SUCKLING ON THE TEAT OF ABSURDITY: In an age when medical cannabis has become an accepted treatment for many maladies and the age when Reefer Madness is an old joke you’ve got to wonder what kind of idiots are populating the hall of the National Institutes of Health.
According to a press release (thanks to Big Island blogger Damon Tucker for the heads up)
The U.S. Health & Human Services Department’s National Institutes of Health has six discretionary grant opportunities to support research that focuses on the development of a medication to treat disorders related to the use of cannabis.
No this is not a joke. And what’s more it wants people to study only indigenous groups including “Native Hawaiians”.
This stuff is absolutely too bizarre to make up.
According to a “funding opportunity notice from the U.S. Health & Human Services Department’s National Institutes of Health” six $500,000 grants- for a total of $3 million- are available.
Applications may focus on the pharmacotherapy of one or various CRDs or clinical manifestations of the disorders. For example, research may focus on marijuana dependence or specifically on marijuana withdrawal. Clinical applications may include human laboratory studies to develop models for testing medications targeting single or multiple manifestations of the CRDs, and the interaction of cannabinoids with other medications, pharmacokinetic and/or pharmacodynamic studies of potentially therapeutic compounds.
Applications may also focus on the specific symptoms of the disorder such as withdrawal, craving or relapse, complications such as cognitive impairment, sleep disorders/disruption of normal rhythms or the clinical surrogates of their use such as depression and other mood disorders
The NIH has yet to fund a definitive study on the benefits of medical marijuana but presupposes nonsense like physical addiction replete with “marijuana withdrawal symptoms”- concepts disproven many years ago.
Your tax dollars at work. Anyone still looking for hope and change?
Wednesday, October 7, 2009
Tuesday, October 6, 2009
SAME OLD TRICKS
SAME OLD TRICKS: When veteran Arizona reporter Anthony Sommer took the job of Honolulu Star Bulletin Kaua`i Bureau Chief- a position that has long since disappeared along with the paper’s coverage of Kaua`i- although he continued to attend Kaua`i County Council meetings, the fairly in-depth weekly coverage he had provided in his brief tenure at the local Kaua`i newspaper suddenly dried up.
And what did make it into the S-B seemed to be lacking any detail. When people asked, Tony was more than forthcoming with the reason.
Seems his editor, Frank Bilge- er Bridgewater, didn’t want all that “inside baseball” stuff -as they tend to call any detail from the neighbor islands- and in fact, the choppy copy in final articles was due to the chainsaw nature of Frank’s blue pencil.
So it shouldn’t come as any surprise that it took the Honolulu Advertiser’s part-time Kaua`i correspondent Diana Leone almost a year to produce her first in depth coverage of the Kaua`i council activities and almost five months to finally cover the fact that Lani Kawahara and Tim Bynum have been “prodding the state's smallest county to ‘move into the 21st century’ and post more government information online”.
Better late than never, Leone reports that:
More than four months later — and more than two years after Bynum first brought up the issues — the mavericks are claiming progress in their quest for equality among council members and better public access to information.
Kawahara calls the posting of council and committee meeting minutes on the county's official Web site since July 3 "a major accomplishment."
While the article does a good job of telling the story- and comparing what the council provides on-line with the other islands in a handy-dandy chart- what is implied but not stated is that absolutely no improvement has been made in the on-line access by the council to documents as a result of the actions of the two... at least according to the administration and Council Chair Kaipo Asing who claimed at the time that the posting of council minutes and recap summaries were a result of their own initiative not the push by Bynum and Kawahara.
Yes, the jobs of Kawahara and Bynum have been made easier with the availability of all documents addressed to the council as a whole being made available to them in a “binder in the council break room”- a “solution” that, although though it placated them still leaves the public without the ability to receive these supposedly public documents in a timely manner.
And now they apparently are able to introduce bills and resolutions unimpeded- the biggest outrage of all and one the Leone fails to mention.
The article does make note of how we are still the only county that doesn’t even make copies of bills and resolutions available on-line, still requiring a physical trip to Lihu`e if someone wants to interpret the agenda.
Although Bynum has done a good job of posting them himself on his and Kawahara’s kauaiinfo.org web site- although tomorrow’s meeting’s documents are nowhere to be found- it shouldn’t be up to him to spend every Friday afternoon holed up at his office scanning and posting all the minutia that makes it possible for people to do their homework so they can speak intelligently on items at council meetings- ironically enough a major complaint directed to members of the public from Asing and his 3-D Swiss Guard, Dickie (Chang), Darryl (Kaneshiro) and Derek (Kawakami).
