complaints to be filed with either the commission or the chief, according to a long standing commission complaint, causing no small confusion in tracking complaints.
Does the charter’s wording preclude an internal affairs division? After all if the commission is supposed to “(r)eceive, consider and investigate charges” what does an IA do? And what happens after the chief receives the report? And who is to do the investigation for the commission? It would seem to indicate an independent investigation is required conducted by the commission, not the department.
In practice the commission has received a small budget to hire investigators but that money has come up short of what is needed year after year with finding the most cost effective method of hiring investigators taking up an inordinate amount of commission time and energy in recent years.
One of the first police commission meetings PNN attended was when Mayor Maryanne Kusaka, apparently illegally interfering with the commission’s function, attempted to remove Chief George Freitas on her own by directing his secretary to seize his badge and gun under trumped up charges, all but a minor one of which- that his girlfriend rode in his police car- were determined by the commission to be unfounded.
According to the charter, the only function the Mayor serves regarding the KPD is to nominate the commissioners, who are confirmed by the county council.
At that meeting amidst the confusion and political machinations- under a county attorney, Hartwell Blake, who simply refused to recognize the charter and allowed the mayor to interfere with the commission and department in any manner she pleased- there was an agenda item that was deferred and did not show up on the agenda again for the next few years while the commission’s time was dominated with the proceedings regarding Freitas.
The item was to initiate review leading to new administrative rules as concerned complaints. To this day the commission operates under the rules they had found to be wanting for years before that meeting.
Once Freitas retired- with a huge “settlement” buyout in exchange for his dropping of a open-and-shut-case lawsuit against the county – the commission’s job number one was the search for a new chief. Through a series of interim chiefs the issues of administrative rules and insufficient money for investigators- and therefore the complaints themselves- took a backseat until it finally reappeared on the agenda again right after the appointment of Chief KC Lum.
But of course at that point all hell broke loose again with a new round of politically motivated charges against not just Lum but the chair and vice chair of the commission, all of whose time was consumed fighting the trumped up charges of two councilpersons- Mel Rapozo and Shaylene Iseri Carvalho- who held personal grudges against Lum.
Eventually Council Chair Kaipo Asing, in order to keep the support of the two for his now infamous iron fisted rule of the council, filed the complaint against Lum... at first officially on council letterhead appearing to speak for the whole council until complaints against Asing were filed when he claimed he just made a mistake by using county letterhead.
For the next two years the political shenanigans and charges dominated the commission meetings, interrupted and compounded by the “Hop Sing” episode where commissioner Leon Gonsalves’ email by using the racial slur was revealed spurring public pressure that caused then-Mayor Brian Baptiste to ask the council to remove Gonsalves.
When the council finally put the matter on the agenda under pressure from the police union leadership and others- including Perry’s brother Warren and many other of Perry’s supporters, including Gonsalves who also stated how he “could throw up” seeing Lum sworn in after Perry had lost out to Lum for the top cop job- the council refused to remove Gonsalves claiming it was “just his way of talking”.
Despite the blatant ethnic slur- Lum is of Chinese descent as was the Hop Sing character, a servant on the TV show Bonanza- Gonsalves was excused because he apparently had slurred many others with ethnic nicknames, as did others at the department, so somehow it didn’t matter because, as Asing and other councilmembers said, it was just “local culture”.
Amidst all that, the commission- by then the go to body to receive and investigate complaints- was in such constant turmoil and operating with bitter cross-table personal animosities, it made all other work, especially processing complaints, almost impossible.
And while all this was going on, the department’s chief financial officer took sick and went on leave with cancer right after Lum took office. This caused a constant lack of up to date accounting, compounding the longstanding deficiencies in the reporting system that kept reports from the financial officer up to three months behind causing the "actuals" of the last three months of the fiscal year to be unavailable until the year was over.
Since the department had been anywhere from 30 to 45 officer short for many years overtime pay was out of control. But rather than increase the line item for overtime the council expected Lum to cover all the shifts with the money appropriated for regular salary- something that, of course could never cover the higher overtime pay rate.
Lum was forced to scrimp and save in order to put enough officers on the streets- a policy the council and mayor, not to mention the community, insisted upon- without going over budget.
Despite this- and the fact that a final report from the finance director found he was not over budget- he was excoriated by the council for going over his budget when the real problem was apparently an accounting one caused by the absence of the long time financial officer.
That may explain why there were seemingly insufficient pencils and staplers with the money going to overtime salaries.
It would have been surprising- given all the political in-fighting, the major upheavals in removing two chiefs, the appointments of multiple interim chiefs, the procedural problems with complaint processing, the lack of a financial officer and all the other items detailed in Anthony Sommer’s book KPD Blue (which Perry recently seeming admitted was factual in saying “the days of KPD Blue are ‘over’”) – if anything else on the commission agenda was moving forward, including processing of complaints under unclear rules.
