End the dance with Wheelabrator
Janet Snyder from Harry Kim's office e-mailed me Mayor Kim's testimony to the County Council on the Wheelabrator deal and noted that the "make or break" date is May 7, when the Council considers the Finance Committee's 6-3 rejection of the mayor's WTE incinerator plan.
Council Chairman Pete Hoffmann told the Tribune-Herald it was "stupid" not to let Wheelabrator do its studies. Harry said as much, but with class. It's worth a read whatever your take on the issue.
Still, I can't see how letting Wheelabrator do the studies that will determine whether it gets a lucrative contract or not is the best way to evaluate it. Whaddya think they'll say?
So this is a good point to end the dance with Wheelabrator. Thank the company for its effort and begin seriously evaluating the comparative community benefits and relative costs of all the alternatives. And why not consider how many good, permanent local jobs would be created by each proposal. I'd rather develop solid waste solutions by investing our resources in our Hawaii Island communities, not Wheelabrator.
But Mayor Kim is not giving up yet and you can bet there's still plenty of pressure left to bear on Council members such as Emily Naeole and J Yoshimoto from many quarters before the next vote. To paraphrase Yogi Berra, never say it's over till it's over.
Hunter Bishop
in Politics, Local planning
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Reader Comments (7)
"....we have spent a large amount of money on our
consultants to ensure that the County’s interests are well protected."
I understand that the county spent $1.5 million up to this point on outside legal consultants.
How does this fact justify not representing the majority of the elected officials stated position?
They made that offer -- $125.5 million -- and now that is described as not final. Bait and switch, again.
Mayor Kim has "spent a large amount of money on ...
consultants" and that has been money thrown down a rat hole.
On Tuesday, April 22, I hand-deliver a signed, formal complaint of Public Procurement Fraud to the the Mayor's Office, citing the Hawaii False Claims Act. That complaint dealt with the technical consultants (in contrast to the legal consultants). The County's interests have most definitely NOT be protected by the Mayor's East Coast consultants.
Invest in this island people and future -- Wheelabrator is neither of those.
That's not the purpose of the study, as I understand it. They are supposed to submit a final price (sharpen their pencils) and conduct an environmental assessment on the identified impacts. I guess there would be public comment received on the EA.
The justification for Wheelabrator getting the contract were presented when they responded to the county's request for proposals and during the hearings.
Just saying . . .
This statement is way over there in make-it-up-whateva' land.
Even though Hunter threw out Council member Yoshimoto's name, along with that of Ms Naeole, as those who might receive pressure, there is not even enough substance in that speculation to be worthy of the term 'irony'.
For anyone who listened to the Finance Committee discussion and debate on Monday, there is no reason to speculate about Mr Yoshimoto, nor any of the other 5 'no' votes. None of the members casting the 6 total 'no' votes appeared to have any hesitation or doubts about their position.
True, Harry Kim and Wheelabrator's hired-gun operatives (Jimmy Nakatani?) can be expected to pressure Council members -- but that is no reason to speculate in such an unsubstantiated manner that Mr Yoshimoto is at all susceptible to that pressure.
Indeed, the only 'yes' vote that has been explicitly supporting Wheelabrator is Mr Hoffmann. Both Mr Higa and Mr Ikeda have waffled and claimed to be not necessarily supporting Wheelabrator, but holding out hope that some sort of information (useful with or without Wheelabrator) would emerge from letting Wheelabrator continue to distract us.
If one wants to employ the smoking ban as a standard to gauge where the center of power ('pressure') lies between the Mayor and the Council, well, the Council handily over-rode the Mayor's veto of the smoking ban.
The Mayor is greatly weakened, Wheelabrator is being shown the door; and Mr Yoshimoto along with the other Wheelabrator and second-hand-tobacco-smoke opponents on the Council are firmly in control there -- that is the best news to be generated by the Hawaii County Council in a long time.
It is good news and get used to it :)
A more "up front" company might have had a better chance.
OK. I'm just saying that an incinerator would pollute the air (and land, through ash) far worse than cigarette smokers ever could. I'm not a smoker, by the way. Did you see the other day's Tribune-Herald article about the smoking-ban veto override? Jacobson and Ford claimed to be felled by a few wisps of errant smoke in the outdoors! We can't mitigate vog so lets go after a minority of smokers.