State warns HPP for dust violation

[macuu222]

This is stupid. How in the world is HPP going to control dust on all its cinder roads unless they pave every one of them? And if that happens...the yearly road maintainence fee would be 10 times what it is now....Why aren't the roads in orchidland, or hawaiian acres or Hawaiian Ocean View estates included?

http://www.westhawaiitoday.com/sections/...tions.html

[csgray]

Didn't the people who complained to the Health department notice they were buying a house on a gravel road before they bought? Every subdivision in Puna with gravel roads better take notice, we all have dust.

Carol

[Rob Tucker]

It is my understanding that some HPP resident(s) have filed a complaint with the state Health Department regarding the dust issue.

The DoH is compelled by law to respond to the complaint(s).

The issue itself may rebound badly for the County of Hawaii which failed to follow the law in 1959 when HPP and other subdivisions were formed. The laws in place at the time had a number of requirements for road construction. Most all those requirements were ignored allowing the developers to make max dollars with minimal cost. Helene Hale, probably the last surviving member of the then Board of Supervisors, has explained that they looked at Puna as a source of taxes and never expected people to actually move there and need infrastructure or services. Fifty years after the fact the results of such short sightedness has become apparent.

I don't intend to condemn Helene Hale. She is honest about what took place. That was then and this is now.

If the HPP BoD was to be sued or taken to court on the dust issue I would suggest that they file a counter suit against the county. I think the county would have a hard time defending itself. HPP might be the only subdivision with the financial ability to do this.

Friends of Puna's Future (FoPF) has been working hard the last few years to help the subdivisions gain access to a reasonable share of the Fuel Tax Revenue collected by the state. Those funds are intended by law for road maintenance. Approx. 40% of the county roadways are in private subdivision. About 750 miles worth. Driving on those roads generates fuel tax.

Councilman Dominic Yagong has taken lead on the county to pursue this. He is working to bring financial assistance to HPP and other subdivision for road maintenance. It is the right thing to do. Dominic has shown over the years an ability to look beyond his district to the county as a whole. He has also shown an ability to look forward into the future beyond the immediate.

Billy Kenoi has done nothing. His apparent priority is to keep things just the way they are for as long as possible.

Best thing anyone concerned with this dust issue can do, in my opinion, is support Dominic Yangong's run for Mayor.

[dwedeking]

Move to the country and then complain about being in the country? I'm going to side with macuu and csgray on this one. Don't move where you live on a dirt road if you don't want to live on a dirt road.

http://www.wedekingphotography.com

[EightFingers]

I never noticed the dust being bad, maybe during "rush hour". Couldn't someone build a house farther back on the lot and maybe have some trees between it and the street? Or maybe build on a dead-end street with little to no traffic?
Is this an indirect way to get the county to pave the roads?
As to the road fees going up, I thought they were only allowed to go up no more then 10% a year.

[csgray]

When it hasn't rained in a while and people drive fast there are pretty good dust clouds kicked up. Having grown up on country roads I knew to look at houses on the makai side of the road since the trades push the dust up hill. Vegetation can help a lot, but dust is a reality on unpaved roads. Are all the county roads paved, or are they exempt from this regulation?

Carol

[Rob Tucker]

It is my understanding that there are EPA or some other type rules about generation of off-site dust. Probably intended for enforcement of gravel pits or construction sites.... but those regs are not completely clear and may be being applied as a complaint against HPP.

[JerryCarr]

I was at some of the HPPOA meetings when the dust issue was first brought forward in terms of filing legal complaints with the state, as opposed to simply griping about it verbally. The militant presentation of these complaints began when the board was in the process of designating a new round of roads to be paved. Everyone knew by this time that only about a third of the roads in HPP could be paved with the $12M bond, and that the group being considered would be among the last roads paved. So it seemed obvious to many of us that the threats of formal complaints with the state were designed to influence that decision in favor of paving the road where the complaining parties live. They all seemed to be from a single road in the upper part of HPP.

Next began a process that was very unflattering for both the BOD and the complainants. The complainants presented their own traffic survey of their road, which was wildly inaccurate and refuted by the BOD's own survey. (Both surveys were informal, without benefit of mechanical traffic counters BTW. Oddly, HPP has one of these machines, but rarely uses it.)

The BOD, not liking the heat, resorted to having discussions about which roads to pave in executive session. I complained about this in open session, and they scheduled an open meeting to discuss the issue. At the open meeting, the rationale for choosing roads to pave was described in cogent detail, but the actual roads to be paved were imbedded in a spreadsheet so complicated and obtuse that most of us could not figure it out until later. (A professional office administrator and myself with a combined 30 years experience with spreadsheets only decyphered it twenty minutes after the meeting was over.) The board president did not announce which roads were being paved, which was everyone was there for, but adjourned to executive session without a motion (or second) to adjourn which was a clear violation of Roberts Rules and the Association by-laws. In exec, they approved a list of roads.

Now as if this all were not bad enough, the minority on the BOD who had opposed the secretive deliberations, did not protest the illegal adjournment or the violation of the by-laws provision on executive sessions. They shuffled into the back room with the rest and joined in the vote. That was the point that I realized that this was all pretty hopeless. I have since reduced my frustration level by lowering my exposure to this group. For those of you who may have missed my email meeting reports, I apologize for not explaining this sooner. I'm taking a break from the insanity.

The lack of competency and backbone on the HPP board is directly proportional to the apathy shown by the lot owners. Having followed board elections for ten years now, I can tell you all that quite a few races have been uncontested and voter turnout in contested races has ranged from 11% to 18%, mostly trending toward the lower end of that range. Until more people participate, it will likely remain this way. As for running for the BOD myself, I may consider it in the future, but until he lost the last election, my own district representative was one of the few whom I could trust overall, although we did have disagreements. I am convinced that he lost because he was an incumbent and there is a high level of general dissatisfaction. If only that could be turned into wholesale change!

Sorry for the rant, folks. As for the dust issue that set me off, some good could come out of it. If, as Rob hopes, the BOD rises to the occasion and parlays a legal crisis into a ground-breaking decision on the whole Puna subdivision conundrum, it could profoundly change a lingering mess for the better. If the HPPOA is forced into receivership by massive fines, the stewardship of the association would be placed in court-appointede hands. Either would be a big change, but you can make up your own minds as to which is more likely.

[Rob Tucker]

Thanks Jerry...

[coppercoin40]

wow! this makes me think that it would be best to stay away from any home purchase in a subdivision with association dues.