Kusaka aide defends county’s junker progress

Citizens, council chafed by cost and handling of derelict cars

BY DENNIS

WILKEN

TGI Staff Writer

Wally Rezentes Sr., Mayor Maryanne Kusaka’s

administrative assistant, appeared before the Kaua’i County Council Thursday at

the request of council chairman Ron Kouchi.

Kouchi wanted to discuss,

further, Kaua’i’s junk car problem.

The council late last year approved a

$3 hike to the county’s beautification tax, raising that levy to $5, payable

when motorists register their car, truck or suburban utility

vehicle.

Rezentes arrived Thursday armed with a graph that charted the

problem of junked autos. He said that more than 4,300 abandoned or derelict

vehicles were disposed of in the past two years.

Rezentes also explained,

and not for the first time, that “all the money that is generated by this fee

is deposited into the solid-waste fund.”

John Owens, a citizen, said the

across-the-board fee increase was unfair.

“All I can see is a fee that goes

to everyone to pay for a few people,” Owens said. “When my car dies, I have a

plan to dispose of it properly. Reasonable logic would be to go after the

owner” of the derelict and abandoned vehicles.

“We’re not enforcing any of

the current laws that are on the books,” he claimed.

But Rezentes

countered that in the long run, the fee costs the average taxpayers less, not

more.

“Eventually,” he said, the fee increase “has the effect of keeping

property taxes from rising as much as they would without the fee.”

Rezentes

said 53,318 vehicles were legally registered on Kaua’i in 2000. He estimated

57,700 vehicles would be registered this year, generating an extra $13,200 to

defray junked-car costs.

Rezentes said the projected total cost for last

year was $410,000, but that actual costs incurred for the past fiscal year

ending June 30, 2000 turned out to be $532,000, or $213 per processed

vehicle.

Persistent council critic Ray Chuan wanted to know where the money

goes.

“What happens to the revenue from the final disposition of the cars?

The standard fee paid for a junked car is about $25; 2,000 cars, $50,000.

Pretty good change,” Chuan said.

Rezentes said that cash went to Hawai’i

Metal Recycling, the current temporary contractor for the county’s Puhi vehicle

disposal site.

Glenn Mickens, another outspoken citizen critic of the

county’s handling of the issue, asked once again why other islands pay less to

dispose of junked cars. Mickens claimed Maui taxpayers paid nothing per car,

and that the cost for Big Island residents is only $4 per year.

Rezentes

said he isn’t against doing a study of comparable rates on other islands for

junked-car removal. He suggested the council members themselves go to other

islands and see how it is done.

That brought a quick response from

Councilman Gary Hooser.

“How many years into the process are we? I would

have thought the administration would have done that (checked other islands) a

long time ago,” Hooser said. “I made one phone call to Maui Metalworks and one

phone call to the mayor (of Maui). They have their cost per-car down to $50 per

car. Four years ago we started this and it still hasn’t been checked

out.”

Various figures have been given for the cost per car on Kaua’i,

ranging from $213 to $310 per car.

Rezentes did have some new information

new for the council members. He told them the county is now officially seeking

bidders to operate the $1 million, 10-acre metals recycling facility in Puhi

the county completed last summer.

The contract went out for bid Dec. 29.

Rezentes said the county hopes to have an operator for the facility no later

than March.

“If no contractor is found to run the Puhi site, what happens?”

Mickens asked.

Kouchi answered, “The buck stops here.”

And that’s where

it was left for the evening, since Rezentes’ presentation didn’t require a

council vote.

Staff writer Dennis Wilken can be reached at 245-3681

(ext. 252) and dwilken@pulitzer.net