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It's baaaack.
http://www.hawaiitribune-herald.com/news...y-projects
slightly more than half, $50 million, will go for 18 projects ... new facilities ranging ... to a community park in Hawaiian Paradise Park.
I wonder where the money will actually be spent after HPP rejects the park again?
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$1 million to design an office for the county prosecutor at the West Hawaii Civic Center
Am I reading this right? A million to design an office in an already existing building?
The county will pay another $750,000 on top of the bond issue for the cost of issuing the bonds.
Seems steep for issuing bonds, but I have zero experience issuing bonds so who knows?
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Yes, it costs $1M to design an office, but only $5K to build bus shelters and come up with an "island-wide master plan" for the bus routes.
DEM projects like "the Hilo sewer outfall repair" should probably be funded directly by those ratepayers, not the general public.
"Affordable" housing gets $2.5M. Maybe the prosecutor could work from home?
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Maybe the prosecutor could work from home?
The million $ might be cheaper in the long run.
A few years ago there was a woman in Honolulu who worked for a non-profit with a $100,000 salary. She also rented out a one room office in her home to the non-profit agency at $8000 per month. She said she just couldn't get all her work completed between 9-5.
"I'm at that stage in life where I stay out of discussions. Even if you say 1+1=5, you're right - have fun." - Keanu Reeves
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But the debt payment is less than 8% of the budget.
The new bond takes this over 13%, but no matter...
the biggest perceived problems are lack of parks
Perhaps -- but there seems to be some disconnect between "parks people want" and "parks County will build". Two examples. I would really like to see a survey of what people actually want.
http://www.hawaiitribune-herald.com/news...sport-park
http://westhawaiitoday.com/opinion/lette...ers-7-5-15
(see last letter re "What about Kahaluu beach?")
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quote:
Originally posted by kalakoa
... there seems to be some disconnect between "parks people want" and "parks County will build".
Very astute point.
The "indoor playcourts" pushed onto (not sought by the people of) Pahoa (who wanted trails and children's playgrounds) are the same "indoor playcourts" the County attempted to push onto (and were not sought by the people of) HPP (who wanted trails and swimming and children's playgrounds) are the same as "indoor playcourts" built in Panaewa.
Lots of money to pay for designing (again and again) something that has already been designed at least once?
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Kalakoa and J. Weatherford nailed it on this one. I would only venture to add that there is a near certainty that some well connected design engineers and contractors will get inflated paychecks for building facilities that the citizens did NOT ask for and will be going into debt to pay for.
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This is the same State and County that wants to raise the GE Tax, and won't access Federal Highway funds that are currently available. Maybe because it's harder to justify pissing away Federal funds?
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same State and County that wants to raise the GE Tax, and won't access Federal Highway funds
County postures as merely wanting the "capability" to raise GET.
Federal highway funds are more nuanced: I suspect that Oahu is built out enough that these funds should rightly belong to the neighbor islands ... but Oahu is totally in charge of making sure that doesn't happen.
Solution to above is "distributed State government" -- monolithic Statehood simply doesn't work correctly with a discontiguous territory; the various Counties should be able to directly apply for and receive Federal highway grants, as well as make other decisions for themselves (eg, collect the TAT directly, prioritize law enforcement as makes sense, etc).
"One size" does not "fit all".
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The "indoor playcourts" pushed onto (not sought by the people of) Pahoa
Seemingly obviously: wouldn't a "building" require at least 10x the maintenance budget of "trail" and/or some "fields"?
