08-16-2012, 07:02 PM
Obie,
With all due respect, rare is the occasion when you can translate what happens "in the real world" with what can be done here in Hawaii. I say this partly cynically and partly because there are many valid cultural, geographic, political, financial and numerous other considerations that exist in Hawaii and not in what you call "the real world." For example, as I understand it, bringing a road (and other infrastructure) up to official county standards doesn't force the county to accept it and undertake its perpetual maintenance -- it's just table stakes that makes assumption of the road eligible for consideration. The County doesn't have enough money to meet its current obligations, so why should it willingly agree to take on more obligations if it can possibly avoid it. And when 80% of the total property value (the basis of taxes) in on the west side of the Island, you can be sure that any substantial increase of expenditures on the Windward side would not come without a fight.
The bottom line is, there are no easy answers to solve a problem created before many of Puna's residents were born.
With all due respect, rare is the occasion when you can translate what happens "in the real world" with what can be done here in Hawaii. I say this partly cynically and partly because there are many valid cultural, geographic, political, financial and numerous other considerations that exist in Hawaii and not in what you call "the real world." For example, as I understand it, bringing a road (and other infrastructure) up to official county standards doesn't force the county to accept it and undertake its perpetual maintenance -- it's just table stakes that makes assumption of the road eligible for consideration. The County doesn't have enough money to meet its current obligations, so why should it willingly agree to take on more obligations if it can possibly avoid it. And when 80% of the total property value (the basis of taxes) in on the west side of the Island, you can be sure that any substantial increase of expenditures on the Windward side would not come without a fight.
The bottom line is, there are no easy answers to solve a problem created before many of Puna's residents were born.