Road and Highway Builders LLC won’t start test paving until Thursday or Friday now. RHB was originally planning to start paving tomorrow. This latest delay is mostly due to the recent brush fire.
The Parker Ranch Connector Road has been completed as of last Thursday. In addition, the Hawaii County DPW conducted the final inspection of the roadway on that same day. The soon to be opened thoroughfare passed this inspection. So, why isn’t the Parker Ranch Connector Road opened already? Margaret Wille answers this question here.
“The remaining holdup — is that to complete the road to be open to the public, not just the roadway must be finished, but also the associated “paper work”. Until the final dedication to the County is completed, an interim Grant of Easement and Indemnification Agreement must be agreed to and approved by the County Council. It is too late to get this document on the agenda for the Council meetings on September 8 or 9, so it will first go to Council later in September, and then will require one or two more readings. So you do the math..”
The council should fast track the approval of the interim Grant of Easement and Indemnification Agreement. This much-needed roadway will be opened sooner if the council does this. However, it will likely take the council about a month or so to approve this agreement as it stands now. So, the roadway won’t be publicly accessible in the meantime.
I think Leroy Laney’s statements about the health of the Big Island’s construction industry were a bit too rosy. There may be an upswing of new projects. However, this doesn’t lessen the fact that 95% of the unionized carpenters in Kona (and 67% of the carpenters in Hilo) are out of work.
Big Island video News video taped the recent Kona governor candidate forum. Mufi Hannemann and Neil Abercrombie are too indebted to the public worker unions. They’ll likely raise taxes to pay for union pay increases. So, I’m leaning towards voting for Duke Aiona for governor. I can’t afford to pay anymore taxes.
This is latest construction update regarding the future Keahuolu Interpretive Center:
“The contractor has been working on grading the fence line around the historic preserve area, to the south of the IC building. Pending approvals, site work at the IC building and within Kamaka’eha Avenue are scheduled to commence in mid-September.”
The widening of Mamalahoa Highway between NHCH and m.m 56 is still scheduled to be completed in October 2010.
I received this update regarding the La’aloa Avenue Extension today. The project consultant should be completed with the roadway design by early 2011.
Lastly, the vice chairman of the Sierra Club, Moku Loa Group submitted this letter the editor critical of the group’s new Mauna Kea preservation and use policy. The Sierra Club’s hard line against further telescope development on Mauna Kea seems to be weakening.
Matt Binder, a former Moku Loa executive board member, submitted this recent commentary also criticizing the Sierra Club’s opposition to Mauna Kea astronomy development.
August 30th, 2010 at 8:19 PM
Great comments.
August 31st, 2010 at 6:40 AM
Sorry, I can’t agree with your view on local taxes. Too much of the infrastructure in these islands are sub par. The money to keep us from being third-world has to come from somewhere. You may find fault with the way taxes are spent, but I doubt that complete efficiency of spending our current tax revenues would cover the problems we face. I’m voting progressive.
September 2nd, 2010 at 2:15 PM
I was interested in the candidacy of Mr. Freire as a fresh voice but will remain supportive of Ms. Ford. However you have had negative implications on a couple of blogs regarding the tea party. Maybe rather than just voicing the standard “they are no good” rhetoric you can blog about why you believe the principles they believe in are bad for Hawaii. Just an idea.