Governor supports PMRF

Gov. Linda Lingle said Tuesday at a meeting with editors and reporters in her executive chambers in the State Capitol that she supports the work of the Pacific Missile Range Facility. Lingle said base commander Capt. Jeff Connelly is doing a good job in reaching out to the Kaua’i community.

She said PMRF is critical to the development of high-tech jobs in Hawai’i, and to the economy of the Westside and the rest of the island.

Many important changes have been made in the way state government works, Lingle said, despite the lack of creation of new laws that were initiated by her administration in its first year in office. Among her accomplishments helping Kaua’i residents is a change in animal quarantine laws, new ways to use Medicare so elderly can leave acute care facilities and be cared for at home, millions in Homeland Security funding, and having state safety inspectors be proactive in helping businesses rather than focusing on issuing fines. She said former County Attorney Kathleen Watanabe, now head of Human Resources in Lingle’s cabinet, is heading up a cutting-edge “leadership academy” for those entering adminstrative positions in state government.

Lingle said her Neighbor Island advisory committees are keeping her in touch with issues on Kaua’i and other Neighbhor Islands, and that committee members have direct access to state department heads. She said she has made 34 trips to the Neighbor Islands over the past year, and plans to make more to Kaua’i in 2004. Lingle said she has weekly telephone conversations with Mayor Bryan Baptiste, and that Baptiste joins other Neighbor Island mayors with her in Honolulu. Lingle predicted that Mayor Bryan Baptiste will opt out of a Democratic legislative proposal to trade Transient Accommodation Tax funds for a boost in general excise taxes on Kaua’i.

She also said that Kaua’i shouldn’t be taxed for a rail transportation project now being proposed for O’ahu.

Lingle said she is working on a plan to lower gas prices in Hawai’i, but said the proposal isn’t yet ready to make public.

She said the problem of affordable housing is a statewide one, and that Baptiste and other mayors are concerned about it. Lingle said meetings are being held with the state Department of Land and Natural Resources and other state agencies with farmers to try to work up a way to better protect prime agricultural lands.

TGI Editor Chris Cook can be reached at 245-3681 Ext. 227 or mailto:ccook@pulitzer.net.