Pointing fingers is easy. Examining precisely what happened- especially when you’ve been in denial about it- is a little bit harder.
When Police Chief Darryl Perry started work on Kauai two years ago, he was startled to find that his office lacked not only transition reports, but even such rudimentary supplies as a pencil and stapler.
“I wondered what else I would find if the basics were missing,” Perry recalled during a KKCR radio interview that I conducted with him on Thursday afternoon.
He soon discovered that much more was missing from the long-troubled department, including an internal affairs division, certain records, modern policies, good morale, and leadership. The force had some 30 vacant positions, and no disciplinary action had been taken against officers for the previous three years, resulting in a backlog of about 20 cases.
Whether this is due to ignorance of what happened before he took office along with a lack of comprehension of the laws governing the police commission and department or is the result of a selective memory is a matter only Perry himself can clarify.
But it’s essential that light be shed on some of the misconceptions and misperceptions that might result from reading the veiled passive aggressive allegations.
Let’s start with the complaint regarding processing of complaints.
There has been a fundamental problem of ambiguity and lack of clarity with the processing of complaints on Kaua`i since the county charter was adopted.
The relevant charter provisions read:
Section 11.03. General Powers of the Commission. The police
commission shall:
C. Receive, consider and investigate charges brought by the public against the conduct of the department or any of its members and submit a written report of its findings to the chief of police within ninety days.
Section 11.06. Discipline and Removal. The dismissal, suspension, or demotion of any police officer or employee in the police department shall be under procedures set forth by civil service laws and regulations.
There is nothing further stated in the charter as to what happens then. The problem has been that the HAR (Hawai`i Administrative Rules) are not of much help either. As a matter of fact they call for complaints to be filed with either the commission or the chief, according to a long standing commission complaint, causing no small confusion in tracking complaints.
Does the charter’s wording preclude an internal affairs division? After all if the commission is supposed to “(r)eceive, consider and investigate charges” what does an IA do? And what happens after the chief receives the report? And who is to do the investigation for the commission? It would seem to indicate an independent investigation is required conducted by the commission, not the department.
In practice the commission has received a small budget to hire investigators but that money has come up short of what is needed year after year with finding the most cost effective method of hiring investigators taking up an inordinate amount of commission time and energy in recent years.
One of the first police commission meetings PNN attended was when Mayor Maryanne Kusaka, apparently illegally interfering with the commission’s function, attempted to remove Chief George Freitas on her own by directing his secretary to seize his badge and gun under trumped up charges, all but a minor one of which- that his girlfriend rode in his police car- were determined by the commission to be unfounded.
According to the charter, the only function the Mayor serves regarding the KPD is to nominate the commissioners, who are confirmed by the county council.
At that meeting amidst the confusion and political machinations- under a county attorney, Hartwell Blake, who simply refused to recognize the charter and allowed the mayor to interfere with the commission and department in any manner she pleased- there was an agenda item that was deferred and did not show up on the agenda again for the next few years while the commission’s time was dominated with the proceedings regarding Freitas.
The item was to initiate review leading to new administrative rules as concerned complaints. To this day the commission operates under the rules they had found to be wanting for years before that meeting.
Once Freitas retired- with a huge “settlement” buyout in exchange for his dropping of a open-and-shut-case lawsuit against the county – the commission’s job number one was the search for a new chief. Through a series of interim chiefs the issues of administrative rules and insufficient money for investigators- and therefore the complaints themselves- took a backseat until it finally reappeared on the agenda again right after the appointment of Chief KC Lum.
But of course at that point all hell broke loose again with a new round of politically motivated charges against not just Lum but the chair and vice chair of the commission, all of whose time was consumed fighting the trumped up charges of two councilpersons- Mel Rapozo and Shaylene Iseri Carvalho- who held personal grudges against Lum.
Eventually Council Chair Kaipo Asing, in order to keep the support of the two for his now infamous iron fisted rule of the council, filed the complaint against Lum... at first officially on council letterhead appearing to speak for the whole council until complaints against Asing were filed when he claimed he just made a mistake by using county letterhead.
For the next two years the political shenanigans and charges dominated the commission meetings, interrupted and compounded by the “Hop Sing” episode where commissioner Leon Gonsalves’ email by using the racial slur was revealed spurring public pressure that caused then-Mayor Brian Baptiste to ask the council to remove Gonsalves.
When the council finally put the matter on the agenda under pressure from the police union leadership and others- including Perry’s brother Warren and many other of Perry’s supporters, including Gonsalves who also stated how he “could throw up” seeing Lum sworn in after Perry had lost out to Lum for the top cop job- the council refused to remove Gonsalves claiming it was “just his way of talking”.
