quote:

---

Originally posted by dchanmer

Terracore, it seems like this method would work then on a large empty lot (like a one acre in HPP) as long as it was not close to power lines, roads or structures, yes?

Daniel Hanmer

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Punawild

The original post is in light blue, msky/Morgan's is in bold blue & mine is in red.
~~~~~

The GM got up and showed us all a "conceptual" drawing of what he wanted do for a green & solid waste dump site in HPP.

We don’t want a Waste Management Facility (is that an accurate enough term for you?) no matter how visually un-“offensive” it is. The way it looks isn’t the main problem. If management wants to save the green material for reuse then it needs to be chipped on site. Which is easy enough to do, just hire people that want to do the job the right way rather than the cheapest. Because as we've seen from this fiasco going the cheap route ends up costing more in the long run.

This mass of green-waste was not the norm. I mean, in all your years of living here have you ever seen anything like it? It was the result of a paving project that required the widening of that particular road. Finding a chipper and people to operate it in a short period of time is not that easy. Not to worry, we have all been educated and will not repeat the procedure.


2) with a dump site there would be a worry of polluted run off, so would we need environmental reports? ground water testing? etc

Did I miss someone saying the dump site would be for public use? Okay so the “mostly green-waste” wouldn’t be a problem from ground water...What about the “refrigerators and couches, TVs, tires, etc” would they not have a potentially harmful effect on ground water?


None of these (maybe the fridge) "leak" harmful elements into groundwater, especially if they are stored for short periods until they are hauled away to Hilo. And "groundwater" issues in Hawaii aren't the same as they are on the mainland. But that would be for an environmental engineer to address.

Why is having the one day a week pick up such a hardship that the office feels the need to temporarily store it?

It's not a hardship for the office or road crew. The road crew actually prefers not to have to go out everyday to pick up rubbish. It's a hardship for the residents that call us to come pick the item up NOW. We try to solve problems as soon as possible. But now we have to explain that it will have to wait till Friday. And if the call comes in late on Friday after the guys have already left for town, then they'll have to wait until the following Friday. You may personally be ok with that but I assure you that there are those in HPP that will be VERY upset.


Maybe HPP would be better served if the road crews spent less time sitting in parked trucks with the engines running, doing nothing or up in Orchidland at Blane’s (nowhere NEAR lunch time). I’m sure they could easily fit in a trip to Hilo once a week into that, apparent, free time.

You may not know...or care...but employees are entitled to, by law, 2 fifteen minute breaks and a half hour for lunch. You don't know what time they take lunch. Most of the time they take lunch when they can, not at any specific time. They can't always come back to the shop to take their breaks or lunch. They may have just come from a dump-run in Hilo and stopped to pick up lunch to eat later. Please don't make assumptions about the employees without gathering all the facts. The employees are not the problem with HPP as so many out there would prefer to believe.

Hmm, once again it’s the wordage you have a problem with. :-\ Wikipedia says "Town centers are traditionally associated with shopping or retail." while “Shopping centers are an area or complex of stores with adjacent parking." So, what exactly is your objection to using the terms interchangeably?

I see "Town Centers" as much smaller than Shopping Centers. And they are described in the Master Plan as follows ...."It is proposed in this Master Plan that three of those 20-acre parcels be designated as "Village Centers" and zoned for mixed use. The HPP community envisions each Village Center as a small neighborhood shopping and professional services center surrounding a village green. Typical commercial establishments would be small food stores, fruit and vegetable outlets, variety stores, hardware stores, small clothing stores, professional offices, small restaurants, branch banks."
I see Shopping Centers as something like Kuhio Mall.

*sigh* I don’t believe that anyone said anything about wages increasing by 100%.

Yes, I have already been corrected for my mis-quote.

Clearly that shows MORE of our money is going to employees than to maintaining our roads. The only way that could be “false and misleading information” is if there was a mess up in the HPPOA office, since they are the ones that wrote & posted the Financial statement.

or if he was misinterpreting the information. The office only prints out the reports that the Treasurer requests. We don't make up the information.

Oh, there was also some talk about there being a great deal of the stuff on HPPOA.com that is out of date or just plain missing in action. Heck, even the online newsletter is MONTHS behind schedule.

It’s nice that someone has volunteered to do the newsletter but if they are unable to get a page or two out in a timely manner, just 3x a year, then maybe they’ve over extended themselves and should cut back.

As you stated...."The Association shall prepare and publish not less than three times annually, a newsletter.....". The person doing the newsletter tried in vain to get help because she knew she was overextended, but rather than have NO newsletter she kept doing it and managed to get the three issues out. Each issue is online. I believe only one, a January update is mailed out with the January bill because of the cost involved. We have offered the option for those without internet to send a self addressed envelope and $1 if they want us to mail them a copy.

The purpose of the website is to make available as much information relevant to HPPOA members as possible. The contents shall include, but are not limited to: HPPOA bylaws; fiscal schedule; minutes of board and membership meetings; motions and resolutions passed by the board and at membership meetings; motions tracking log; legal actions, reports and files; Association policies; current directors list; current committee list, notifications and agendas for upcoming board and membership meetings; fiscal year-end financial statement; three-year capital improvement plan; the most current approved road and non-roads budgets; an annual state of the roads report; calendar of events; the Fiscal Statement; Annual Update; and the newsletter." There are members all over the world that get no communication from HPPOA except road maintenance bills. Wouldn't it be nice if they were able to go to the website and actually find current information about what's going on in HPP?

So what's missing? The original....and never modified....contract for the website monthly maintenance is "Updating of minutes of all future monthly meeting pages. Updating of the monthly Activity Center Calendar". Everything else suddenly appeared in the Bylaws with no consultation or fee increase with the person that created and maintains the website....which is not done on company time.

Sadly, there are a number of owners that have had some really unpleasant experiences trying to get information out of the HPPOA office.

Have you ever gone down to the Hawaii Property Tax office or The Helco Office and asked to see their records? You pay them fees. Why won't they give you everything you ask for? I'm sorry but the HPP Association is a BUSINESS and not all information is available to the public. It's just poor practice.

Or we are quoted ridiculous prices for copies when paperwork is requested.

Those prices were voted on and approved on by a previous Board in order to keep people from taking up too much office time looking up and making copies of everything they want. There is a form you can fill out for specific items and the reasons for them. But we are busy and need time to find these things for you. And there is plenty more information available for you to look at....but not copy and take out of the office. We are not "hiding" anything from the public. We are running a business.

[red]Add to that the way our questions at meetings are, so often, either ignored or just get a shrug & a puzzled face. So, who are we? We're owners that are getting pretty frustrated with paying people that show us very little respect.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Punawild

The original post is in light blue, msky/Morgan's are in bold blue and black & mine are in red & green.
~~~~~

