• County Charter • Feeling of safety shattered County Charter The County Charter is like the Olohena Bridge (and many other island bridges). It was built (written) to serve a different age. It served its time well. It has been
• County Charter
• Feeling of safety shattered
County Charter
The County Charter is like the Olohena Bridge (and many other island bridges).
It was built (written) to serve a different age. It served its time well. It has been patched and patched again (50 amendments in all). It has reached a point of no return. There are two responsible choices with the charter just as there were with the bridge: completely refurbish it or build (write) a new one to serve today’s needs.
During the coming months the evidence will continue to accumulate in the files of the Charter Commission showing that there are in fact only two responsible choices concerning the charter. The evidence for completely refurbishing the charter is pervasive. Gaps, omissions, ambiguities, contradictions, and stylistic defects will constrain the Charter Commission, at a minimum, to present a thoroughly revised charter to the voters. However, if the commission fully embraces its mandate it will, in my opinion, go further and write a new charter that includes conceptual changes designed to promote accountability, efficiency, and transparency in local government.
Here is a sample of questions a new charter needs to address. Can the county any longer afford to have a politician as the executive head and supervisor of the administration? Can the county any longer afford to have part-time council members?
In the absence of a judicial branch at the local level and in view of the incentives county officials have to accept the opinions of the county attorney as authoritative, what safeguards are needed with respect to the county attorney’s role as the county’s official interpreter of the charter? How do we equip and empower the citizen volunteers who make up commissions?
Fixing the Olohena bridge has visible, tangible effects on people’s lives.
The results of fixing the charter are not so immediately evident, but it has the potential to affect all our lives more profoundly than a new bridge will. Unless the public awakens to this fact, it will be a simple matter for the inertia of the status quo and the resistance of entrenched power to neutralize the potential.
Have you spoken to your favorite Charter Commission member lately?
Feeling of safety shattered
I’m writing to see if anyone in the Wailua Homesteads neighborhood between the Kuamo‘o trailhead and the Wailua Country Store, might have seen one or two people walking and carrying a bulky, U.S. Army issue, olive drab duffel (golf bag size), a medium, black carrying case, and a cordless drill between 7:20 p.m. and 10:30 p.m. on Sat., May 14.
We came home from an evening out to find our carport cupboards opened and rifled through and several items taken. The theft (on Noni St.) included our son’s set of Top Flite golf clubs plus a Ping putter stored in a golf bag within the khaki duffel bag; a Wen jigsaw kit, which included new blades; and a Craftsman drill.
A police report was filed that same evening, and fingerprints taken. If anyone can throw light on participants in the theft or on the stolen items, as described, that might have been offered for sale, please call Officer Steven Pastore of KPD, c/o 241-1711, and refer to Report #12429.
Any help or leads offered will be greatly appreciated. After 30 years of living in this neighborhood, my feeling of trust and Kaua‘i old-style safety has been shattered.
- Delano Kawahara
Wailua Homesteads
