Trash Outside the Transfer Stations

The Jan. 20 issue of the Big Island Weekly ran a story of mine called "Trash Talking," about the new restricted hours at the island's outlying transfer stations. I reported that a number of household trash bags had been pitched along the roadside on Volcano Highway. After the story ran, I got the following report from Rene Siracusa of Malama O Puna, about the state of things along the highway to Pahoa:

"On the 2 mile stretch between Pahoa Village Rd. and Kaohe Homestead Rd., there were 26 dump sites that began with the new reduced hours of 8 to 4. Included are 4 pig carcasses in varying stages of ugh.... [Solid Waste Division head] Lono Tyson says they are working on a plan to change the hours again, but that in the meantime the dumping is expected until people get used to the new hours. When I pointed out that the 8 to 4 hours are prohibitive for people who work, he replied that they go shopping on weekends so they can go to the tranfer station on weekends too. There goes your day off!"

Two Personal Appeals

Aloha all,
As you may have noticed, there haven't been a lot of blogs here lately. That's because, quite frankly, I'm broke, and I've had to concentrate on stories that I could get paid for, so I can keep the phone and electricity on. This blog hasn't earned me a dime since my first post. Google's marketing strategy of basing advertising placement on key words just doesn't work very well on a locally-oriented blog such as this; I've even seen adds from Mall Wort here just because I wrote a blog critical of them.

So I'm putting out an appeal for sponsors. If you'd like to see more stuff here, get in contact with me. I'm going to go over the fine print of my Google contract, but I believe I can post my own ads as photo attachments. I'm thinking $15 for an ad on one blog would be appropriate.

Second appeal: If anyone out there has any news or anecdotes about the new transfer station hours or increased littering and dumping since the hours began, please post a response here. I'm working on a story about the issue for the Big Island Weekly.

A Correction, and an In-Tents Discussion

Some follow-ups on my last post:

First, a correction. In the first draft of the previous post, I mistakenly said that Brenda Ford was chairing the Hawaii County Council's Planning Committee; actually, she was chairing Public Works. I later fixed that, but not before a fan e-mailed the uncorrected version out to a few hundred other people. My apologies.

A couple of other observations about that day at the Council:

I was actually very impressed with Brenda Ford as the day went on. Yes, she's not the smoothest reader in the world, but that's more than outweighed by her thoughtfulness, especially on fiscal matters. Time after time, when other councilors were routinely going along with the administration's requests, Ford was asking good,specific, well-researched questions about budgetary procedures and cost effectiveness. In many ways, she's begun to take Curtis Tyler's place as the council's conscience, voting against things that she didn't think quite right, even if that meant she was the sole vote in opposition.

It's not surprising that Ford and Emily Naeole sometimes clash. Naeole seems intuitive and impulsive, following her gut; Ford comes across as just the opposite, critical and careful , sometimes almost nit-picky.

There was one point during the day, however, when Naeole actually thanked Ford. Naeole's bill to allow residents to camp on their land while building a permanent home was up for a re-vote. Ford offered an amendment that would make the bill temporary and experimental and would limit the tent exemptions to Puna. Naeole accepted the amendment as friendly and thanked Ford for her help in moving the bill forward.

In this case, though, I wonder if Ford was right. In offering her amendment, Ford cited an online poll in which the majority of Puna residents supported the tent bill, but an overwhelming number of respondents from Ford's district opposed it. Dominic Yagong, supporting Ford's amendment, cited similar results in his district.

That's troubling. It could be another sign of the way this island has been ghettoized. Ford's district certainly has a large number of upscale subdivisions in it: places where people who are struggling for a home can't afford to build, and people who have forked over huge piles of cash for their homes are more worried about maintaining their property values than about helping poorer families to move in next to them: prime NIMBY country. Yagong's Hamakua Coast is rapidly becoming a combination of old plantation towns and new upscale subdivisions. But Puna, thanks to the lack of foresight of certain land speculators, is riddled with substandard subdivisions that the developers originally thought they were going to sell to unsuspecting mainlanders who would never build there, because nobody would actually build on land in a high-risk lava zone if they understood what that meant. But the developers didn't count on thousands of poor and middle-class families who were just desperate enough to play the odds of a lava inundation in order to have a home.