The GM got up and showed us all a "conceptual" drawing of what he wanted do for a green & solid waste dump site in HPP.

We don’t want a Waste Management Facility (is that an accurate enough term for you?) no matter how visually un-“offensive” it is. The way it looks isn’t the main problem. If management wants to save the green material for reuse then it needs to be chipped on site. Which is easy enough to do, just hire people that want to do the job the right way rather than the cheapest. Because as we've seen from this fiasco going the cheap route ends up costing more in the long run.

This mass of green-waste was not the norm. I mean, in all your years of living here have you ever seen anything like it? It was the result of a paving project that required the widening of that particular road. Finding a chipper and people to operate it in a short period of time is not that easy. Not to worry, we have all been educated and will not repeat the procedure.

No, I haven't ever seen it this bad. There have been many other paving projects and it wasn't until this management decided to do something without looking into the legalities of what they wanted do that we had a problem. Hiring someone with the cheapest price because they were only, actually, doing part of the job rather then someone that asked for more money because they were doing the WHOLE job. How does that make any sense? IMO, there was something majorly wrong/faulty in that decision making process. When there's a small tree that needs taking down you can call the dinky, cheap tree business that only has a chainsaw & a machete in the back of their mini pickup. But when there's a big job you hire the more expensive guys that come with the boom trucks & a chipper. You don't just hire the cheap guys & hope that one day some generous shmuck will buy you a chipper. It's this clear lack of due diligence that makes me question the ability of the current people in the HHPOA office.