Despite the blatant ethnic slur- Lum is of Chinese descent as was the Hop Sing character, a servant on the TV show Bonanza- Gonsalves was excused because he apparently had slurred many others with ethnic nicknames, as did others at the department, so somehow it didn’t matter because, as Asing and other councilmembers said, it was just “local culture”.
Amidst all that, the commission- by then the go to body to receive and investigate complaints- was in such constant turmoil and operating with bitter cross-table personal animosities, it made all other work, especially processing complaints, almost impossible.
And while all this was going on, the department’s chief financial officer took sick and went on leave with cancer right after Lum took office. This caused a constant lack of up to date accounting, compounding the longstanding deficiencies in the reporting system that kept reports from the financial officer up to three months behind causing the "actuals" of the last three months of the fiscal year to be unavailable until the year was over.
Since the department had been anywhere from 30 to 45 officer short for many years overtime pay was out of control. But rather than increase the line item for overtime the council expected Lum to cover all the shifts with the money appropriated for regular salary- something that, of course could never cover the higher overtime pay rate.
Lum was forced to scrimp and save in order to put enough officers on the streets- a policy the council and mayor, not to mention the community, insisted upon- without going over budget.
Despite this- and the fact that a final report from the finance director found he was not over budget- he was excoriated by the council for going over his budget when the real problem was apparently an accounting one caused by the absence of the long time financial officer.
That may explain why there were seemingly insufficient pencils and staplers with the money going to overtime salaries.
It would have been surprising- given all the political in-fighting, the major upheavals in removing two chiefs, the appointments of multiple interim chiefs, the procedural problems with complaint processing, the lack of a financial officer and all the other items detailed in Anthony Sommer’s book KPD Blue (which Perry recently seeming admitted was factual in saying “the days of KPD Blue are ‘over’”) – if anything else on the commission agenda was moving forward, including processing of complaints under unclear rules.
Pointing fingers is easy. Examining precisely what happened- especially when you’ve been in denial about it- is a little bit harder.
Friday, September 25, 2009
THUNK
THUNK: Our drive to Waimea yesterday was spent behind a raw sugar delivery truck on its way back from a Nawiliwili drop-off, spewing noxious diesel exhaust until it turned off into one of the soon to be abandoned cane fields of Gay and Robinson.
As we drove through the cross hatching of soon to be harvested and already barren fields destined for abandonment it was hard not to imagine what the next 10 years will reap if the paths of the rest of the abandoned cane fields from Kilauea to Kalaheo is the same for the G&R- massive runoff for the next few years, fouling reefs with chemically poisoned dirt as each heavy downpour washes away what’s left of top soil in waves of gooky mud.
It’s hard to cry about the last cane harvest on the island. All the good stuff of plantation life- idealized as it is ignoring the near slave-like conditions, plantation mentality and environmental degradation- hasn’t really existed for about 50 years now.
But for once, if we do it right, the aftermath doesn’t have to include the deposit of millions of cubic feet of soil in the ocean or leave ugly scarred land left to be a massive breeding ground for the spread of the invasive species that will accumulate if nothing is done now to stop it.
It’s time to put Keith Robinson’s title of “Mr. Environmentalist” to the acid test. Tinkering with native species is nice- for him. But if he really cares he’ll be remediating the land and restoring it as closely as possible to the condition his family found it in 120 years ago by nurturing a program growing and planting those native species he’s been propagating for years, stabilizing the land and letting it breath for a generation until it becomes living soil once again.
And then of course instead of turning it over to the frankenfood industry developing diversified ag-only, non residential lots to supply the food -and energy- the island needs in anticipation of the increasingly likely post-peak-oil day when “da boat no mo’ come”.
Perhaps he’ll even return the water to the streams and rivers from which it was stolen as the irrigation systems were put in place and restoring the native ecosystems that existed before G&R tore up the place for King Cane.
No laugh, eh. It could happen.
As we drove through the cross hatching of soon to be harvested and already barren fields destined for abandonment it was hard not to imagine what the next 10 years will reap if the paths of the rest of the abandoned cane fields from Kilauea to Kalaheo is the same for the G&R- massive runoff for the next few years, fouling reefs with chemically poisoned dirt as each heavy downpour washes away what’s left of top soil in waves of gooky mud.
It’s hard to cry about the last cane harvest on the island. All the good stuff of plantation life- idealized as it is ignoring the near slave-like conditions, plantation mentality and environmental degradation- hasn’t really existed for about 50 years now.
But for once, if we do it right, the aftermath doesn’t have to include the deposit of millions of cubic feet of soil in the ocean or leave ugly scarred land left to be a massive breeding ground for the spread of the invasive species that will accumulate if nothing is done now to stop it.
