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Here's something that won't happen:
Open up the procurement process to allow more competition from smaller local contractors. At the present the procurement rules have it set for 2, maybe three, large contractors to bid based on capacity and insurance requirements.
A few years ago the Pahoa Community Center got an uplift... paint, a few termite riddled beams replaced, a septic system and a bunch of chain link fence. CoH did this for $800,000. What a bargin! Separate the items into individual bids, let small contractors compete and that number goes way, way down.
Then there is stuff like this: A few years back ADA requirements were being addressed. This involved curb cuts in Hiilo for wheelchair ramps at intersection corners. And a sidewalk was installed at Pahoa Community Center from the basket ball court to (the former) backstop at the baseball field.
Hilo handicap ramps were contracted at a budget of $58,000 each (costs $6,000 ea. in L.A.).
Pahoa handicap sidewalk (about 250') was contracted with a budget of $250,000 ($1,000 per linear foot).
So just how hard might it be to find $5 million in cuts in this environment without cutting services? You merely have to want to.
Assume the best and ask questions.
Punaweb moderator
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With the islands biggest tourist draw HVNP saying that Jagger Museum will never reopened and that it would take a long time after the eruption ends to reopen the park. That along with all the other scary news their broadcasting on the mainland. Tourism is going to be massively down.
If something isn’t done we are going to be in a full on economic depression worse than the housing crash a few years ago when they had furlough Friday and all that other BS
There will be no shortage of housing for evacuees because no one else is going to be able to pay their mortgage
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we are going to be in a full on economic depression
The only people who care about the problem are also the only people not empowered to solve the problem.
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Get rid of Hele - On bus as there are HUGE buses carrying ZERO passengers most of the time .Paying over 500K to the new mainland new comer to manage the Hele-On system is over kill.
Soon tourism will dry up and our economy will tank so mandatory cuts will or must be made.
Recession will soon be upon us by 2021 - far worse than the last time.
Yesterday the re striping of Hy Way 11 at the Kea'au - Pahoa turn off had 3 off duty L.E. holding signs saying slow and stop .Then there were 6 county and 4 state employees holding shovels and brooms and 3 state super visors doing nothing all day long.
So far the job has been 4 days long.
Big Money waste but from our raised gas taxes of 58.9 cents a gallon we surmise .
Go to Lapahoehoe park and see how many county and state employees sit drinking beer and talking story every single day till retirement.You will be amazed .Over a dozen .
Mrs.Mimosa
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http://www.hawaiitribune-herald.com/2018...d-june-29/
Special session of Council to try passing the GET increase again.
Get rid of Hele - On bus
Reminds me of this: a small town on the east coast had a capacity problem with the parking lot next to the train station due to the number of commuters who would drive across town and park there to ride the train into the city. The "obvious" solution was a multii-million-dollar bond issue to build a new parking lot. After running the numbers, the town figured out that it was orders of magnitude cheaper to just pay Uber fares for the commuters who needed to get to the train station.
I have often thought a hybrid approach would work here: run a few "backbone" Hele-On routes (eg, Pahoa-Keaau-Hilo) and pay Uber to bring people to/from the highway instead of sending the busses on twisty little routes that try to capture the most riders -- which also makes the bus journey so long that people will avoid taking the bus if they possibly can.
Of course, this requires "innovation" and "seeing the problem differently", which simply isn't "how things are done here".
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Rob Tucker @ 08:22:37 06/22/2018-
The County and its workforce are just an essentially a "private" employment agency,
a tropical version of a dysfunctional "private" WPA.
The reason for your examples above likely are: administering a multi-vendor contract
takes work, effort, knowledge and skill; kickbacks are more efficiently and easily
accomplished with one big contactor.
Any problem with the system? Raise taxes.
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The county may be a "make work" social service kept afloat by land scams, taxing haoles, and taking federal funds, but tell me: What else is keeping this island economy alive? And what would all those employees do if not work those jobs? Do you like civil unrest?
The value of these "jobs" is not necessarily in their output.
The county can solve their budget crisis by grandfathering in unpermitted structures and taxing them. Keep the gravy train moving.
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As I understand it, the county already taxes unpermitted structures, so that won't work. If the local economy really takes a long tank, some of those county employees will either face layoffs or reduced hours. During the Great Recession, they had furlough Fridays and it wasn't the end of anybody's world. Of course, this may or may not end up being worse. Time will tell.
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randomq @21:36:06 06/22/2018-
How about a REAL economy?
You know, little things like approving and building TMT,
utilizing geothermal (better done on the Leeward side),
actually building an agricultural infrastructure for food
production,and,on island small scale manufacturing to
support and service such activities?
In addition to the existing tourism and military and scams?
What are Kai Kahele and Donovan De la Cruz and friends plans?
Joy San Bonaventura, Valerie Poindexter, Harry Kim, Wil Okabe
and on and on?
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Chunkster, they could create a special higher rate (higher minimum, or not eligible for exemptions, etc) for "meets minimum safety requirements" vs "meets all code requirements". Besides, I am sure they do not have every unpermitted structure in Puna on the tax books yet.
Punaticbychoice, while I totally agree with you on the need for a real economy, that probably has to happen *before* we remove the fake one.