Promises of presently posting not just the documents but live streaming video of meetings- and an indexed by subject archive of the video clips- were seemingly just another stonewalling device designed to make the all-to-used-to-being-ignored people, just go away- return to your homes... nothing to see here.
As we predicted when the two mavericks, as Leone calls them, decided a promise to “do better next time” from Asing- one that wasn’t worth the paper it wasn’t written on- was enough, they apparently crept back into the dark of the Minotaur’s labyrinth since they were now getting the documents they wanted even if the public was still in the dark.
But it sure was exciting for a month or two to think things might improve, wasn’t it?
And what did make it into the S-B seemed to be lacking any detail. When people asked, Tony was more than forthcoming with the reason.
Seems his editor, Frank Bilge- er Bridgewater, didn’t want all that “inside baseball” stuff -as they tend to call any detail from the neighbor islands- and in fact, the choppy copy in final articles was due to the chainsaw nature of Frank’s blue pencil.
So it shouldn’t come as any surprise that it took the Honolulu Advertiser’s part-time Kaua`i correspondent Diana Leone almost a year to produce her first in depth coverage of the Kaua`i council activities and almost five months to finally cover the fact that Lani Kawahara and Tim Bynum have been “prodding the state's smallest county to ‘move into the 21st century’ and post more government information online”.
Better late than never, Leone reports that:
More than four months later — and more than two years after Bynum first brought up the issues — the mavericks are claiming progress in their quest for equality among council members and better public access to information.
Kawahara calls the posting of council and committee meeting minutes on the county's official Web site since July 3 "a major accomplishment."
While the article does a good job of telling the story- and comparing what the council provides on-line with the other islands in a handy-dandy chart- what is implied but not stated is that absolutely no improvement has been made in the on-line access by the council to documents as a result of the actions of the two... at least according to the administration and Council Chair Kaipo Asing who claimed at the time that the posting of council minutes and recap summaries were a result of their own initiative not the push by Bynum and Kawahara.
Yes, the jobs of Kawahara and Bynum have been made easier with the availability of all documents addressed to the council as a whole being made available to them in a “binder in the council break room”- a “solution” that, although though it placated them still leaves the public without the ability to receive these supposedly public documents in a timely manner.
And now they apparently are able to introduce bills and resolutions unimpeded- the biggest outrage of all and one the Leone fails to mention.
The article does make note of how we are still the only county that doesn’t even make copies of bills and resolutions available on-line, still requiring a physical trip to Lihu`e if someone wants to interpret the agenda.
Although Bynum has done a good job of posting them himself on his and Kawahara’s kauaiinfo.org web site- although tomorrow’s meeting’s documents are nowhere to be found- it shouldn’t be up to him to spend every Friday afternoon holed up at his office scanning and posting all the minutia that makes it possible for people to do their homework so they can speak intelligently on items at council meetings- ironically enough a major complaint directed to members of the public from Asing and his 3-D Swiss Guard, Dickie (Chang), Darryl (Kaneshiro) and Derek (Kawakami).
Promises of presently posting not just the documents but live streaming video of meetings- and an indexed by subject archive of the video clips- were seemingly just another stonewalling device designed to make the all-to-used-to-being-ignored people, just go away- return to your homes... nothing to see here.
As we predicted when the two mavericks, as Leone calls them, decided a promise to “do better next time” from Asing- one that wasn’t worth the paper it wasn’t written on- was enough, they apparently crept back into the dark of the Minotaur’s labyrinth since they were now getting the documents they wanted even if the public was still in the dark.
But it sure was exciting for a month or two to think things might improve, wasn’t it?
Friday, October 2, 2009
(PNN) SEAL KILLER WORKED FOR PFLUEGER; JOB GAVE ACCESS TO CRIME SCENE
SEAL KILLER WORKED FOR PFLUEGER; JOB GAVE ACCESS TO CRIME SCENE
(PNN) -- Charles Vidinha, who was convicted last Friday of killing a pregnant monk seal May 21 at Pila'a Beach is or was an employee of Jimmy Pflueger and only had access to the area from which he fired the shots due to his employ, PNN has learned.
According to an area resident familiar with Vidinha, Pflueger’s operations and the area- who asked not to be identified due to fear if reprisals- Vidinha, 78, works with Gordon Rosa, Pflueger’s foreman and property manager.
The area above Pila`a Beach is closed to the public and sits behind locked gates with only Pflueger, his employees and area kuleana residents having the key.
Vidinha’s 90 day sentence and $25 “special assessment” has outraged many on Kaua`i for its leniency as evidenced by comments on news stories in local and Honolulu newspapers.