2) with a dump site there would be a worry of polluted run off, so would we need environmental reports? ground water testing? etc

Did I miss someone saying the dump site would be for public use? Okay so the “mostly green-waste” wouldn’t be a problem from ground water...What about the “refrigerators and couches, TVs, tires, etc” would they not have a potentially harmful effect on ground water?

None of these (maybe the fridge) "leak" harmful elements into groundwater, especially if they are stored for short periods until they are hauled away to Hilo. And "groundwater" issues in Hawaii aren't the same as they are on the mainland. But that would be for an environmental engineer to address.

So is it "none" of the things or is it some of them that might leak? :-\ It's not just the big items you'd have to worry about either, who knows what is in the garbage bags that are picked up. We already have an environmental engineer, he's the one who "disagreed" with the DOH and "their interpretation of the law". Why should we trust anything he has to say? Who knows what law interpretation he'll disagree with next?


Why is having the one day a week pick up such a hardship that the office feels the need to temporarily store it?

It's not a hardship for the office or road crew. The road crew actually prefers not to have to go out everyday to pick up rubbish. It's a hardship for the residents that call us to come pick the item up NOW. We try to solve problems as soon as possible. But now we have to explain that it will have to wait till Friday. And if the call comes in late on Friday after the guys have already left for town, then they'll have to wait until the following Friday. You may personally be ok with that but I assure you that there are those in HPP that will be VERY upset.


People all over the country have scheduled days for trash pickup. I think they'll survive. I know that you may, personally, be okay with a Waste Management Facility here but I assure you that there are those in HPP that would be VERY upset.

Maybe HPP would be better served if the road crews spent less time sitting in parked trucks with the engines running, doing nothing or up in Orchidland at Blane’s (nowhere NEAR lunch time). I’m sure they could easily fit in a trip to Hilo once a week into that, apparent, free time.

You may not know...or care...but employees are entitled to, by law, 2 fifteen minute breaks and a half hour for lunch. You don't know what time they take lunch. Most of the time they take lunch when they can, not at any specific time. They can't always come back to the shop to take their breaks or lunch. They may have just come from a dump-run in Hilo and stopped to pick up lunch to eat later. Please don't make assumptions about the employees without gathering all the facts. The employees are not the problem with HPP as so many out there would prefer to believe.

I do know and care which is why I didn't mention the number of times the road crews have been seen having their lunch, picnicking with their families on the side of the road. But, you know, even if they were on a break or eating lunch there is absolutely NO reason for them to be doing either with the truck running, wasting gas. Last time I saw one I drove by him at the top of Paradise, came back 20+ minutes later & the guy was still sitting there, engine STILL running, window down, doing nothing. Those are the facts.


Hmm, once again it’s the wordage you have a problem with. :-\ Wikipedia says "Town centers are traditionally associated with shopping or retail." while “Shopping centers are an area or complex of stores with adjacent parking." So, what exactly is your objection to using the terms interchangeably?

I see "Town Centers" as much smaller than Shopping Centers. And they are described in the Master Plan as follows ...."It is proposed in this Master Plan that three of those 20-acre parcels be designated as "Village Centers" and zoned for mixed use. The HPP community envisions each Village Center as a small neighborhood shopping and professional services center surrounding a village green. Typical commercial establishments would be small food stores, fruit and vegetable outlets, variety stores, hardware stores, small clothing stores, professional offices, small restaurants, branch banks."
I see Shopping Centers as something like Kuhio Mall.

Okay, so now it's a Village Center? "I see Shopping Centers as something like Kuhio Mall. " So, you're saying that shopping here would be smaller then the Keaau Shopping Center?


*sigh* I don’t believe that anyone said anything about wages increasing by 100%.

Yes, I have already been corrected for my mis-quote.

Clearly that shows MORE of our money is going to employees than to maintaining our roads. The only way that could be “false and misleading information” is if there was a mess up in the HPPOA office, since they are the ones that wrote & posted the Financial statement.

or if he was misinterpreting the information. The office only prints out the reports that the Treasurer requests. We don't make up the information.

Well, since the numbers I posted came straight from the handout given at the membership meeting... http://i60.tinypic.com/9qwpig.jpg


Oh, there was also some talk about there being a great deal of the stuff on HPPOA.com that is out of date or just plain missing in action. Heck, even the online newsletter is MONTHS behind schedule.