It’s time to put Keith Robinson’s title of “Mr. Environmentalist” to the acid test. Tinkering with native species is nice- for him. But if he really cares he’ll be remediating the land and restoring it as closely as possible to the condition his family found it in 120 years ago by nurturing a program growing and planting those native species he’s been propagating for years, stabilizing the land and letting it breath for a generation until it becomes living soil once again.
And then of course instead of turning it over to the frankenfood industry developing diversified ag-only, non residential lots to supply the food -and energy- the island needs in anticipation of the increasingly likely post-peak-oil day when “da boat no mo’ come”.
Perhaps he’ll even return the water to the streams and rivers from which it was stolen as the irrigation systems were put in place and restoring the native ecosystems that existed before G&R tore up the place for King Cane.
No laugh, eh. It could happen.
Wednesday, September 23, 2009
UNCHAINED MELODY OR SAME OLD TUNE?
UNCHAINED MELODY OR SAME OLD TUNE?: The old saw regarding lies, damnable lies and statistics got a workout today as the Honolulu Star- Bulletin reported that Hawaii’s tax burden ranks 24th in the US.
That’s the statistic.
As for the lie - a classic “big” one that, if repeated often enough becomes fact- despite this fact, we’ve become all too used to being bombarded by greedy, rip-off, big-business-bastards who boast that Hawai`i is “the most taxed state in the country” or “the worst business atmosphere” or some such bloviation.
The information that we’re actually somewhere in the middle of the pack was actually reported last week in an article in the Pacific Business Journal.
But PBJ reports that actually, in many ways, we’re among the best. It says:
Hawaii ranked near the top for corporate taxes (10th) and sales taxes (11th) and was considered among the best for unemployment insurance taxes (12th) and property taxes (8th). Hawaii was near the bottom for individual income taxes (44th).
The one area that taxes were “near the bottom”- as a matter of fact the only one we weren’t among the best- was income tax. But we have to look to the S-B article to get the explanation of why.
It isn’t until the last sentence of their take that we find out:
Hawaii and Oregon now have the highest (income) tax rates in the nation, 11 percent, with Hawaii's kicking in when income exceeds $200,000.
So it really isn’t even some kind of across the board income tax that’s bad, it’s only the progressive increase that was passed last year by the legislature asking those who make more to pay more that has caused the whole “drop”- a drop that keeps us near the middle and of course, in no way even “one of the worst” much less the worst.
As a matter of fact, unreported by either paper- we’re one of the least taxed overall.
But that didn’t stop former councilperson- and now blogger while he awaits the November 2010 election- Mel Rapozo from whining about how badly business people are treated even though corporate taxes remain in among the 10 best.
whining
Though some of his complaint centers around the proposed 1000% increase (yes you read right) in unemployment tax he finally shows how he’s been taken in by the big lie and shows how it’s become a damnable lie in confusing poor Mel.
Mel cites the PBN story but still says:
Small business gets it again. This is one of the reasons why Hawaii is known as a "business unfriendly" state....
It is simply not fair to keep laying it on small businesses. We are having a tough enough time keeping our doors open. Small business is the backbone of the American economy. Let's help them for once. Let's help bail out small businesses, who struggle on a daily basis. We don't have private jets and multi-million dollar salaries. We work hard in our respective businesses and try to hang on to our employees. Stop the assault on small business. Please!!
Is Mel one of those making over $200,000? Actually the legislation was for those making over $250,000 as we recall. Even if he is, he’s complaining about the business or “corporate” tax which as we said is really comparatively low.
But Mel is one of those who has been taken in by the big lie and can’t seem to read the statistics correctly due to the blind spot created by the damnable lie- that is perpetuated by the business media in Hawai`i in not pointing out the big lie or properly analyzing the numbers that belie the lie they prefer to proffer.
While the state worker unions have been suggesting that an excise tax increase- the most regressive of all taxations- would solve the fiscal problems of the state without laying off or furloughing state employees they would be well served- even at this late date- to look at the low corporate tax for revenue enhancement.
But first they would have to get out of bed with management and controvert the big lie. Good luck with that.
That’s the statistic.
As for the lie - a classic “big” one that, if repeated often enough becomes fact- despite this fact, we’ve become all too used to being bombarded by greedy, rip-off, big-business-bastards who boast that Hawai`i is “the most taxed state in the country” or “the worst business atmosphere” or some such bloviation.
The information that we’re actually somewhere in the middle of the pack was actually reported last week in an article in the Pacific Business Journal.
But PBJ reports that actually, in many ways, we’re among the best. It says:
Hawaii ranked near the top for corporate taxes (10th) and sales taxes (11th) and was considered among the best for unemployment insurance taxes (12th) and property taxes (8th). Hawaii was near the bottom for individual income taxes (44th).
The one area that taxes were “near the bottom”- as a matter of fact the only one we weren’t among the best- was income tax. But we have to look to the S-B article to get the explanation of why.
