06-15-2012, 04:55 AM
Opihikao makes an excellent point about drafting legislation, but there has been no need to wait for the second Puna council member to come on line for that. Can anybody name a piece of substantial legislation Fred has introduced, never mind gotten passed? He even has a full-time, talented Legislative Aide, Barbara Lively, who could do the bill writing for him. My guess as to why is that Fred consistently comes up lacking in the "vision" department. He seems to function in the nuts and bolts world of building bus shelters and repaving the occasional stretch of road. Puna is so deficient in so many areas of local government service, that it really needs a leader with big picture view of things. I don't see us getting that from Fred.
Instead, he has fallen back on Emily Naeole's strategy of tapping of the geothermal fund to be able to say he has brought home some bacon. While this is better than nothing, it keeps us on the fringe of the budgeting process while other districts without geothermal funds get their projects through building productive legislative alliances. What Fred gets in return for some of his votes is beyond me. Adding to the problem is the fact that Dominic Yagong has introduced legislation that will restrict the geothermal fund to something closer to its original purpose. What will Fred do then?
Like others have said before me, if one isn't in Hawaiian Beaches or Pahoa town, Fred has done very little, even in the concrete world where he functions best. He has recently made some rather late gestures toward HPP, the largest single population center in the district. (In fairness, I have to say the HPP is often its own worst enemy with fragmented, ineffective leadership that shows little sign of improvement.) He has offered to help HPP turn over Makuu Drive to the County, but that is of almost no use if Fred is the only person in a position of authority to support it. In meetings with HPP, he has shown a shocking degree of ignorance about the legally mandated structure of the largest subdivision in Puna. He even published a campaign ad with incorrect information about HPP's situation regarding Highway 130 and crime reduction. I will comment on the distortions in that in a later post.
For now, I will just say that I still haven't decided which candidate to support in the coming election. All three of them have deficiencies IMHO. I can say that Fred is the least likely of them to get my vote unless I see some dramatic improvement in the vision department.
Instead, he has fallen back on Emily Naeole's strategy of tapping of the geothermal fund to be able to say he has brought home some bacon. While this is better than nothing, it keeps us on the fringe of the budgeting process while other districts without geothermal funds get their projects through building productive legislative alliances. What Fred gets in return for some of his votes is beyond me. Adding to the problem is the fact that Dominic Yagong has introduced legislation that will restrict the geothermal fund to something closer to its original purpose. What will Fred do then?
Like others have said before me, if one isn't in Hawaiian Beaches or Pahoa town, Fred has done very little, even in the concrete world where he functions best. He has recently made some rather late gestures toward HPP, the largest single population center in the district. (In fairness, I have to say the HPP is often its own worst enemy with fragmented, ineffective leadership that shows little sign of improvement.) He has offered to help HPP turn over Makuu Drive to the County, but that is of almost no use if Fred is the only person in a position of authority to support it. In meetings with HPP, he has shown a shocking degree of ignorance about the legally mandated structure of the largest subdivision in Puna. He even published a campaign ad with incorrect information about HPP's situation regarding Highway 130 and crime reduction. I will comment on the distortions in that in a later post.
For now, I will just say that I still haven't decided which candidate to support in the coming election. All three of them have deficiencies IMHO. I can say that Fred is the least likely of them to get my vote unless I see some dramatic improvement in the vision department.