Fred Blas Report Card

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However, Fred was elected to represent ALL of Puna (which he doesn't even attempt to do), while the 2 new Puna county council positions will each be representing about half of Puna, and HPP will make up over half of one of those districts. There is a big difference between solely focusing on an already better served area like Fred's neighborhood, with far less than even 25% of the district population, and looking out for the concerns of half of your constituents who happen to live in one neighborhood.

HPP has been a source of ever increasing tax revenue for Hawaii county, and has seen little in return. The issues that needed to be worked out concerning a park for HPP were resolvable, if there had been leadership shown by our county council representative. Instead, he saw those issues as being an excuse to grab the money for his pet project in his own neighborhood. I was very disappointed that Fred made no effort to help work things out, but instead publicly advocated using the money elsewhere, before the HPP board had even met to discuss handing over 20 acres which is jointly owned by all the lot owners in HPP. That is not leadership or working well with the people who pay his salary, and his office staff's salaries.

Now that Puna will have 2 council seats I hope we get the kind of effective representation that can help counter the Hilo centric perspective that has dominated the council in the past. The growing population of Puna needs jobs and well planned commercial development here in Puna, not a continuation of the narrow perspective that everyone in Puna should just drive to Hilo for work, play, education, and shopping. We need county councilors who can work well with the whole council and ALL of their constituents to see we get that.

Carol