It isn’t until the last sentence of their take that we find out:
Hawaii and Oregon now have the highest (income) tax rates in the nation, 11 percent, with Hawaii's kicking in when income exceeds $200,000.
So it really isn’t even some kind of across the board income tax that’s bad, it’s only the progressive increase that was passed last year by the legislature asking those who make more to pay more that has caused the whole “drop”- a drop that keeps us near the middle and of course, in no way even “one of the worst” much less the worst.
As a matter of fact, unreported by either paper- we’re one of the least taxed overall.
But that didn’t stop former councilperson- and now blogger while he awaits the November 2010 election- Mel Rapozo from whining about how badly business people are treated even though corporate taxes remain in among the 10 best.
whining
Though some of his complaint centers around the proposed 1000% increase (yes you read right) in unemployment tax he finally shows how he’s been taken in by the big lie and shows how it’s become a damnable lie in confusing poor Mel.
Mel cites the PBN story but still says:
Small business gets it again. This is one of the reasons why Hawaii is known as a "business unfriendly" state....
It is simply not fair to keep laying it on small businesses. We are having a tough enough time keeping our doors open. Small business is the backbone of the American economy. Let's help them for once. Let's help bail out small businesses, who struggle on a daily basis. We don't have private jets and multi-million dollar salaries. We work hard in our respective businesses and try to hang on to our employees. Stop the assault on small business. Please!!
Is Mel one of those making over $200,000? Actually the legislation was for those making over $250,000 as we recall. Even if he is, he’s complaining about the business or “corporate” tax which as we said is really comparatively low.
But Mel is one of those who has been taken in by the big lie and can’t seem to read the statistics correctly due to the blind spot created by the damnable lie- that is perpetuated by the business media in Hawai`i in not pointing out the big lie or properly analyzing the numbers that belie the lie they prefer to proffer.
While the state worker unions have been suggesting that an excise tax increase- the most regressive of all taxations- would solve the fiscal problems of the state without laying off or furloughing state employees they would be well served- even at this late date- to look at the low corporate tax for revenue enhancement.
But first they would have to get out of bed with management and controvert the big lie. Good luck with that.
Tuesday, September 22, 2009
FIRST BITE
FIRST BITE: “Only you” as our editor often says “could spend a ‘rousingly entertaining’ morning poring over documents” as we did today, in this case some from the Office of Information Practices (OIP) web site.
But a phone call last night from a similarly inclined individual hipped us to a new section in which those new “informal opinions” have finally been posted.
For those who might have missed the reason why the OIP has only had two formal opinions in 2008 and two so far in 2009, the OIP’s Annual Report - 2008 says
One of OIP’s priorities this past year has been to decrease its longstanding backlog of pending requests for written advisory opinions. OIP elected to address more cases by way of informal (unpublished) opinions, and by written and verbal correspondence as opposed to formal published opinions. OIP has been successful in increasing the number of case dispositions despite having to devote significant staff effort to pending appellate litigation in the past fiscal year.
Anyone who is looking for those informal opinions can now find them on-line.
And one particular one may have a major effect on how the Kaua`i Board of Ethics (BOE) conducts its business.
As we’ve reported before the BOE has been quite stingy with the public disclosure forms that all major county personnel and board and commission members are required to complete. Their policy has been to keep them from the public if not permanently at least until they have a chance to go over them and actually purge them of anything that might be construed to be a violation of the “code of ethics”- something many considered to be a corrupt practice since the disclosures are supposed to publicly reveal any ”problems” with the private interests of the filer as they intersect with the person’s duties on behalf of the county.
Still to this day, although the local newspaper’s Michael Levine has successfully gotten them to release recently submitted disclosure forms he’s only gotten as they are reviewed by the BOE.
In UIPA Memo 09-6 regarding “Candidate's Financial Disclosure Statements”:
An attorney asked whether a financial disclosure statement filed with the Maui County Board of Ethics (“Board”) by a candidate for Maui County elective office (“candidate financial disclosure statement”) is open to public inspection under part II of the UIPA before the Board has met to discuss it.
OIP concluded that a candidate financial disclosure statement is open to public inspection at the time it is filed. The statement is maintained by the Board from the time it is filed, and a candidate for Maui County elective office does not have a significant privacy interest in the information contained therein. Thus, the Board has no basis to deny public access to the candidate financial disclosure statement.
This would seem to settle the matter of whether the BOE has any jurisdiction whatsoever over the actual content of the forms other than advisory and indicates that the public has a right to the fully unredacted version of the disclosure form as originally filed by the individual.
But a phone call last night from a similarly inclined individual hipped us to a new section in which those new “informal opinions” have finally been posted.