Kelly Greenwell raised the issue of economic discrimination, if the bill was limited to Puna. Years ago, planning advocate Bonnie Goodell and others had talked of filing an economic discrimination case on behalf of district's residents because of the deprivation of basic services and infrastructure they were suffering, especially compared to the level of services and infrastructure in Hilo. I wonder if it's time to re-explore that issue in a full-fledged article: are the people of Puna being discriminated against? Is funneling the middle and lower classes of Hawaii into a single district, and setting up separate rules to encourage that economic segregation, legal and ethical?

A Personal Note

The tobacco story (see below) will be coming out while I'm gone to the mainland. I'll be spending a couple of weeks there with my 12-year-old son, whose mom, Susan Decker, is in the terminal stages of bone cancer. (Some of you may remember Susan; she had a private family law practice here, years ago, that specialized in helping famly violence victims. It of course went broke, because there was a huge demand for her services but the ones who needed it most couldn't afford to pay. But it was a noble effort.) While in Missouri, I'll be meeting with my son's school councilors and physician, in preparation for bringing him over here to live.

That's scary, because while this is happening, my unemployment benefits are running out (They got extended for six months, thanks to the Obama Administration, but the Hawai'i Island Journal has been gone now for nearly a year), my savings are exhausted, and the general economy and the newspaper crisis have made job-hunting in my field a masochistic exercise. Between now and when I leave, I'll need to do enough freelance work to pay my July rent when I get back. And then, somehow, I'm going to have to earn enough from freelancing to not only pay my rent and utilities, but to build up the money for plane tickets and moving expenses when the time comes to bring Aidan over.

On the good news side, I'll no longer be operating under the restrictions that the State's Unemployment Division was placing upon me (I could only do freelancing if it didn't affect my ability to accept "real" employment--i.e., from a company that pays wages, rather than awards a contract--if it happened to come along--which sort of works for where you sit in a union hall and wait for a ship to come in, but does make not much sense when the only "real" jobs available in my field have been 99.9 percent off-island.) I found that more than about eight hours a week of freelance work raised alarm bells and caused delayed unemployment checks. Now I can work 40 hours a week, or more, on freelance jobs if they're available, instead of 4-8.

All this will mean some changes with this blog--probably either moving it to another location or giving it up. Frankly, I've not gotten a single check from GoogleAds since I started this thing--and even if they actually had a check for me, there would be problems, because Google won't send a check to a P.O. Box and there's no home mail delivery in Volcano. I gave them the street address of a friend in Hilo who'd agreed to accept any checks for me, but she's now moved to Volcano, too.

From now on, everything I do has to pay--maybe not very much, but it has to pay something. So I'll be looking at other hosting sites and the possibility of selling local ads. If anybody has any suggestions, please let me know.

I still think it would be a great idea if all of us Hawai'i Island bloggers could unite under a single site, and hire a couple of the Journal's former ad sales reps to sell local ads for all of us.

Online Poll: Should 2 Percent for Public Lands be Suspended?

Mayor Billy Kenoi is moving forward with his plan to balance the county budget in part by raiding the 2 Percent for Open Spaces fund. According to a recent e-mail by Councilman Guy Enriques, Kenoi has asked Councilman Dominic Yagong to introduce Bill 49, which would suspend payments into the fund for two years, beginning retroactively on Jan. 1, 2009. The fund, which was approved by referendum, sets aside 2 percent of county revenues to acquire lands for parks and open space before they're snatched up by developers.

