• Enhancing Wailua • Something’s gotta give • Good luck Enhancing Wailua Expanding the current Kaua‘i Bike path, Ke Ala Hele Makalae, from Lydgate to Kapa‘a is a necessary step in the evolution of this fantastic community resource. Since the
• Enhancing Wailua
• Something’s gotta give
• Good luck
Enhancing Wailua
Expanding the current Kaua‘i Bike path, Ke Ala Hele Makalae, from Lydgate to Kapa‘a is a necessary step in the evolution of this fantastic community resource.
Since the construction has finished on the current stage, I have often taken the trip to the Eastside with my small child to enjoy the sense of community, ocean breezes and importantly, freedom to walk without car interference — an unfortunately rare experience on many of Kaua‘i’s sidewalk-free streets.
Having also spent much time enjoying beautiful Wailua Bay, it doesn’t appear that this path with do anything other than enhance the area, unlike the crumbling Coco Palms Hotel across the street.
Lea Taddonio, Waimea
Something’s gotta give
This is it! We are truly “caught between a rock and a hard place” with KIUC’s request for a rate increase at a time when customers are declining and alternative renewable energy delivery systems have not been easily and readily actualized to make a dint in paying the high cost of meeting electricity demands as currently provided by KIUC.
Purely and simply, something’s gotta give. Presumably, a solar-thermal proposal is “in the works.” Individual homeowners are exploring windmill options. Companies are installing cost-cutting alternatives to lessen dependency on KIUC’s current energy-delivery capabilities.
When and where possible, “getting off the grid” is being seriously considered. As each day passes by, the situation becomes more and more intolerable with the slow economic recovery and the challenge of stretching our dollars to meet our basic needs.
Will KIUC reconsider adjusting its timetable in actively pursuing the alternative energy proposals that have been brought to the table such as WRE’s energy pellets? Foot-dragging or maintaining the status of the current action-plan may not be the wisest thing for KIUC to do under the present circumstances.
Jose Bulatao Jr., Kekaha
Good luck
A county manager-mayor government system is again under reconstruction and has been kicked around much longer than my brief involvement in the local political scene.
On its surface, this system appeals to my sensibilities of government efficiency, accountability and ethics. But does Kaua‘i’s current political climate support such opportunity?
Opponents of this system, which I have seldom heard publicly, may have a fundamental argument that expresses concern that if the administration is not broken why fix it?
Vocal proponents claim the system puts a trained, highly-qualified and experienced professional administrator at the helm of a quarter-billion dollar budget to optimize performance versus the current standard qualification equivalent to a popular political figure of at least 30 years of age. No argument there. But Kaua‘i prides itself on familiar homegrown talent, so if the shoe fits…
While more traditional and ceremonial function of the mayor remains, the county manager is the day-to-day mover of the administration, still accountable to the County Council and public scrutiny. The recent county-manager-chatter concludes that a likely proposition includes high levels of mayoral duty and responsibility — not unlike current mayoral practice relative to the roles of his two well-paid administrative assistants. One could make the argument that Kaua‘i already has this system in place. But the question remains: Is this current system broken and would a county manager fix it? It depends on who you ask.
All this, of course, is dependent upon the formalized details of a proposal to the voters — if one ever gets that far, as evidenced by the recent detour away from the Charter Review Commission (see “County manager proponent quits,” The Garden Island, Sept. 29). Now if a proposal may not come from the CRC, it would likely come from another avenue — the public referendum (certainly not the County Council, the third means of putting an issue on the ballot). Besides, as recent testimony before the CRC revealed, the county manager system was unsupported in law by county attorney opinion although at least three commissioners openly disagreed to that effect.
But for the CRC to still claim a county manager proposal adoptable like two members of the newly pared four-member quorum did in September, forward progress within the commission will likely pale and die without county attorney support or a strong advocacy on the commission.
With this current hitch in progress, the devil remains in the proposal’s details. Indeed it is the details where today’s proponents of a county manager-mayor system currently lacks consensus. Consensus as to exactly what the new system looks like is not readily apparent, though I’ve come to understand a number of intelligent models are being discussed by a growing, potent public group.
How and when this group crafts a new administrative system offered through public referendum will finally put an aforementioned model to paper for voter support is to be seen and should soon rally signature support. Even a solid proposal, one drafted today need encounter a tremendous public relations campaign. A campaign with substantial costs, both in sweat equity and real equity, will additionally require political leadership of broad appeal to counter an entrenched system with a County Attorney’s Office bent on status quo, before and quite possibly after passage by ballot. It’s happened before.
And let’s pretend even the county attorney cannot shoot this proposal down. Then what, another inside job (see “An Inside Job?” The Garden Island, Sept. 19) like the county auditor position? Believe it can happen. It’s happening now.
County manager-mayor proponents — your road is long, steep, twisted and pot-holed, yet traversable with the right vehicle. What that vehicle is this political rookie can only venture a guess — perhaps a great, low-cost lawyer with local roots looking to change an island’s love of a long-standing tradition. Good luck.
Rolf Bieber, Kapa‘a
