I sent this e-mail to the Hawaii County Council in regards to their wasteful trip to Washington D.C for the National Association of Counties conference.

“Aloha,

I am thoroughly disgusted that the majority of the Hawaii County Council is going on a trip to Washington DC paid by taxpayers. This is absolutely the wrong time to be spending this money. Especially in light of Hawaii County’s budget deficit. On top of that a bunch of Kona council meetings have been rescheduled for Hilo to save money. Hello, the latter wouldn’t be necessary if the council didn’t waste money on unnecessary trips like this one to Washington DC.

Aaron”

Lastly I found out that it will take another month for Hawaiian Telcom to relocate their utility poles in front of Grace Church on Palani Road. HawTel has already installed the new cable. However they have to still splice all the individual lines.Which will take time. Thus in other words expect more upcoming delays on Palani Road.

I found out yesterday about Hawaii County DPW’s allegedly discarded gag order to not communicate with me, Damon Tucker (Damon Tucker’s Weblog), or Dave Corrigan’s Big Island Video News (Damon’s blog is located here and Dave’s vlog is located here)  from HTH reporter Jason Armstrong. I’m eternally grateful that he alerted me about this directive. Otherwise I would’ve never known about it.

That being said, it makes me wonder if Noelani and the DPW had a hidden agenda here. Especially since she boldly mentioned all three of our blogs. We are not the only bloggers on this island. On top of that, it seemed this directive was targeted mostly at me. I had by far interfaced with the DPW more often than Damon and David. Thus as I stated in the HTH article “I’m actually kind of angry about it,” Stene said when told the old policy specifically named him. “It just stinks on all levels on this one.”

But what is especially troubling for me is the fact I was under the impression that I had a good relationship with the previous DPW director and his subordinates. I guess I must’ve stepped on someone’s toes (probably Noelani’s) for this directive to be crafted.Nonetheless, the creation of this directive by Noelani was huge mistake on her part and the DPW’s.

On a related note, she tried calling me yesterday and tried to kiss my ass by acting all apologetic for doing this. I tried to remain civil even though it was very hard to do so on my part. However I refused to accept her apology for her actions.

This blunder by Hawaii County DPW has spread like wild fire through the local blogging world.Larry Geller blogged about this here, along with Damon Tucker (here,and here), RJ Mendoza here, and Andy Parx.

[There is one more troubling aspect of this debacle. I've had a hard talking to DPW,county council ever since this directive was released. Thus it seems in my case I highly doubt this directive has been withdrawn].

Lastly, it seems there is a lack of communication between the HDOT and DHHL to minimize the impact of the Waimea bypass, according to this WHT article.If there was better communication the concerns of the DHHL homesteaders would’ve been addressed years ago. Thus this much needed highway wouldn’t be delayed once again.