Enriques sent out a poll, asking those on his e-mail list if they favored the suspension. Of course, since he rose to prominence in his district (and garnered probably the biggest campaign war chest for a council race in county history) by supporting development at Punalu'u, it's likely that those on his mailing list are a bit skewed toward development and against the open spaces fund. But those who'd like to express their views, but who didn't get the e-mail notice, can go to http://spreadsheets.google.com/viewform?formkey=cGNFa3V5NVkyTGdEYXg2eGNUMGZpY0E6MA and vote. And of course, those outside Enriques's district can always contact their own councilpeople.

Upcoming at the Independent: Biofuel Land Rush

Last week I sent a new story to the Hawaii Independent (www.thehawaiiindependent.com) about the rapidly evolving biofuels situation here. There's so much happening, in fact, that the Independent decided run two articles about it. The first, about the biofuel land rush on this island, should be up sometime this week, I hope. The second, about biofuel projects on the other islands, is still in progress. And of course, as usual, I found out far more than I can recount in two 1000-word articles.

Essentially, there are six biofuel companies active on, or planning, projects to produce biodiesel or electrical power from green materials on this island; one of those wants to make fuel from algae; the others are looking for land to grow trees (mainly eucalyptus) or bushes for fuel. At least two companies have projects on Maui, at least one on Kaui--and the mother of them all, an enormous biodiesel-powered generator plant will be built on O'ahu. But all of them are involved in controversies of some sort--mostly about where in the heck they're going to get the huge acreage they'll need to produce enough green stuff to create a significant amount of energy. We're talking tens, maybe hundreds, of thousands of acres here.

Most of those efforts are concentrated on the Hamakua/North Hilo Coast. But heads up, Ka'u: there's one company that's looking in your direction. Alternative Fuels Hawaii is looking for 20,000-30,000 acres, probably in "South Hawai'i," to grow jatropha, a poisonous bush that produces oil-rich seeds, which the company wants to convert into biodiesel. This may or may not be a good idea--but I would suggest that Hamakua residents start boning up on this plant before they sign any long-term leases to this company. There's lots about it on the Web, and not all of it is good. A recent Reuters report, for instance (http://uk.reuters.com/article/oilRpt/idUKHKG7593720070912) on a biofuel noted that the plant, like arabica coffee, ripened unevenly and had to be harvested by hand, and that its toxicity posed possible hazards to harvesters and to processing plant workers. A Alternatives Fuels company officer whom I talked to claimed that most of the negative publicity came from promoters of a competing fuel plant, oil palms--and, indeed, the only critic quoted in the Reuters story was an "adviser to the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil." But the allegations are certainly worth looking into before we start committing sugar-plantation-sized parcels to this plant.

Palm oil, which is being grown on Kauai, has its own problems--mainly in that it's also grown for food, and boom in palm oil for biofuel has caused spikes in food prices in Indonesia and elsewhere.

More details will be available in the Independent articles, but these companies probably are already approaching local landholders and leaseholders. I urge anyone that they do contact to please do your homework. We certainly need to reduce our dependence on foreign oil, and biofuels generally produce less pollution than fossil fuels. But if we're not careful, we could basically be returning to a plantation economy, getting our "fossil fuel independence" at the cost of handing over huge swaths of our local land to corporations. Let's try doing something right for once, instead of just doing what some large investor wants us to do.

Election by Mail?

Below is the text of a bill being proposed by County Councilmember Brenda Ford, who wants to replace traditional polls with a mail-in ballot system, which she believes would encourage greater voter participation. Ford's arguments in favor of the change are contained within the text of the bill. I'm open to persuasion on this issue, but I admit that I can easily see some arguments against it.

The first objection is that this doesn't have to be an either-or situation. It would seem to me that the system that promoted the greatest voter participation would be one that allowed both absentee voting by mail and traditional voting at the polling places.