For those who might have missed the reason why the OIP has only had two formal opinions in 2008 and two so far in 2009, the OIP’s Annual Report - 2008 says
One of OIP’s priorities this past year has been to decrease its longstanding backlog of pending requests for written advisory opinions. OIP elected to address more cases by way of informal (unpublished) opinions, and by written and verbal correspondence as opposed to formal published opinions. OIP has been successful in increasing the number of case dispositions despite having to devote significant staff effort to pending appellate litigation in the past fiscal year.
Anyone who is looking for those informal opinions can now find them on-line.
And one particular one may have a major effect on how the Kaua`i Board of Ethics (BOE) conducts its business.
As we’ve reported before the BOE has been quite stingy with the public disclosure forms that all major county personnel and board and commission members are required to complete. Their policy has been to keep them from the public if not permanently at least until they have a chance to go over them and actually purge them of anything that might be construed to be a violation of the “code of ethics”- something many considered to be a corrupt practice since the disclosures are supposed to publicly reveal any ”problems” with the private interests of the filer as they intersect with the person’s duties on behalf of the county.
Still to this day, although the local newspaper’s Michael Levine has successfully gotten them to release recently submitted disclosure forms he’s only gotten as they are reviewed by the BOE.
In UIPA Memo 09-6 regarding “Candidate's Financial Disclosure Statements”:
An attorney asked whether a financial disclosure statement filed with the Maui County Board of Ethics (“Board”) by a candidate for Maui County elective office (“candidate financial disclosure statement”) is open to public inspection under part II of the UIPA before the Board has met to discuss it.
OIP concluded that a candidate financial disclosure statement is open to public inspection at the time it is filed. The statement is maintained by the Board from the time it is filed, and a candidate for Maui County elective office does not have a significant privacy interest in the information contained therein. Thus, the Board has no basis to deny public access to the candidate financial disclosure statement.
This would seem to settle the matter of whether the BOE has any jurisdiction whatsoever over the actual content of the forms other than advisory and indicates that the public has a right to the fully unredacted version of the disclosure form as originally filed by the individual.
Monday, September 21, 2009
OH WHAT SMALL TEETH YOU HAVE GRANDMAMA:
OH WHAT SMALL TEETH YOU HAVE GRANDMAMA: We had our say in Saturday’s local newspaper when reporter Michael Levine asked us what we thought of the appointment of long time Deputy County Clerk Ernie Pasion to the newly created position of county auditor.
As Levine wrote:
(S)ome have said the veteran of county government will have difficulty asserting his independence when it comes to reviewing the performance of people he has worked with in the past.“The idea was to hire somebody totally independent from outside the county,” said Kaua`i government watchdog and blogger Andy Parx in a phone interview Friday, adding that Pasion was the “ultimate insider” and that his appointment was “a huge disappointment.”
“This guy has been a political appointee of the council for 12 years. That’s the only reason he has the job,” Parx said. “I don’t see that he’ll do anything except exactly what the council tells him to do. That’s exactly what he’s done for 12 years, and he serves at their pleasure.”
The article and the Sunday editorial further point to many of the issues we raised with appointment of a long time council sycophant to, for the most part, investigate the actions of county administrative departments.
Perhaps the placement of the auditor position under council services is a fatal flaw- one that the council could not have missed when drafting the measure. But then the position was never designed to investigate the council, even though it could have been.
Our discussion with Levine spurred us to relate the story of how we got to the point where the council put the charter measure on the ballot last November in the first place.
The new county auditor position is not just something that came up recently. Indeed it goes back almost 10 years to the grubbing and grading Pflueger/McCloskey scandal and the year-plus long series of “Developers Gone Wild” oral and video presentations to the council, as the item was continually deferred and so kept on the agenda meeting after meeting.
At that time the council tried to initiate an investigation of the Department of Public Works (DPW) under charter section 3.17- the only allowable “interference” by the council into administrative affairs.
But although people were demanding the investigation the council’s appetite for confrontation was low and when Gary Hooser moved to the state senate the investigation's main proponent was gone. And with a new Mayor- Democrat Bryan Batiste- the democratic council didn’t feel up to investigating the then-past administration of Mayor Maryanne Kusaka.
So instead they bickered over setting up procedures for the investigation after having appropriated a half a million dollars to investigate just a small section of the massive DPW- a move destined to examine select trees but not the forest.
Finally when Mel Rapozo came onto the council, despite his campaign promises to push the investigation he instead pushed for an investigation of the Kaua`i Police Department (KPD) where the past officer had been allowed to quit after his involvement with the lap dancer episode, as detailed in the book KPD Blue (see right rail for the serialization of the book).
After Rapozo allegedly “went off” in the infamous ES-177 and the council and its chair Kaipo Asing decided to fight release of the potential embarrassing content of the meeting, Rapozo suddenly dropped his calls to continue the DPW investigation... an investigation that Asing, who had exposed many of the misdeeds of DPW, had little taste for, calling the suspect DPW personnel “my good friends” at every available opportunity.
