NAWILIWILI — Recycling, The Kaua‘i Bus, lifeguards, the county auditor and other topics were on the minds of Kauaians at the last County Council public hearing on the county operating budget before Mayor Bernard Carvalho Jr. today delivers his final version to councilmembers.
The Kaua‘i County Council Wednesday at the council chambers here gave members of the community the last opportunity to testify on Carvalho’s proposed operating budget for fiscal year 2011.
Councilmembers will have the weekend to review the thick binder containing the proposed budget for FY11, and will make decisions on it Monday and Tuesday, before sending it back to the mayor. Fiscal year 2010-11 starts July 1.
Lawa‘i Valley’s Stu Burley showed concern that the recycling-coordinator position was downgraded to specialist, a move that will save the county roughly $19,000.
“Being a manager all my life, it sounds like that isn’t the type of position that you’d want in there in dealing with recycling and solid-waste problem that we have here in this island,” Burley said.
“What I really like to recommend is to consider a recycling manager,” Burley said.
Burley said a manager with a degree in environmental sciences would be more involved in designing and implementing solutions to better Kaua‘i.
His concerns echoed through in other testimonies.
“Bringing another recycle specialist onboard rather than hiring experienced staff to provide the leadership and direction necessary would actually be counter productive,” said John Harder, chairman of Zero Waste Kaua‘i, a local nonprofit group advocating sustainable solid-waste practices.
“Recycling specialist is essentially one step above an entry-level position, and will require considerable training and oversight by the solid waste development program coordinator,” said Harder.
At a time when the recycling-coordinator position remains unfilled, said Harder, and the program is “overwhelmed” with existing and proposed projects, inexperienced staff will bring additional burden on the solid-waste program.
Harder said that to achieve the experience level of a recycling coordinator takes somewhere between four to five years.
“We need someone who can manage programs, not just give out information and educate people,” Harder said.
A program coordinator is also a person who can manage projects, said Harder, adding that the position should have the capacity to oversee “some critical and fairly-large contracts.”
“Having adequately trained and experienced staff onboard that can manage those contracts could save the county much more than $19,000 in the first year,” Harder said.
Pat Gegan said he concurred with Burley and Harder regarding the need for a recycling coordinator rather than a specialist.
Expand The Kaua‘i Bus
“My focus is really on the bus. This evening I would like to take the bus, but I don’t know how long I’ll be here,” Gegan said.
Gegan said his wife uses the bus to get to work. “It’s fabulous.”
He asked for expansion and better funding of bus services.
“In these hard times for Kaua‘i residents, the bus is becoming much more important. The ridership numbers show it,” he said.
Don’t furlough lifeguards
Emergency room doctor at Wilcox Hospital, Dr. Marty Downs, co-chair of the Kaua‘i Water Safety Task Force, showed a drowning map to councilmembers.
“Each dot is a person, a mother, a father, a son, a daughter, husband or wife,” he said.
Downs said since 1990 there have been 166 drowning deaths, compared to 144 traffic deaths. “Drowning is the No. 1 cause of trauma deaths on Kaua‘i.
“The ocean is relentless. I feel that we have to be relentless in our attention to try to make it safer for our people and for the visitors,” Downs said.
Downs asked that lifeguards not get furloughed because they are as essential for public safety as police and firefighters, who will not be subject to furlough.
“You can be sure that I’ll try to do whatever I can in those areas of life-safety,” Councilman Jay Furfaro said.
Burley said that are ways in which lifeguards are already separated from Hawaii Government Employees Association union members.
He said in 1994, lifeguards were not allowed to join a strike because of public-safety reasons. He also said lifeguards are subject to drug testing, unlike other HGEA members.
Furfaro said that currently the provision denying lifeguards the ability to strike has been taken away.
Update General Plan
Diane Zachary, president and chief executive officer of the Kaua‘i Planning and Action Alliance, said the county has been a “great partner” of the nonprofit organization since it started in 2003, and they have worked closely together in a number of projects.
Zachary recommended that the council maintain the $800,000 requested to update the county’s General Plan.
She said a new plan needs to set clearer goals to help decrease vulnerability to factors such as costs of fossil fuel and food, and loss of jobs.
“We have an opportunity to create a new plan model that explicitly builds on the principles of sustainability and smart growth, and incorporates a set of metrics to determine how we’re doing that,” Zachary said.
Budget and Finance Committee Chair Daryl Kaneshiro said he had five other pieces of written testimony that will be taken into consideration when reviewing the budget.
One of those testimonies came from former Mayor and Councilwoman JoAnn Yukimura, who was present but had to leave early for personal reasons. Yukimura will be running for a council seat in the elections later this year.
On her testimony, Yukimura covered the same concerns regarding the downgrading of the recycling-coordinator position.
Yukimura said that doing a feasibility study for a materials recovery facility would be a waste of time and money. Instead, a plan already presented by the nonprofit Eco-Cycle to Furfaro could be modified to fit Kaua‘i.
Giving extra funding to The Kaua‘i Bus and exempting its workers from furloughs would help struggling families and also keep cars off the road, Yukimura’s testimony said.
Yukimura also stated that she was unable to find any announcement of the public hearing on the council’s website. Although it is not legally required, she suggested that procedures be established to make sure that all public hearings are posted online.
Auditor needs more bodies
State Auditor Marion Higa was on Kaua‘i to conduct special training at the County Auditor Office, and she also took the stand to give testimony, which was more a sharing of several years of experience rather than insights on Carvalho’s budget.
Higa did tell councilmembers, though, that Kaua‘i should have two auditors, one who can conduct investigations and a second who checks the first one. Those auditors should also have a manager and someone to carry on production work.
Currently there are only two staff in the County Auditor Office, Auditor Ernesto Pasion said.
• Léo Azambuja, staff writer, can be reached at 245-3681 (ext. 252) or lazambuja@kauaipubco.com.