Second, I frankly doubt that the polling system is the major culprit in this island's notoriously low voter turnout. I suspect that a far bigger factor is the state's machine politics, where there's really no alternative to the Democratic party and huge campaign donations from O'ahu give chosen candidates an almost insuperable advantage; under those circumstances, many people may simply ask, why bother? The county's non-partisan election system, in which many local elections are already determined in the primary, is probably another factor in low general election turnout.

The third argument is the chance that polling places offer for direct participation in the democratic system. I, for one, will miss the sense of community that I feel when going down to Cooper Center and casting my ballot with other Volcano residents. And the polling system gives volunteer poll workers and even more intimate sense of playing an important role in their community. Mail-in ballots, by contrast, seem cold and impersonal.

And finally, I'm not convinced that all the possible kinks have been worked out of the mail-in ballot system. Back in 2004, I got to serve as an election observer, and gained a new appreciation for the layer after layer of procedures that have evolved to protect the integrity of our ballots. (See "The Last Jelly Bean," below). The mail-in system, like electronic balloting, would ditch those procedures and start from scratch, and I'm not at all sure that I trust the Post Office that much.

Anyway, here's Ford's proposal. You decide.

A RESOLUTION REQUESTING THE LEGISLATURE OF THE STATE OF HAWAI‘I TO ENACT A BILL TO ESTABLISH A PILOT PROGRAM FOR VOTE BY MAIL FOR ALL FEDERAL, STATE, AND COUNTY PRIMARY, GENERAL, AND SPECIAL ELECTIONS IN THE COUNTY OF HAWAI‘I , AND TO MAKE AN APPROPRIATION FOR THIS PILOT PROGRAM.
WHEREAS, the State of Hawai‘i has historically one of the lowest voter turnouts in the country, and additionally, in 2006, the County of Hawai‘i had 173, 057 residents and 131,203 residents who were 18-years-of-age or older (76% of the population), but only 42.6% of the registered voters voted; and
WHEREAS, in Hawai‘i County, the percentage of voters in the Primary Election consistently dropped from a high of 88.6% in 1959 to 41.8% in 2008, and the percentage of voters for the General Election consistently dropped from a high of 94.3% in 1959 to 67.7% in 2008 with the lowest year being 2006 at 53.2%. In 2008, Hawai‘i County had 99,337 registered voters, but only 67,258 actually voted (67.7%) in the General Election which was also a presidential election year; and
WHEREAS, absentee ballots (combination of mail-in and walk-in) in Hawai‘i County Primary Elections have increased from 1988 (9.8%) through 2008 (40.2%). Absentee ballots in Hawai‘i County General Elections have increased from 9.3% in 1988 to 43.0% in 2008; and
WHEREAS, Oregon has had Vote By Mail elections since 1998. The 2004 Oregon election was one of the most contentious and closely scrutinized elections in Oregon history, and Oregon had the third highest voter turnout in the nation at 86.48% of registered voters. Of the five states with the highest voter turnout in 2004, Oregon was the only state without same-day voter registration. In 2008, Oregon achieved 85.7% voter turnout; and
WHEREAS, Vote By Mail maximizes voter convenience because voters do not have to stand in lines at the polls, take time off from work, drive in bad weather to precincts, wait for their turn at a limited number of polling booths, or have an illness or personal emergency on Election Day that prevents them from voting; and
WHEREAS, fraud can be protected against by utilizing the Vote By Mail program used in Oregon, to which every signature is verified to ensure that that voter is who they claim to be; and
WHEREAS, Vote By Mail improves accuracy of voter rolls because mailed ballots are not forwarded by the United States Postal Service but are returned to the county office of elections where voter rolls are accurately kept without the risk of inappropriate purges; and
WHEREAS, Vote By Mail improves uniformity because there is centralized supervision of ballot processing in the county office of elections, instead of in dispersed polling places. This maintains uniformity and strict compliance with law; and
WHEREAS, Vote By Mail promotes voter confidence by providing a paper trail where the accuracy and fairness of election results are provable, and the ballots can be recounted, by hand if necessary, to prove to voters that each and every vote was properly counted; and
WHEREAS, Vote By Mail can cost one-third less than polling place elections for the County of Hawaii, due to the decrease in cost of training and employment of officials for 67 precincts; and
WHEREAS, Vote By Mail increases voter participation even in small local elections where increased turnouts were seen when voters are provided with an easy and convenient way to vote. With several weeks in which to conduct get-out-the-vote activities, every citizen will be reminded to mail their ballot in plenty of time; and
WHEREAS, Vote By Mail creates a significant gain in informed voting because voters can do their research and think about choices while sitting at home with their Voters' Pamphlet and any other information that they want to use to make reasoned decisions; and
WHEREAS, change often frightens people and the fear of extending the potential of voting to a larger voting population increases fear. While it is the business of government to empower more people to vote, Professor James D. Moore, a professor of political science at the University of Portland said, “Controlling who votes is fundamental in politics... every change made to election rules alters to some degree, the voting population...That’s why, throughout our country’s history, ‘blood has been shed’ over extending the vote---to women, to blacks, to 18-year-olds and to the poor.” The poorest people in Hawai‘i county may not have transportation to the precincts; now, therefore,
BE IT RESOLVED BY THE COUNCIL OF THE COUNTY OF HAWAI‘I that the Legislature of the State of Hawai‘i is requested to create a pilot program for all federal, state, and county primary, general, and special elections based on the State of Oregon Vote By Mail program as the exclusive method for casting ballots in the County of Hawai‘i beginning with the 2010 Primary election and all other elections in the year 2010, all elections in 2012, and continuing through all elections including the General Election in 2014. This provides three full election cycles in which to determine the advantages of Vote By Mail in the County of Hawai‘i; and
BE IT FINALLY RESOLVED that the County Clerk shall forward certified copies of this Resolution, together with the proposed bill marked as Exhibit “A”, Absentee Ballot Statistics marked as Exhibit “B”, and a copy of the current State of Oregon “Vote By Mail Procedures Manual” marked as Exhibit “C” to the Mayor of the County of Hawai`i, to the Chairperson of the Hawai‘i State Senate, and to the Chairperson of the State House of Representatives, and to the Chief Election Officer for the State of Hawai‘i.

