Council grills Administration on county recycling program

CIRA de CASTILLOTGI Staff Writer

LIHU’E — The Kusaka Administration, during a three hour Public Works

Committee meeting yesterday, defended the county’s recycling priorities to

clearly frustrated County Council members.

Under direct questioning from

committee members and Council Chair Ron Kouchi, it became evident the direction

the Administration is going with the program is not the direction the Council

intended when it approved the Administration’s 1999-00 Budget request related

to recycling.

Kouchi quoted the Administration budget message requesting

that the Council increase real property taxes to raise $2 million to offset

anticipated solid waste program losses.

“We raised that tax in light of

the shortfalls, with an expectation that that would give the Administration the

funds to deliver services,” Kouchi said.

Wallace Rezentes Sr., Mayor

Maryanne Kusaka’s administrative assistant, said Kusaka, after reviewing the

Kaua’i Recycles Program, felt the contract for the program should be trimmed by

reducing the education component and eliminating “junk mail” collection rather

than transferring money within public works to cover those services.

“That

is the decision she made until we can get a handle on the municipal solid waste

proposal,” Rezentes said. “So in the short term this is all we are proposing to

do. In the next budget year the attitude may change.”

The meeting took on

the appearance of a congressional hearing as Cesar Portugal, county engineer,

and Troy Tanigawa, solid waste coordinator, huddled with county attorneys,

conferring with them before answering a myriad of questions related to solid

waste contract delays, vacant funded positions, reduced recycling education,

and the elimination of “junk mail” collection as part of the recycling

program.

County attorneys told the Council that any questions related to

the glass recycling and municipal solid waste contracts could be discussed in

closed session only. Council members questioned that opinion and proceed to ask

questions they believed were appropriate.

Randal Valenciano, public works

committee chair, asked Tanigawa if the Administration would meet the 780 tons

of recycling projected in the 1999-00 Budget.

“No,” said Tanigawa.

When questioned where the County was in relation to the federal guidelines for

municipalities to strive to recycle at least 50 percent from the waste stream,

he told the committee that Kaua’i’s percentage is in the “high teens,” most of

which is green waste.

He said 200 tons of solid waste go into the Kekaha

landfill daily. The landfill, he said, has a four-year capacity at an annual

cost to the county of $2 million.

Gary Hooser, vice chair of the public

works committee, said there are major concerns about the direction the county

is going in terms of recycling and solid waste disposal. “The concepts and

values of recycling are important ones that we need to perpetuate in our

community,” he said.

Steve Kaui, speaking for Garden Island Disposal, the

current county recycling contractor, told the Council that recycling in

counties and municipalities is a long-term solution.

Councilman Billy

Swain questioned how the Administration could increase the scope of services it

expects a vendor to provide and not sufficiently increase the budgeted amount.

He added it looks as if the County is going backwards with the recycling

program.

Cathy Shibuya, GID president, said that under the previous

contract 115 tons of “junk mail” was recycled annually.

She said an equal

amount had to be landfilled at a considerable cost to them due to contamination

and that in the new bid GID could not realistically absorb the costs.

GID

proposed a simple modification to the recycling bins that would effectively

reduce the amount of contamination in the “junk mail” collection, she said, but

the county did act on the suggestion.

According to Shibuya, the county

pays $376 per ton for recycling under the current contract.

In other

business, the Planning Committee agreed, in concept, to accept 50 acres of land

for park dedication from Kealia Plantation Company.