Monthly Archives: September 2009

September 30, 2009

Lots Of Questions Surrounding The Villages Of Aina Le’a Project In South Kohala

By Aaron Stene

I noticed this Big Island Hui blog posting about the The Villages of Aina Le’a project.Robert Wessels, the managing partner of DW Aina Le’a Development, LLC, has had a pretty checkered past. According to this Environment Hawaii article, he tried (and failed)  to open the third largest Indian casino in the United States and was involved in a waste oil refinery (which ultimately went bankrupt and was turned into a super fund site).

However none of this compares to the time-share scam he and Ho`olae Paoa were allegedly a part of about 20 years ago. This resulted in lawsuits being filed in Nevada and Hawaii.

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Ho`olae Paoa is ironically now the CEO of Bridge Aina Le’a, LLC .Bridge Aina Le’a sold The Villages at Aina Le’a project to Robert Wessels firm.

DW Aina Le’a Development, LLC was able to resuscitate this project earlier this year by reaching a 62 million dollar financing agreement with Capital Asia Group. They’ve been advertising on line seeking investors to buy a share of the development (here,and here).

DW Aina Le’a recently had the groundbreaking for this project.However in light of the information presented above I wonder if this project will ever get completed ?

12 comments | posted in Hawaii Development, Hawaii Economy, Hawaii Planning, Hawaii Politics

September 30, 2009

How Will Saturn’s Closure Affect Saturn Of Honolulu’s Hilo GM Warranty Maintenance Facility ?

By Aaron Stene

I want to give a big mahalo to the anonymous donor who donated $50.00 towards my blog today. If you find my blog useful please feel free to donate whatever you think is appropriate.

This commentary raises some good questions regarding the closure of Kulani Prison. However the biggest question for me is why Governor Lingle closed Kulani when the state is is spending 55 million dollars to house 1,800 prisoners on the mainland ? .

The State of Hawaii is facing a deeper budgetary crisis due to a 36.8 million dollar accounting error.I only can hope that the unions and State of Hawaii can put aside their differences and make the necessary sacrifices to avoid a looming financial Armageddon.

General Motors has decided to close down its Saturn brand. I wonder how this decision will affect Saturn of Honolulu’s  Hilo operations. Saturn established a General Motors warranty maintenance facility at the old Island Chevrolet location on Kekuanaoa Street. It will be really unfortunate for all the GM vehicle owners that the Big Island will be without a GM warranty maintenance facility yet again if this new facility has to shut down.

Lastly, this letter to the editor is yet another example of how the looming teacher furloughs could’ve been avoided if the fat in the DOE’s budget was cut first

4 comments | posted in General, Hawaii Economy, Hawaii Education, Hawaii Politics, Hawaii Technology, Hawaii Transportation

September 29, 2009

Hawaii’s Economic Future Threatened By Poor Internet Connectivity,Please E-Mail Me If Interested In Advertising On The Kona Blog

By Aaron Stene

I’m happy to see that the Thirty Meter Telescope developers are starting to seek out contractors to build this massive facility on Mauna Kea.This project is going to provide a huge boost to Hawaii County’s economy- if the anti-astronomy activists don’t derail it.

Larry @ Knowing.NET left this follow-up comment regarding improving Hawaii’s broadband infrastructure.

“Yes, other places have better access to more bandwidth than is easy to get in Hawai’i. But how is business hurt? What types of activity are hindered by lack of widespread FIOS?

I’m a software developer. I routinely move multigigabyte files around. Would it be nicer if that happened faster? Sure. Is my business hampered by available speed? I don’t think so. I often have more capacity than mainland clients.

You’re generally skeptical of government spending and you’ve always been on top of the Sandwich Isles boondoggle. Why is _this_ worth spending tax-payer time and money to pursue?”

We need a world class broadband infrastructure if we want to diversify our economy away from our unsustainable economic base. This won’t happen if our infrastructure remains substandard. For example, in Japan you’ll soon be able to get 1Gbps service.

