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by Anthony Pignataro

May 08, 2008

WEDNESDAY, Apr. 30

And now, for something completely unexpected: Good News! In its infinite wisdom, the county has decided not to get rid of the small gravel lot situated between the Iao Theater and a Maui Police substation on Market Street in Wailuku Town. In the name of almighty beautification, county officials had intended to turn that small but all-day parking lot into a park. But the cries from local business owners and workers—who must not only find parking in the increasingly dense Wailuku Town but also dodge the ticket-writing machine otherwise known as Maui Police Office Keith Taguma—finally became too much for officials to bear. The county will still knock out a few spaces here and there on Market, and has not at all given up on turning the big Wailuku municipal parking lot between Market and Church Streets into a giant parking garage, but for now, the little gravel lot is safe.

THURSDAY, May 1

Well, looks like that whole inter-island air cargo crisis is over. Wasn’t that a scary three days? And I was just getting used to the idea of not getting my mail, online purchases or food anymore. Anyway, the Honolulu Advertiser is reporting today that Seattle-based Saltchuk Resources, Inc.—which owns Young Brothers and Hawaiian Tug & Barge—just announced that it’s taking over Aloha Airlines’ airfreight business. I guess this is good, though exactly how many former Aloha workers get their old jobs back is anybody’s guess.

FRIDAY, May 2

Okay, enough is enough. I know I make a lot of jokes about how this state is run, and the people we elected to run it, but what they’ve gone and done now is so far beyond any semblance of rational government that even I am speechless. “Gov. Linda Lingle on Friday allowed a tax credit bill giving $1 to every Hawaii taxpayer to become law without her signature,” reported Pacific Business News today. Yes, you read that correct: one dollar. In these times of housing troubles, rising fuel prices and general economic uncertainty, the great State of Hawai‘i will refund all us taxpayers 100 pennies. In fairness, Lingle too thought the plan bogus, calling it a “token amount” in the PBN story. But what Lingle should have done was simply veto the bill and stop this whole miserable process. What our state’s residents need right aren’t necessarily tax refunds—a few dollars more or less in our bank accounts isn’t going to make that much of a difference—but real government regulation and transparency on what’s really hurting us now, namely the housing market and oil companies. It might even be worth reexamining the old gas cap law.

SATURDAY, May 3

Of course, the odds of that happening are about as good as the state Ethics Commission coming down hard on Hawai`i Superferry, Inc.(HSF) for it’s astonishingly poor initial public disclosure of its 2007 lobbying efforts, which blogger Ian Lind (ilind.net) discovered and we reported in this space last week. “Dan Mollway, executive director of the commission, yesterday said Superferry would not be punished for the errors because the company cooperated and quickly filed the amended reports,” reported today’s Honolulu Advertiser. Look at that—no punishment whatsoever! And all because HSF filled at the amended reports so quickly. Remember, if you will, that Hawai‘i Superferry first told the Ethics Commission that in 2007 they spent $21,960 on lobbying, only to “amend” that figure in later reports to a whopping $379,431. Needless to say, Lind—a former Honolulu Star-Bulletin investigative reporter—wasn’t pleased: “Their [HSF’s] public relations consultants and paid lobbyists, I’m sure, are very aware of what the rules are,” he told the Advertiser. “If it wasn’t intentional, it was certainly negligent. The negligence is the damage to the public’s ability to be sure its rights were protected in this whole legislative decision-making.” Ahh, the public—glad somebody remembers them. By the way, the Advertiser also reported that “willful violations” of public disclosure laws can bring as much as a $500 fine. Kind of puts everything into perspective, doesn’t it?

SUNDAY, May 4

Speaking of perspective: Man, you people sure have opinions on roller derby. I’m speaking of the (so far) 23 comments at Mauitime.com on our “Roller Derby!” cover story last week. But if you read past the name-calling and gratuitous use of the word “skank,” it’s clear there’s great ignorance afoot. See, the main thrust of our May 1 story was that the skating rink, which is located entirely within Kalama Park in Kihei (a public park) and offers public skating hours, is apparently a private facility run by the Maui Inline Hockey Association. And when reporter Krista Sherer called to determine exactly who calls the shots at the rink, she got a lot of confusing, contradictory answers from people—including public officials—who really should know better. Yes, the hockey association raised money to get the rink built. That’s great. But the rink is in a public park, which is supposed to be open to all county residents. Be nice if someone in a position of authority could explain what’s going on with this in clear, unambiguous terms.

MONDAY, May 5

In what is probably the 32,oooth case of outsourcing gone mad, our beloved Hawaiian Telcom has hired Pacific Telcom, Inc.—which is based on the island of Saipan in the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands—to handle directory assistance for the state of Hawai‘i, according to today’s Pacific Business News. Let’s think about this a moment: when someone living here wants to get a local number, he or she picks up the phone and calls 411—and is immediately connected to someone living 3,300 miles away. Oh, and the transfer means the old 411 operator—Metro One—has had to cut loose 50 workers here in Hawai‘i. Did I mention that, according to PBN, the minimum wage on Saipan is $3.55? Or that Hawaiian Telcom is still owned by the incredibly wealthy and politically connected private equity firm Carlyle Group. It was obvious, wasn’t it?

TUESDAY, May 6

Thirty comments now… If I’d known of our readers’ fascination with chicks on skates, I would have put roller derby on the cover years ago.

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