Many think Vidinha’s reported excuse- that “he intended to scare the seal away from the beach, not to kill it” according to his attorney federal public defender Alexander Silvert- is silly and are even more outraged that it was offered considering that monk seals can be spooked back into the ocean just by walking up to one.
Vidinha could have been jailed for one year and fined $50,000 for the federal offense.
According to a quote in the Honolulu Advertiser Bill Pickering, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration law enforcement agent-in-charge for Hawai`i said that "the defendant claims he was just trying to scare the seal because he wanted to go fishing and was just concerned the seal would eat the fish. We have nothing to refute that." in explaining the light sentence.
The paper also reported that “Assistant U.S. Attorney Marshall Silverberg, who prosecuted the case, said because Vidinha had never had trouble with the law before and is ‘broke ... living out of a car essentially homeless, a fine didn't seem to be consistent with justice.’”.
It is unclear if federal authorities knew of Vidinha’s employ with Pflueger or what form of compensation, if any, Vidinha received from Pflueger.
Pflueger is free pending trial on murder charges related to the Ka Loko Dam disaster that killed seven people in 2006 and is reportedly close to settling multiple lawsuits arising from the dam break.
Pila`a was the 2001 scene of a mudslide caused by Pflueger who paid a record federal fine under Clean Water Act in the case for despoiling the ocean and reef.
(PNN) -- Charles Vidinha, who was convicted last Friday of killing a pregnant monk seal May 21 at Pila'a Beach is or was an employee of Jimmy Pflueger and only had access to the area from which he fired the shots due to his employ, PNN has learned.
According to an area resident familiar with Vidinha, Pflueger’s operations and the area- who asked not to be identified due to fear if reprisals- Vidinha, 78, works with Gordon Rosa, Pflueger’s foreman and property manager.
The area above Pila`a Beach is closed to the public and sits behind locked gates with only Pflueger, his employees and area kuleana residents having the key.
Vidinha’s 90 day sentence and $25 “special assessment” has outraged many on Kaua`i for its leniency as evidenced by comments on news stories in local and Honolulu newspapers.
Many think Vidinha’s reported excuse- that “he intended to scare the seal away from the beach, not to kill it” according to his attorney federal public defender Alexander Silvert- is silly and are even more outraged that it was offered considering that monk seals can be spooked back into the ocean just by walking up to one.
Vidinha could have been jailed for one year and fined $50,000 for the federal offense.
According to a quote in the Honolulu Advertiser Bill Pickering, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration law enforcement agent-in-charge for Hawai`i said that "the defendant claims he was just trying to scare the seal because he wanted to go fishing and was just concerned the seal would eat the fish. We have nothing to refute that." in explaining the light sentence.
The paper also reported that “Assistant U.S. Attorney Marshall Silverberg, who prosecuted the case, said because Vidinha had never had trouble with the law before and is ‘broke ... living out of a car essentially homeless, a fine didn't seem to be consistent with justice.’”.
It is unclear if federal authorities knew of Vidinha’s employ with Pflueger or what form of compensation, if any, Vidinha received from Pflueger.
Pflueger is free pending trial on murder charges related to the Ka Loko Dam disaster that killed seven people in 2006 and is reportedly close to settling multiple lawsuits arising from the dam break.
Pila`a was the 2001 scene of a mudslide caused by Pflueger who paid a record federal fine under Clean Water Act in the case for despoiling the ocean and reef.
Thursday, October 1, 2009
GRRRRRR
GRRRRRR: OK- it’s go time.
Through all this “Blood Alley” crap, including today’s announcement of a ludicrous and possibly more treacherous diminution of the speed limit from 50 to 40 on the stretch of road between Hanama`ulu and Wailua, no one- not the cops, not the state DOT, not the scribes of the dozens of letters and certainly not those who died- has said what anyone who drives that stretch a few times can tell you about what causes many of those accidents.
The fact is that for some reason word has not reach the shores of Kaua`i that:
THE LEFT HAND LANE IS FOR PASSING ONLY YOU FREAKIN’ IDIOT.
When the stretch was expanded from two to three lanes- a disaster waiting to happen to begin with- it was the first place on the eastside where there was actually a “passing lane”.
Kaua`i drivers, unsure of what to do with this newfound freedom to pass Mr. Magoo, didn’t heed the “keep right” rule, in part because the DOT didn’t bother to put up a sign to that effect for a number of years.
And, apparently- we say apparently because to this day no one seems quite sure- Hawai`i is the only place we know of other than New York City where passing on the right is legal, if not safe.
