Source: Maui Time, Maui News, Best of Maui, Maui Activities

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This Week in Review
WEDNESDAY, Mar. 9

December 30, 2004

Well, the civil war raging throughout the county over the future of the

Akaku

public access cable channels seems to be coming along nicely, according to a piece in today’s

Maui News

. In fact, the station’s board meeting last night on state efforts to divert Akaku money to education went on for hours—nearly as long, in fact, as one of the county planning hearings it often televises gavel to gavel. Even Mayor

Alan Arakawa

got into the act, blistering station manager Sean McLaughlin for “squabbling about a little bit of money” ($700,000, to be exact). Then Councilwoman

Jo Anne Johnson

stepped up to rip developer

Everett Dowling

—the father of the movement to slash Akaku’s funding in the first place. Of course, Dowling wasn’t at the hearing. That’s because, as he’s said in the past (see “Everett’s Bills,” Mar. 3), this whole issue has nothing to do with speech… An unrelated story in the same

News

 issue notes that our honorable state senators have seen fit to pass a bill boosting tax credits for filmmakers coming to Hawaii from four percent of their production expenses to a whopping 15 percent if they shoot on Oahu and 20 percent if they head to Neighbor Islands. Yay for Hawaii! Of course, their esteemed colleagues over in the state House see loving Hawaii a bit differently, and let die a bill that would have banned smoking on state beaches and public areas.







THURSDAY, Mar. 10



It’s Day 24 of Lahaina resident

Jason Reardon

’s ban from visiting

Ka’anapali Beach

. In court yesterday, Judge

Joseph Cardozo

extended  that ban until Reardon’s trial begins on April 11. And there’s every indication that the state

Attorney General

’s office will sentence the 19-year-old to Hawaii’s first ever lifetime ban from a public district. Reardon’s apparently unpardonable crime? That would be allegedly selling marijuana to an undercover police officer. Yeah, sounds like a crime against humanity to me. And the fact that it happened on Maui, in an area populated with tourists, is just too insane to believe.







FRIDAY, Mar. 11



Congressman

Ed Case

(D,

2

nd

District

) just faxed over a list of pork he managed to secure for Hawaii from a monster $300 billion transportation bill just passed out of the

U.S. House of Representatives

. Maui’s cut included $3 million for a

Lahaina Bypass

road and another cool mil for the

Kahului Airport Access Road

. To be honest, I’m amazed Case was able to bring home such amounts, considering the hysterical anti-Democrat bias that infects the House’s Republican leadership. It’s so bad, even former GOP congressional attack dog

Newt Gingrich

is appalled. “Gingrich himself in recent interviews has been openly critical of House Republicans for blocking the Democrats from even offering amendments to bills on the House floor,” wrote veteran reporter

Elizabeth Drew

in the Mar. 24 issue of

The New York Review of Books

. “The Republicans have carried one-party rule to unprecedented lengths. They have often excluded Democrats from writing bills in committee and from House-Senate conferences on bills both chambers have passed.”







SATURDAY, Mar. 12



A little late, but the

Maui

County Council

has decided to weigh in on the

Superferry

issue by saying—unanimously, in fact—that the state should order a full environmental assessment before the big boats start disgorging cars at

Kahului Harbor

. The resolution, reported in today’s

Maui News

, carries about as much legal weight as a drunk yelling from a street corner—especially considering that the state Senate has already decreed that an

Environmental Impact Statement (EIS)

isn’t necessary. Still, it was a generous gesture. And it even put Superferry CEO

John Garibaldi

’s panties in a twist. In fact, he told the council that a full EIS would “cause the immediate failure of the project” since his investors have demanded an agreement by June 30. Really? And they would never, ever promise you money again if the state legislature suddenly decided that an EIS was in order? Some CEO you are.



SUNDAY, Mar. 13



Front-page story in today’s

News

 says property values are up statewide. The story contains other shocking revelations like the fact that local public officials—unlike the public officials from every other municipality in the U.S.—“are having to consider demands for tax relief along with resident’s demands for services in balancing how much to give back.” Man, Hawaii’s cutting edge on this whole taxes vs. services thing.







MONDAY, Mar. 14



Finally, people are starting to say some nice things about Maui’s glamorous resorts. And not just any resort, but the

Grand Wailea Resort Hotel & Spa

. Man, people really trash that place all the time—so much so you’d think the country actually distrusted rich people and their need to spend huge sums of money on garish opulence, as though that were a bad thing. Anyway,

The Maui News

 finally ran a big front-page story on the general grandness of the massive Grand Wailea’s recycling practices. Now I suppose that even “green” resorts like the Grand Wailea still suck up gobs of water and energy in their quest to cater to the whims of world’s affluent, but isn’t it worth it? Shouldn’t making sure the wealthy and powerful have everything they need be a concern to us all?  







TUESDAY, Mar. 15



News of the legislative attack on Akaku has apparently gone nationwide. “[W]e at the

Alliance for Community Media

are distressed and saddened to hear of the dispute which pits

Maui Community College

(MCC) against Akuku: Maui Community Television,” wrote

Anthony Riddle

, the Washington, D.C.-based Alliance’s executive director in a letter dated today. The letter is filled with vanilla think-tank speak, but does come down on the side of our public access cable providers. “Operations run by separately incorporated non-profits like Akaku: Maui Community TV offer the freedom and community control we all value while protecting the government and college from law-suits [sic] and political pressures,” he added. Protection from political pressures?! I so hope he’s kidding.







Anthony Pignataro has long felt Hollywood should make more

Speed

films.

MTW