While the council switched its attention to the KPD investigating instead of pulling the trigger on the DPW investigation, the public clamor for a DPW investigation continued so the council then appropriated money for a position of a county auditor under council services control and then spent two years doing nothing- seemingly incapable of appointing one.
Finally instead of just appointing an auditor the council decided to kick the can down the road once more by putting the idea of an auditor on the ballot as a charter amendment despite the fact that they had already created the position internally.
At any point during this debacle Pasion could have used his alleged skills to step in and get it done. But that would have taken the political independence that his new job requires.
The position of any performance or “management auditor”- quite different from a financial auditor which is the job of the independent firms that do that every year as the charter requires- is usually filled by someone independent of either the administrative or the legislative branch, not an insider who has developed political relationships with the legislators and the department heads and civil service personnel that may compromise his or her impartiality.
The model people are most familiar with in Hawai`i is state auditor Marion Higa whose scathing analyses of various state departments and programs has shed the light that neither the Legislative Reference Bureau in the legislature or the administration’s ombudsman or other accountability mechanisms within the administration can do since they are generally too enmeshed in the daily machination of government to get a clear view... or more importantly criticize when criticism is due.
The job does not entail simply giving the subject of investigation a pass when the people or entities being investigated object by say “we’re doing the best we can” and present a laundry list of excuses- as they usually do.
Time will certainly tell whether Pasion has the skills for the job- his background is apparently not in management auditing but rather financial audits.
But even if he has the skills or magically obtains them it is doubtful that he can muster the political guts it takes to cut to the chase and issue a biting report about those who his boss Asing still calls “my good friends”- the same ones he declined to investigate when he was mayor last year despite him many “presentations” exposing administration wrongdoing.
Ernie is a nice guy and knows all the players and is pals with all of them. But this position calls for the exact opposite.
The fact is Ernie could have been assisting the council all these past 12 years in investigating and auditing the performance of various administration entitles but has done the opposite- schmoozing and making excuses for their inaction or even corruption- has to put up red flags regarding his appointment.
Some say to give him a chance and obviously we don’t have a choice. But we would have to be idiots to think he can do the job and not think that when the time is up it will not inform the story we’ve told here.
As Levine wrote:
(S)ome have said the veteran of county government will have difficulty asserting his independence when it comes to reviewing the performance of people he has worked with in the past.“The idea was to hire somebody totally independent from outside the county,” said Kaua`i government watchdog and blogger Andy Parx in a phone interview Friday, adding that Pasion was the “ultimate insider” and that his appointment was “a huge disappointment.”
“This guy has been a political appointee of the council for 12 years. That’s the only reason he has the job,” Parx said. “I don’t see that he’ll do anything except exactly what the council tells him to do. That’s exactly what he’s done for 12 years, and he serves at their pleasure.”
The article and the Sunday editorial further point to many of the issues we raised with appointment of a long time council sycophant to, for the most part, investigate the actions of county administrative departments.
Perhaps the placement of the auditor position under council services is a fatal flaw- one that the council could not have missed when drafting the measure. But then the position was never designed to investigate the council, even though it could have been.
Our discussion with Levine spurred us to relate the story of how we got to the point where the council put the charter measure on the ballot last November in the first place.
The new county auditor position is not just something that came up recently. Indeed it goes back almost 10 years to the grubbing and grading Pflueger/McCloskey scandal and the year-plus long series of “Developers Gone Wild” oral and video presentations to the council, as the item was continually deferred and so kept on the agenda meeting after meeting.
At that time the council tried to initiate an investigation of the Department of Public Works (DPW) under charter section 3.17- the only allowable “interference” by the council into administrative affairs.
But although people were demanding the investigation the council’s appetite for confrontation was low and when Gary Hooser moved to the state senate the investigation's main proponent was gone. And with a new Mayor- Democrat Bryan Batiste- the democratic council didn’t feel up to investigating the then-past administration of Mayor Maryanne Kusaka.
So instead they bickered over setting up procedures for the investigation after having appropriated a half a million dollars to investigate just a small section of the massive DPW- a move destined to examine select trees but not the forest.
Finally when Mel Rapozo came onto the council, despite his campaign promises to push the investigation he instead pushed for an investigation of the Kaua`i Police Department (KPD) where the past officer had been allowed to quit after his involvement with the lap dancer episode, as detailed in the book KPD Blue (see right rail for the serialization of the book).
After Rapozo allegedly “went off” in the infamous ES-177 and the council and its chair Kaipo Asing decided to fight release of the potential embarrassing content of the meeting, Rapozo suddenly dropped his calls to continue the DPW investigation... an investigation that Asing, who had exposed many of the misdeeds of DPW, had little taste for, calling the suspect DPW personnel “my good friends” at every available opportunity.
