I attended the Hawaii County Council District seven & eight candidate forum tonight. Brenda Ford always impresses me. Ms. Ford has clear, intelligent, and well thought out opinions. This would be sorely missed if her carpetbagger opponent Enock Freire defeats her in the upcoming election.

I have two significant concerns about Mr. Freire’s candidacy. Firstly, he seems to be connected with the Tea Party movement. Secondly, Mr. Freire accepted a $2,000 donation from a non-profit organization.

Mr. Freire ultimately returned this illegal donation back to Servants Nest Ministries Inc. However, I still don’t understand why he accepted this donation in the first place. Mr. Freire’s campaign manager is the vice president of this non-profit organization. Mr. Nicholson should’ve provided better oversight. This could’ve prevented the acceptance of this donation.

The district seven race will likely come down to Jim Rath, and Angel Pilago. I don’t think Debbie Hecht or Kelly Greenwell have the right temperament to represent North Kona on the Hawaii County Council.

Ms. Donna Meyer finally addressed my concerns about FEMA’a inability to post the Makalei Fire Station NEPA EA online in a timely manner.

“Unfortunately, it was an accident by the person responsible for posting these to FEMA’s webpage. There are many hands that touch the document prior to it getting posted to the web page and it normally takes 2-3 days past the official 15-day comment period start date to appear on the web page.

The document was made available locally and that location was advertised in the Notice of Availability (NOA) published in the newspaper. There is no legal mandate to post it to our web page. We are sorry for the inconvenience but the 15-day comment period begins from the date the NOA is published in the newspaper, not the day it is posted to our web page.”

HCFD Chief Oliveira also e-mailed me this update regarding this document:

“Good morning Aaron,

I did receive a forwarded e-mail from Ms. McWaters-Bjorkman FEMA Assistant to Firefighters Grants, Fire Program Specialist indicating that it is anticipated that there should be no significant delay in the review and subsequent declaration of Finding of no Significant Impact (FONSI) in light of the EA posting issues. However, I will await a reply from Ms. Meyer in the event she may have additional comments on the process and timelines.”

I e-mailed Councilman Pete Hoffmann regarding the latest Parker Ranch Connector Road opening delay yesterday. He e-mailed me this response below:

“Aaron,

There must be an ordinance accepting the roadway for public use, similar to those regarding the Hokulia By-Pass. I have had an e-mail exchange with Warren Lee regarding this issue and he says the DPW is preparing the paperwork. The ordinance is required to insure proper liability is established.”

Lastly, Hawaiian Telcom states they could’ve fulfilled Oceanic Time Warner Cable’s request for 70Gbps of bandwidth in this recent FCC filing. However, the order was withdrawn at the last minute.