Hawaiian Dredging Will Vacate Their Kealakehe Parkway Baseyard Soon

Hawaiian Dredging Construction Company’s abandoned base yard and quarry by the Queen Kaahumanu Highway/Kealakehe Parkway intersection should be vacated soon. The HDOT has asked HDCC to clean up and remove their equipment from this location. In addition, HDCC is actively trying to sell the excess fill material at their temporary quarry.

HDCC tried to negotiate with Goodfellow Brothers to use this  base yard and buy the fill material for the Queen Kaahumanu Highway Phase II widening project. However, those negotiations have failed.

There is still several punch list items that  Grace Pacific has to complete before the  Queen Kaahumanu Highway extension resurfacing is accepted by the HDOT. These items are expected to be completed by the end of August.

The construction zone speed limits won’t be lifted on this roadway until the HDOT accepts Grace Pacific’s work.

I hope the resurfacing of Kaiminani Drive is included in the final FY2011-2014 STIP. The draft FY 2011-2014 financially constrained STIP has allocated six million dollars to resurface this roadway  from Mamalahoa Highway to Queen Kaahumanu Highway in FY2011.

The federal government has disclosed when the remaining federal broadband stimulus funding will be dispersed. Hawaii’s stimulus funding  applications are viewable here.

There is one aspect of Mr. Freire’s acceptance of a contribution from a non-profit entity (and subsequent return of this donation) that still raises red flags for me. Mr. Freire‘s campaign manager Winton Nicholson is also the Vice President of Servants Nest Ministries Inc. I still don’t understand why Mr. Freire accepted this donation in the first place. Mr. Freire’s campaign manager should’ve provided better oversight in this matter since he was on the board of directors of this non-profit organization.

The Kona-Kohala Chamber of Commerce has posted a list of upcoming local candidate forums on their website.

“Lieutenant Governor Candidate Forum
Tuesday, Aug. 10
6 – 8 p.m.
Old Airport Pavilion

Waimea Non-Partisan Candidate Forums: County Council (District 1 and 9), State House (District 7) and Governor’s Race
Thursday, Aug. 12
5:15 p.m.
Waimea School Cafeteria

Governor Candidate Forum
Thursday, Aug. 26
6 – 8 p.m.
Kealakehe High School

County Council Candidate Forum-District 7 and 8
Tuesday, Aug. 31
6 – 8 p.m.
Kealakehe High School”

Oceanic Time Warner Cable customers may lose ESPN, The Disney Channel, ABC Family Channel, etc if the contract dispute between Time Warner Cable and Disney is not resolved by September 2, 2010.

Thank goodness Hawaiian Telcom has given their customers free access to ESPN3.com.

I’m amazed that Sandwich Isles Communications has leased 70Gbps of bandwidth to Oceanic Time Warner Cable after the recent fiber-optic cable outage. This plainly shows that bandwidth requirements have exploded in just ten years. For example, Oceanic leased only three Verizon DS1 circuits when they rolled out the Road Runner service here in 2000.

Lastly, I received this comment that deserves a response.

“Sometimes I think you’re way too focused on getting recognition/accolades for your blogging. Blog because you want to, not because you expect others to compensate/reward you with their words.”

I don’t necessarily blog because I like doing it. I blog because there is a lot of things wrong in Kona and blogging is the only avenue available to me to help resolve these issues.

I’ve been able to do things and see things because I blog. However, I’m still very frustrated that most people don’t even bother to comment on what I write.