But legal or not it seemingly doesn’t occur to most that if cars are zooming past you on the right- many screaming obscenities and giving the one-finger salute- you just might be doing something wrong.
After the grand opening the stream of traffic stayed in the left hand lane and passing on the right became de rigor, except for tourists who, not knowing what the heck was going on got into the right lane when the road expanded.
So now we have some Magoos in the left lane and others in the right hand lane while Larry Leadfoot, who needs get to the next stoplight three seconds earlier, gets frustrated enough to tailgate one or the other- or alternatingly both- zigzagging in and out of the two lanes of traffic both going 40 MPH side by side.
But KPD is still out there ticketing- if they can get through the traffic and catch up to anyone- the speeders and turning a blind eye to the oblivious obstructer in the left hand “passing lane” whose steering wheel apparently doesn’t have the ability to guide them into the right hand lane.
So the DOT- most likely at the behest of a gaggle of engineers from Honolulu who rarely if ever drive the stretch- decides in its wisdom to slow down ALL the traffic so old Larry will be zooming in and out of not just the Magoos but everyone else following the speed limit but not do anything about alerting us to the ”keep right, you moron” rule of the road.
Maybe the DOT engineers- obvious graduates of the Rube Goldberg School of Urban Design- are all out of stupid things to do with Kaua`i traffic after designing all those hedge-maze interchanges and “Burma Shave” style series’ of signs on the west side that say “Speed Limit 50, Speed Limit 40 Ahead. Speed Limit 40, Speed Limit 35 Ahead, Speed Limit 35, Speed Limit 25 ahead, Speed Limit 25,” then suddenly “Speed Limit 50”... all within a thousand feet... all at around a thousand bucks a sign.
Can’t anyone here play this game?
Through all this “Blood Alley” crap, including today’s announcement of a ludicrous and possibly more treacherous diminution of the speed limit from 50 to 40 on the stretch of road between Hanama`ulu and Wailua, no one- not the cops, not the state DOT, not the scribes of the dozens of letters and certainly not those who died- has said what anyone who drives that stretch a few times can tell you about what causes many of those accidents.
The fact is that for some reason word has not reach the shores of Kaua`i that:
THE LEFT HAND LANE IS FOR PASSING ONLY YOU FREAKIN’ IDIOT.
When the stretch was expanded from two to three lanes- a disaster waiting to happen to begin with- it was the first place on the eastside where there was actually a “passing lane”.
Kaua`i drivers, unsure of what to do with this newfound freedom to pass Mr. Magoo, didn’t heed the “keep right” rule, in part because the DOT didn’t bother to put up a sign to that effect for a number of years.
And, apparently- we say apparently because to this day no one seems quite sure- Hawai`i is the only place we know of other than New York City where passing on the right is legal, if not safe.
But legal or not it seemingly doesn’t occur to most that if cars are zooming past you on the right- many screaming obscenities and giving the one-finger salute- you just might be doing something wrong.
After the grand opening the stream of traffic stayed in the left hand lane and passing on the right became de rigor, except for tourists who, not knowing what the heck was going on got into the right lane when the road expanded.
So now we have some Magoos in the left lane and others in the right hand lane while Larry Leadfoot, who needs get to the next stoplight three seconds earlier, gets frustrated enough to tailgate one or the other- or alternatingly both- zigzagging in and out of the two lanes of traffic both going 40 MPH side by side.
But KPD is still out there ticketing- if they can get through the traffic and catch up to anyone- the speeders and turning a blind eye to the oblivious obstructer in the left hand “passing lane” whose steering wheel apparently doesn’t have the ability to guide them into the right hand lane.
So the DOT- most likely at the behest of a gaggle of engineers from Honolulu who rarely if ever drive the stretch- decides in its wisdom to slow down ALL the traffic so old Larry will be zooming in and out of not just the Magoos but everyone else following the speed limit but not do anything about alerting us to the ”keep right, you moron” rule of the road.
Maybe the DOT engineers- obvious graduates of the Rube Goldberg School of Urban Design- are all out of stupid things to do with Kaua`i traffic after designing all those hedge-maze interchanges and “Burma Shave” style series’ of signs on the west side that say “Speed Limit 50, Speed Limit 40 Ahead. Speed Limit 40, Speed Limit 35 Ahead, Speed Limit 35, Speed Limit 25 ahead, Speed Limit 25,” then suddenly “Speed Limit 50”... all within a thousand feet... all at around a thousand bucks a sign.
Can’t anyone here play this game?
Wednesday, September 30, 2009
DOIN’ THE MATH
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.
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.
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.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