Links to other Alan McNarie stories

The following stories are available on sites other than here or www.hawaiiislandjournal.com (which was still down as of Oct. 20). Not all of these people asked permission, but what the hey.

"A Sea of Plastic"

http://honoluluweekly.com/diary/2007/12/sea-of-plastic/

"Plenty Papaya Problems"

http://www.hawaiiseed.org/plenty_papaya_problems.html

http://www.gene.ch/genet/2003/Apr/msg00094.html

“The Town of Punalu‘u”

http://www.wildcoast-usa.com/hawaii.htm

“Panning PanSTARRS”

http://honoluluweekly.com/cover/story-continued/2007/03/panning-panstarrs/

“Children Left Behind”

http://www.lejhawaii.org/mckinney/hon.weekly.11.07.07.pdf

“A Dream Takes Root in Pepeekeo”

http://hawaiianrainbows.net/presscenter.htm

“PAC-Men vs. the Krishna Conservatives”

http://www.cultofbutler.com/news.php?extend.28

“Big Island Kapu” (Hokulia)

http://www.honoluluweekly.com/archives/coverstory%202003/03-26-03%20Gated/03-26-03%20Gated.html

“Drum Traditions Span the Pacific”

http://www.planetpuna.com/GreyWolf/mcnarie_on_grey_wolf_.htm

“Still Living, Still on Earth”

www.aliciabaylaurel.com/node/96

“The Art of Bonsai”

http://www.fukubonsai.com/1a11.html

Belly Acres is the Place to be for Jugglers

http://www.planetpuna.com/Shopper/jugglers.htm