If you are a business owner who relies on the Internet and has a choice between opening an office in Japan or Hawaii the latter is going to play big role in your decision making. Especially since 11Mbps DSL service is nowhere as fast as 1Gbps FTTP connection.

On that note, your 5Mbps Road Runner may be adequate now.However when IPTV (especially in high definition) become more prevalent your Road Runner (and my 11Mbps DSL) will not have enough bandwidth to stream this kind of video.

Lastly,it seems my experiment  seeking blog donations  has failed. This has led me to seek out advertising for this blog. I really don’t know how to go about to do this. Thus I’m making this public request for any interested advertisers (or individuals) who wish to advertise on The Kona Blog to e-mail me.

This is a recent snap shot of the traffic my blog has gotten recently:

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1 comment | posted in General, Hawaii Development, Hawaii Economy, Hawaii Politics, Hawaii Technology

September 29, 2009

The Future Of the Big Island With Councilman Dominic Yagong

By Aaron Stene

2 comments | posted in Hawaii Politics

September 28, 2009

If Hawaii’s Broadband Infrastructure Is Not Improved We Won’t Be Able To Compete In The 21st Century

By Aaron Stene

The SEIS for the western phase of Saddle Road will be discussed at Waimea Community Association (WCA) Town Meeting at Parker School Theatre on October 1st, 2009 at 5:15pm.

Councilwoman Brenda Ford’s Palamanui’s zoning condition amendments will be discussed at a talk story session on Tuesday September 29, 2009 6:30 pm at Kahakai Elementry School.

The furlough of public school teachers could’ve been avoided if DOE’s budgetary fat was cut first.

Lastly, Larry @ Knowing.NET left this comment regarding yesterday’s blog posting about improving Hawaii’s broadband infrastructure.

“I dunno’. I’m a software developer, for Heaven’s sake, and I find RoadRunner fast enough for my work. Fast enough for videoconferencing, fast enough for moving big data around.

What aspect of “more bandwidth” impacts Hawaii’s economic competitiveness? Of course there are places that don’t yet have broadband, and that’s one thing. But once you’ve got DSL or cable, I’m not sure aspect type of business suffers because you can’t get T3s or whatever.”

Larry, there is places on the mainland where you can get speeds up to 50Mbps/5Mbps (Verizon FIOS). However those speeds are pretty pathetic compared to countries like Japan,Korea, and Finland.In a nutshell, doing business over the Internet will be the wave of the future. If Hawaii doesn’t have enough horse power under the hood, we’ll be left behind economically.

3 comments | posted in Hawaii Development, Hawaii Economy, Hawaii Education, Hawaii Politics, Hawaii Technology, Hawaii Transportation

September 27, 2009

Hawaii Will Continue To Fall Economically Behind The Rest Of The World If Our Broadband Internet Access Is Not Improved

By Aaron Stene

Hawaii’s Internet speeds is rapidly falling behind the rest of the world.This lack of speed (and availability) of broadband Internet access will seriously curtail Hawaii’s future economic growth. Tourism,construction,real estate,and the military currently fuel our economy.However we need to improve our broadband Internet access infrastructure  if we want to economically compete in the 21st century.

This won’t happen if Hawaii’s incumbent Internet service providers continue to be financially hobbled and are only making token speed increases.

Thus the State of Hawaii needs to make an aggressive push to improve our broadband Internet access infrastructure. The first step in doing this is pushing Hawaiian Telcom to seek out federal government stimulus money and subsidies to improve their aging infrastructure. Sandwich Isles Communications has received approximately 400 million dollars to build their fiber-optic network, why can’t Hawaiian Telcom do the same ?

The State of Hawaii should also create a fund to expand broadband access to Hawaii’s rural areas.This would be modeled after the Universal Service Fund.Federal stimulus money and private financing will not always be available to widen the reach of broadband connectivity to these under served areas.This fund would ensure everyone in the State of Hawaii would have access to broadband connectivity.

Hawaii will continue to fall further and further economically behind the rest of the world if our politicians fail to address this pressing issue.

4 comments | posted in Hawaii Economy, Hawaii Technology

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