Dangerously, the State of Hawaii is incapable of policing itself, or purging incompetent managers
Lawmakers decision to readmit tourists may be ill timed and dangerous
As a result of the enormous economic damage done to the state's economy because of the pandemic, administrators are now scrambling to find money to keep our economy going. In their panic, they are about to unleash a poorly thought-through plan to allow tourists back into Hawaii on August 1st, less than a month away. The plan is to allow the commingling of “untested” (set for two-week quarantine) and “tested” passengers (allowed immediate entry) flying to Hawaii on the very same plane. Obviously, there is no reason why the infected untested passenger wouldn’t infect “tested” passengers nearby (who will gain immediate access to our local population). Apparently, even despite the record resurgence of Covid-19 infections on the mainland, this seems to have been lost on Doc Green, and, not surprisingly, on David Ige.
Revenue shortages in Hawaii have deep roots . . . way before the pandemic
Ige and Green say it’s necessary to reopen the borders to tourists because of revenue shortfalls. What they’ve carefully avoided telling you is why Hawaii has so little rainy-day cash on hand. There are so many reasons, all traceable to poor leadership decisions; here’s a case in point:
DLNR/DOBOR’s fiscal mismanagement of the state’s public assets and lands has been so far-reaching over the past ten years that it has cost taxpayers $millions of dollars in lost revenues, bungled contracts, and physically dilapidated state property (read: public property). These are resources that could have been in reserve, or better used to manage public affairs. Now comes the pandemic and the state needs money. Money, not only to cover current lost revenues, but also to cover the lost millions of dollars that could have been there had it not been squandered through repeated leadership bungling over the past ten years.
State agency confusion about coronavirus response may have helped to spread the virus
The DLNR/DOBOR’s catastrophic fiscal damage aside, its frightening pandemic response, during which it completely abandoned the public harbor system while simultaneously violating the governor’s own pandemic proclamations, has contributed to the spread of the virus while leaving public harbor tenants to mostly fend for themselves. You read that correctly: a state agency that was deliberately in violation of the state’s own emergency pandemic proclamation orders.
Recent questions about state agency accounting system may stem from years of lax oversight
Now it appears as though there may be major problems with DOBOR’s statewide harbor tenant accounting system, resulting in the systematic overcharging of boaters over a period of years and compounded by DOBOR’s misguided need to charge $100 per month in penalties for accounts that are allegedly in arrears, but actually might just be suffering from endemic internal accounting errors.
The pandemic has turned out to be the big tattletale, outing our governor and his minions, and every lawmaker that asked for your trust, for their inept handling of critical public affairs. It’s all come home to roost now, and the public has been left holding the bag.
Harbor tenant's letter of complaint a microcosm of the public's frustration in the much bigger picture
Bruce Baxter, a longtime IT specialist and programmer, taxpayer, and boat owner in the state’s public harbor system shares his frustration with this recent letter to a DOBOR harbor master at Hawaii’s biggest public harbor:
Howzit [harbor master],
Imagine this happening to you:
You wake up in the middle of the night with some GI distress. You fumble around in the dark and manage to get down the hall to your bathroom. You open the door looking forward to relieving the pressure in your lower bowel, but you find 2 people you don't know in your bathroom ― 1 male and 1 female and their dog. The woman is standing outside your shower with a towel draped around herself. The man is gathering up his stuff. The woman says, "I'm naked. Would you please go out until I get dressed?"
You go back out to your hallway and in a few minutes, all three emerge and leave. You take pictures of them as they do ― not great pictures because you're not yet fully awake.
You then enter your bathroom and deal with the original reason for being up in the middle of the night.
But this would never happen to you, because...
- You’re not having to pay an exorbitant and unlawful amount of money for a liveaboard slip at the Ala Wai Small Boat Harbor
- You don't pay a premium price to share your bathroom with homeless people
- You don't pay a premium price for highly-touted but nonexistent security
- You don't have a homeless camp in your back yard
The access card used this morning immediately before 0235 is being used by the homeless. If you like them using the shower, have them go to your place and use yours.
Otherwise, turn off the card that entered just before my 2 accesses around 0235 this morning.
As the frustration grows, the homeless population swells, the risk of a contagion infection increases and our economic crisis broadens, our only option may be to finally wake up and rid ourselves of the toxic leadership that has made such a mess of things. Hawaii needs a new breed of leader who is committed to making Hawaii a better place to live for the grass roots who call these islands home.