It’s nice that someone has volunteered to do the newsletter but if they are unable to get a page or two out in a timely manner, just 3x a year, then maybe they’ve over extended themselves and should cut back.

As you stated...."The Association shall prepare and publish not less than three times annually, a newsletter.....". The person doing the newsletter tried in vain to get help because she knew she was overextended, but rather than have NO newsletter she kept doing it and managed to get the three issues out. Each issue is online. I believe only one, a January update is mailed out with the January bill because of the cost involved. We have offered the option for those without internet to send a self addressed envelope and $1 if they want us to mail them a copy.

There is not three out, nor have I seen, anywhere, back issues (I may be misunderstanding your "Each issue is online." comment. Maybe you mean they have been online?) The only Conch Newsletter I can find on the website is from way back in January. (As you should know since you "do" the website.) The next one, according to the bylaws, should have been published in May and we are only two months away from when the next one should be out. Any chance of that one actually happening? Since people are only sent them if they pay you extra it would nice if the current newsletter actually was online.


The purpose of the website is to make available as much information relevant to HPPOA members as possible. The contents shall include, but are not limited to: HPPOA bylaws; fiscal schedule; minutes of board and membership meetings; motions and resolutions passed by the board and at membership meetings; motions tracking log; legal actions, reports and files; Association policies; current directors list; current committee list, notifications and agendas for upcoming board and membership meetings; fiscal year-end financial statement; three-year capital improvement plan; the most current approved road and non-roads budgets; an annual state of the roads report; calendar of events; the Fiscal Statement; Annual Update; and the newsletter." There are members all over the world that get no communication from HPPOA except road maintenance bills. Wouldn't it be nice if they were able to go to the website and actually find current information about what's going on in HPP?

So what's missing? The original....and never modified....contract for the website monthly maintenance is "Updating of minutes of all future monthly meeting pages. Updating of the monthly Activity Center Calendar". Everything else suddenly appeared in the Bylaws with no consultation or fee increase with the person that created and maintains the website....which is not done on company time.

You keep stating that it's "not done on company time" well, maybe it should be if that's the only way to insure that information is put up in a timely manner. It is nice that you've actually managed to get the meeting minutes up to, almost, current though.


Sadly, there are a number of owners that have had some really unpleasant experiences trying to get information out of the HPPOA office.

Have you ever gone down to the Hawaii Property Tax office or The Helco Office and asked to see their records? You pay them fees. Why won't they give you everything you ask for? I'm sorry but the HPP Association is a BUSINESS and not all information is available to the public. It's just poor practice.

Of course you pay them but the price is the same no matter who is asking and if they don't have the info on hand you can count on them actually looking for it and getting a hold of you when they have it. Since those places are businesses and actually run as such. From what I've seen and heard the same can not be said for the HPPOA.


Or we are quoted ridiculous prices for copies when paperwork is requested.

Those prices were voted on and approved on by a previous Board in order to keep people from taking up too much office time looking up and making copies of everything they want. There is a form you can fill out for specific items and the reasons for them. But we are busy and need time to find these things for you. And there is plenty more information available for you to look at....but not copy and take out of the office. We are not "hiding" anything from the public. We are running a business.

Actually, you work for a non-profit. When was the last time anyone in the office read the mission statement? "To foster unity, harmony, communication and the Aloha spirit amongst the members and neighbors to ensure legal and fiscal integrity in all our actions and polices with primary attention to road and administrative operations with the best use of Assn. assets and to protect and preserve Aina and rural surroundings to serve the needs and interests of the community." http://www2.guidestar.org/organizations/23-7260727/hawaiian-paradise-park-owners-association.aspx#


[red]Add to that the way our questions at meetings are, so often, either ignored or just get a shrug & a puzzled face. So, who are we? We're owners that are getting pretty frustrated with paying people that show us very little respect.

As are we...I am not speaking for the BOD. If you get a shrug and puzzled faces at the meetings, it's not from the employees. Cathy & I are sitting in the back biting our tongues wanting to respond to your questions and offer explanations when it might be helpful, but we're not allowed to.

You already stated no one in the office actually lives in HPP so what reason, exactly, do you have for even being at the meeting. If you are being paid to be there maybe you should tell the higher ups that the time you sit there 'biting your tongue' would be better served working on the website...

---