• Superferry and EIS • Court appointments • Volunteerism • Sees a crisis Superferry and EIS An Environmental Impact Statement is always a wonderful document because it brings out the entire truth about a project. It is not Democratic or
• Superferry and EIS
• Court appointments
• Volunteerism
• Sees a crisis
Superferry and EIS
An Environmental Impact Statement is always a wonderful document because it brings out the entire truth about a project.
It is not Democratic or Republican, pro-development or anti-development, but instead is simply a neutral factual document that informs the public and legislators of all the pros and cons of doing or not doing a project before the legislators vote on it. If many decades ago, someone had done an EIS on the environmental impact of bringing mongoose to Hawai‘i, they would have never done it.
The EIS would have informed everyone concerned that mongoose eat Nene eggs and hence would wipe out the Nene if brought here. Likewise, an EIS on the Myna bird would have informed everyone they would bring avian malaria to Hawai‘i and kill most of the indigenous birds if brought here.
We have learned the lesson the hard way on the mongoose and the myna bird.
Court appointments
The editorial letter by David Lane was interesting but it glosses over or leaves out many important things concerning Supreme Court Appointments. He states Senators should stand up for centuries of checks and balances.
He leaves out the fact that never before in our history has the opposition party fillibustered Judicial and or Supreme Court Candidates. I do not see the wish to appoint judges who reflect the President’s views as favoring an extreme right agenda.
The Democrats simply don’t want the President to have the power voted him by the people. They want that power themselves.
The United States has based its laws and regulations on majority rule. To be put forward as a candidate for the Supreme court is a great honor. To reject a candidate without a vote is obstructionism, not democracy. The Democrats want judges who will vote the way they want them to, so do the Republicans. FDR tried to pack the Supreme Court by adding several justices who he could appoint and control the Supreme Court. It is definitely a partisan issue. One of the judicial candidates put forward by Bush was highly recommended by blacks in the south but the Democrats refused to allow a vote to see if the majority would vote in favor of the candidate.
I say if the Democrats continue to obstruct and not allow a vote, use the nuclear option. An up or down vote is not against our democratic principles, it is in support of it.
Volunteerism
As our budget grows wildly each year, the citizens of Kaua‘i see less and less of a bang for their buck. Our roads, most of them paved with an improper amount of asphalt and done improperly – no cracked base removed before putting down finish grade – and pot holes wrongly repaired to only last until the next rain! Where is the oversight to see that our tax dollars are being properly used?
And we have become an island of volunteerism since only a few of our council member led by Mel Rapozo have the fortitude to demand that we have an audit of our government, particularly Public Works to see how they are spending their $30 million budget each year.
We have many volunteer organizations who “adopt a highway” to keep it clean; more volunteers to take care of sections of the 6 mile airport gateway project that is mostly a weed patch a $5 million project that only had proper care when KNL had paid people looking after it; young people to pick up trash and debris on our beaches in a very limited fashion months after storms these beaches are still covered with trees and driftwood; coaches like Destry Carvahlo doing the state’s job by making his baseball field into a decent field for his players to play on whereas Vidinha Stadium with paid workers is a pit again no supervision to keep this fine facility in proper shape.
More and more our government (state and local) is asking volunteers to do the jobs that our tax dollars are paying them to do what is the justification for this??! Volunteers are great I have been there, done that these good people are dedicated but they are only a supplement to any job they are not and should not be the answer!
Our infrastructure is decaying before our eyes our roads are becoming parking lots with traffic worse each day. Wait until all the new projects come on line vehicles coming out of these developments will only exacerbate the problem further. And DOT has no plans to solve the existing problem by widening or adding more roads why don’t they use our cane haul roads as they did when they built the Kapaa bypass road in nine months no EIS because, as Steve Kyono said, it was an existing road.
Sees a crisis
There is a widespread sense of crisis and growing disgust with local government on Kaua‘i. There are no affordable building lots or rentals, the roads, parks and other “public” assets are in despicable condition. Capping it all off the mayor and the council have chosen to ignore the will of 604573010f Kaua‘i’s voters. Taxpayers, who approved the Ohana Charter Amendment that would have reduced property taxes, now face outrageous increases in property tax assessments. We will, therefore, have more of our hard-earned income ripped off by the County because of its insatiable appetite for our money and property rights. And, as Mr. Chuan correctly points out, the irony is that they will use our money to thwart our will! If you happen to think government is compassionate try not paying your property taxes.
Thinking people of disparate ideologies can at least agree that the politicians and bureaucrats are simply out of control and acting like spoiled children whose allowance is threatened.
While Kaua‘i “burns” our very own Nero (a.k.a. Mayor Baptiste) and his senate (a.k.a. the Council) fiddle away. The mayor, ever astute, is tossing about a poorly conceived red herring to misdirect our attention, cast blame and heap scorn upon scapegoats, benign as they are gated communities and fences. Now there’s a couple real problems that deserve our attention; heaven forbid there are even two of these gated threats to…to what now? Our sense of “community”? that certainly is more important than reasonably priced places for our people to live! Maybe the mayor and council in their boundless wisdom are sure that banning gated communities and maybe even fences will solve unrelated problems such as affordable housing and confiscatory property taxes.
The scales are at the tipping point; the fiddling continues.
