Dear Marshall,
You are correct. It is not how cheaply it can be done but the organization of it. It must start with a revamp on the entire government. Each department must have specific jobs descriptions with regular reviews on performance. With three counseling's you are out the door. Hiring should be legal with exact same written questions; the most qualified applicant gets the job. The nepotism must stop. Standards need to be set and maintained. We need to cut the semi autonomous organizations. Either you are the County or NOT. The Department heads are not in stone, they need to be reviewed too.
As for the Oahu legislation and Senate not wanting a West Hawaii County is beyond me. There are so many bonuses to Kona getting organized and improving their tourist cash cow. Who wants to come to Kona with the conditions our beaches and roads are in? Here are the tourists spending thousands of dollars to come to Kona on their dream vacation or honeymoon; and the public restrooms are mess. They are all under construction or falling down and the showers are turn off or broken. The tourist board advertises "Come to HAWAII". It is embarrassing how we compare as a tourist destination.
I would think Oahu would want to raise the State's standards and make Hawaii a place people want to vacation more then once. It's not about us or them. The taxes collected here really benefit the state too. It is about putting the money where it is needed. Hilo doesn't have the tourist base. Their TAT (transit accommodations tax) doesn't compare to Kona. Even United Airlines doesn't have enough business to fly into Hilo. We need to give Kona a face lift.
We have to fix each department one by one. Stop hauling garbage by the truck loads from Hilo to Kona. Hilo has huge holes they can dump their own trash in. The cost of the trucks, fuel, workers and the danger to the other vehicles on the road is totally unnecessary. That kind of thinking is why we need a separate county. We need government that is within our reach. I find driving two hours each way to a county council meeting is outrageous. No wonder we have such a mess to deal with.
We need a planning department with some foresight. All subdivions should be required to connect roads and open them prior to receiving a final finish permit.
If they say all Agriculture Land must have agriculture then so be it across the board. Not from the middle of the project and leave people who have building permits already in process to be stuck with unbuildable land. We need consistency. Not favoritism. Agriculture land covers a huge amount of subdivisions and many don't have any agricultural activity on them. The county council needs to all be together on the same page at the same time in order to make effect changes. Fighting should not be tolerated.
We need to open up ohana permits again. The people are still creating Ohana's to help them make their payments, but are the taxes being collected on them?
When we finally got the new pool in Kona I brought up charging .25 per person per day. This revenue would help to support the pool's up keep. I was told that is a crazy idea. No way.
We need to think smart and create smart. Keep the environment natural and grow it wisely.
If we don't have a radical change we will be stuck in the clog of the same wheel year after year.
Thanks for responding.
Susan McGeachy
3 comments:
The reason why Chris Yuen had to stop the Ohana permits was because the entire concept was being abused.People were not using them for OHANA but rather using them as an extra apartment to rent out. Even those condominum property regimes were a good example of developer abuse. Sorry but your reasons for splitting the county are phony and without merit. The complainors always seem to have all the answers to how everything should be run yet when you ask them whether the last county they lived in was perfect, they say no.
So what makes these self righteous people so certain that they are right when they have no examples to provide to us?
Look at Washinnton State for a good example.
Being from Oahu I don't understand why the garbage is being hauled to Kona? Is this cost effective?
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