{"id":7145,"date":"2020-07-05T18:51:43","date_gmt":"2020-07-05T18:51:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/hawaiioceannews.com\/?p=7145"},"modified":"2020-07-07T03:16:30","modified_gmt":"2020-07-07T03:16:30","slug":"its-all-catching-up-to-hawaii-residents","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/hawaiioceannews.com\/index.php\/2020\/07\/05\/its-all-catching-up-to-hawaii-residents\/","title":{"rendered":"Hawaii residents suffering from past\/present leadership failures, and it\u2019s just turned dangerous"},"content":{"rendered":"
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\n\t\t\t\t\t\tDangerously, the State of Hawaii is incapable of policing itself, or purging incompetent managers\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/h4>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t
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Lawmakers decision to readmit tourists may be ill timed and dangerous<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

As a result of the enormous economic damage<\/a> done to the state's economy because of the pandemic, administrators are now scrambling to find money to keep our economy going.\u00a0 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.\u00a0 The plan is to allow the commingling of \u201cuntested\u201d (set for two-week quarantine)\u00a0 and \u201ctested\u201d passengers (allowed immediate entry) flying to Hawaii on the very same plane.\u00a0\u00a0 Obviously, there is no reason why the infected untested passenger wouldn\u2019t infect \u201ctested\u201d passengers nearby (who will gain immediate access to our local population).\u00a0 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.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

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Revenue shortages in Hawaii have deep roots . . . way before the pandemic<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

Ige and Green say it\u2019s necessary to reopen the borders to tourists because of revenue shortfalls.\u00a0 What they\u2019ve carefully avoided telling you is why<\/strong><\/em> Hawaii has so little rainy-day cash on hand.\u00a0 There are so many reasons, all traceable to poor leadership decisions; here\u2019s a case in point:<\/span><\/p>\n

DLNR\/DOBOR\u2019s fiscal mismanagement<\/a> of the state\u2019s 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).\u00a0 These are resources that could have been in reserve, or better used to manage public affairs. \u00a0Now comes the pandemic and the state needs money.\u00a0\u00a0 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.<\/span><\/p>\n

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State agency confusion about coronavirus response may have helped to spread the virus<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

The DLNR\/DOBOR\u2019s catastrophic fiscal damage aside, its frightening pandemic response<\/a>, during which it completely abandoned the public harbor system while simultaneously violating the governor\u2019s own pandemic proclamations, has contributed to the spread of the virus while leaving public harbor tenants to mostly fend for themselves.\u00a0 You read that correctly: a state agency that was deliberately in violation of the state\u2019s own emergency pandemic proclamation orders<\/a>.<\/span><\/p>\n

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Recent questions about state agency accounting system may stem from years of lax oversight<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

Now it appears as though there may be major problems with DOBOR\u2019s statewide harbor tenant accounting system, resulting in the systematic overcharging of boaters over a period of years and compounded by DOBOR\u2019s 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.<\/span><\/p>\n

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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.\u00a0 It\u2019s all come home to roost now, and the public has been left holding the bag.<\/span>\u00a0<\/strong><\/em><\/span> \u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

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Harbor tenant's letter of complaint a microcosm of the public's frustration in the much bigger picture<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

Bruce Baxter, a longtime IT specialist and programmer, taxpayer, and boat owner in the state\u2019s public harbor system shares his frustration with this recent letter to a DOBOR harbor master at Hawaii\u2019s biggest public harbor:<\/span><\/p>\n

Howzit [harbor master],<\/span><\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

Imagine this happening to you:<\/span><\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

You wake up in the middle of the night with some GI distress.\u00a0 You fumble around in the dark and manage to get down the hall to your bathroom.\u00a0 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 \u2015 1 male and 1 female and their dog.\u00a0 The woman is standing outside your shower with a towel draped around herself.\u00a0 The man is gathering up his stuff.\u00a0 The woman says, \"I'm naked.\u00a0 Would you please go out until I get dressed?\"<\/span><\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

You go back out to your hallway and in a few minutes, all three emerge and leave.\u00a0 You take pictures of them as they do \u2015 not great pictures because you're not yet fully awake.<\/span><\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

You then enter your bathroom and deal with the original reason for being up in the middle of the night.<\/span><\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

But this would never happen to you, because...\u00a0<\/span><\/em><\/span><\/p>\n