Over 35 million in taxes for road maintenance, yet what's to show for it.." 'Glenn Mickens' (County Watchdog)

Glenn Mickens has lived on Kauai  with his wife Ruth for the last 26 years. Born July 26, 1930 in Wilmar, California, USA) was a pitcher in Major League Baseball. He pitched in four games (two of which were starts) for the 1953 Brooklyn Dodgers. He also played for five years in Japan, from 1959 until 1963 for the Kintetsu Buffaloes. There, he compiled a record of 45–53 with a 2.54 ERA.  Glenn also  served in the Army for 2 years and coached baseball at UCLA for 25 years. 
Last but not least Glenn would really like to see Kaua'i give the county manager style of Government a chance.
Above photo of Glenn Mickens courtesy of Kauai Garden island news, used with permission...

Mr. Mickens is locally known
as one of Kauai county's
political watchdogs
and Nitpickers...
Mahalos Glenn!

Over 35 million in taxes for road maintenance, yet what's to show for it? 

For 20 years I have been pursuing getting our 300 miles of county roads properly maintained. And with our road conditions in the same or worse shape today than they were years ago, it appears that this administration and council need to have a thorough investigation to find out what is going on.

Our council hired an outstanding auditor, the late Ernie Pasion who did a fine 28 page audit of our roads using fiscal year 2006-07 as a test project. Many very good "findings" were uncovered along with corrective "recommendations" and though Public Works concurred with these findings and corrections, we look at our roads today and they are still in terrible shape.

Over the years I have factually shown the many councils how the tax payers were being fraudulently cheated out of millions of dollars by paying for materials (AC) to be used on our roads that we were not getting. We were paying for 1 1/2" to 2" for the final course on the road but were getting far less than that. 

And if anyone doubted the accuracy of my many testimonies before the council where I showed samples of AC less than what we paid for why then did someone not tell me I was wrong and show me the inaccuracy of my findings? Or if I were proved to be right then why was there no investigation to solve the problem? 

In Oct of 2010 the county hired an engineer, Larry Dill and a deputy, Ed Renaud 
who did paving by HAPI and AASHTO standards which was never done before causing our roads to be in such terrible condition. They were doing a fine job of trying to undo years of incompetent work but regretfully Mr Dill left his position and we have no engineer.

Da Shadow has a weekly
column in The Garden
Island News fighting for the
advocacy of peoples rights!

One of the biggest reasons given for the sorry shape our roads are in is lack of funds, which has some merit. However Da Shadow (Jerome Freitas) asked the administration in TGI (4/29/16) about our vehicle weight tax, our gas tax, our registration fees and public utility franchise fees--how much are we taking in each year. 

The answer was that we took in over $35.33 million for years 2012 to to 2015 for these taxes that were supposed to maintain our roads. Also we did no paving in years 2011 to 2013 so where did this money go? 

Let me quote from the Pasion audit of 2006-07: "The county's highway fund is comprised of monies subject to restriction (such as fuel, and vehicle weight and utility fees). The funds are COMMINGLED AND USED FOR VARIOUS PURPOSES. INCLUDING NON-HIGHWAY PURPOSES, SO THE COUNTY CANNOT ENSURE THAT THE FUNDS ARE BEING USED AS REQUIRED BY LAW." (Emphasis added)

Thus before we ask the tax payers for more money to properly pave our roads (more excise tax) lets make sure we know where all these millions of dollars are going now! When the audit showed that these road taxes are being used for other than road purposes then let's plug up that hole and see what we still need if anything? 

P.S.
Check out Glenn's Wikipedia page;
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glenn_Mickens

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