While the council switched its attention to the KPD investigating instead of pulling the trigger on the DPW investigation, the public clamor for a DPW investigation continued so the council then appropriated money for a position of a county auditor under council services control and then spent two years doing nothing- seemingly incapable of appointing one.
Finally instead of just appointing an auditor the council decided to kick the can down the road once more by putting the idea of an auditor on the ballot as a charter amendment despite the fact that they had already created the position internally.
At any point during this debacle Pasion could have used his alleged skills to step in and get it done. But that would have taken the political independence that his new job requires.
The position of any performance or “management auditor”- quite different from a financial auditor which is the job of the independent firms that do that every year as the charter requires- is usually filled by someone independent of either the administrative or the legislative branch, not an insider who has developed political relationships with the legislators and the department heads and civil service personnel that may compromise his or her impartiality.
The model people are most familiar with in Hawai`i is state auditor Marion Higa whose scathing analyses of various state departments and programs has shed the light that neither the Legislative Reference Bureau in the legislature or the administration’s ombudsman or other accountability mechanisms within the administration can do since they are generally too enmeshed in the daily machination of government to get a clear view... or more importantly criticize when criticism is due.
The job does not entail simply giving the subject of investigation a pass when the people or entities being investigated object by say “we’re doing the best we can” and present a laundry list of excuses- as they usually do.
Time will certainly tell whether Pasion has the skills for the job- his background is apparently not in management auditing but rather financial audits.
But even if he has the skills or magically obtains them it is doubtful that he can muster the political guts it takes to cut to the chase and issue a biting report about those who his boss Asing still calls “my good friends”- the same ones he declined to investigate when he was mayor last year despite him many “presentations” exposing administration wrongdoing.
Ernie is a nice guy and knows all the players and is pals with all of them. But this position calls for the exact opposite.
The fact is Ernie could have been assisting the council all these past 12 years in investigating and auditing the performance of various administration entitles but has done the opposite- schmoozing and making excuses for their inaction or even corruption- has to put up red flags regarding his appointment.
Some say to give him a chance and obviously we don’t have a choice. But we would have to be idiots to think he can do the job and not think that when the time is up it will not inform the story we’ve told here.
Sunday, September 20, 2009
SUNDAY EXTRA- CAN’T YOU SHUT THAT DOG UP?
CAN’T YOU SHUT THAT DOG UP?: Police Commissioner Tom Iannucci’s letter to the editor in Sunday’s local paper shows once again why many believe he is a disgrace to KPD and the commission.
As we’ve seen over and over in his writings and statements, excuses and attacks are his MO when it comes to responding to citizen’s concerns. Rather than acknowledge these concerns, try to mitigate the problem and work toward an understanding on all sides, he consistently exacerbates the situation, ignoring the actual complaint by hurling red herrings and belittling the person with unwarranted personal attacks.
Rather than deal professionally with citizen’s criticisms, like a drunk in a barroom fight he ratchets up the rhetoric with fighting words.
And this is a guy who is supposed to represent the public as a liaison with the department- one of those who adjudicates official complaints. If this is also his attitude toward complaints when the commission goes behind closed door how can the public have any confidence of impartiality and due diligence when many of these complaints are “not sustained”?
It’s a good thing most of our fine Kaua`i officers on the beat respond to calls as the “peace officers” we expect them to be and when confronted with macho kooks like Iannucci they take things down a notch, cooling things off rather than throwing gasoline on the fire.
It’s time for Iannucci to resign- or if not, be removed- and to stop setting the worst of examples for the department. Until he does, Chief Perry’s statement that “the days of KPD Blue are behind us” will ring hollow whether they actually are or not.
As we’ve seen over and over in his writings and statements, excuses and attacks are his MO when it comes to responding to citizen’s concerns. Rather than acknowledge these concerns, try to mitigate the problem and work toward an understanding on all sides, he consistently exacerbates the situation, ignoring the actual complaint by hurling red herrings and belittling the person with unwarranted personal attacks.
Rather than deal professionally with citizen’s criticisms, like a drunk in a barroom fight he ratchets up the rhetoric with fighting words.
And this is a guy who is supposed to represent the public as a liaison with the department- one of those who adjudicates official complaints. If this is also his attitude toward complaints when the commission goes behind closed door how can the public have any confidence of impartiality and due diligence when many of these complaints are “not sustained”?
It’s a good thing most of our fine Kaua`i officers on the beat respond to calls as the “peace officers” we expect them to be and when confronted with macho kooks like Iannucci they take things down a notch, cooling things off rather than throwing gasoline on the fire.
It’s time for Iannucci to resign- or if not, be removed- and to stop setting the worst of examples for the department. Until he does, Chief Perry’s statement that “the days of KPD Blue are behind us” will ring hollow whether they actually are or not.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
