No one ever gives me an answer... 'Glenn Mickens' (Kaua'i 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.

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

No one ever gives me an answer

The sorriest part of my continually testifying about  issues is that NO ONE ever gives me an answer!! For years I have factually shown the council and the administration that we are paying for 1-1/2 inches of AC on the final lift on our roads and yet are getting 1/2 to 3/4 inches so are getting cheated out of millions of dollars--fraud going on but NO ONE willing to check into it. I have met with council chairs and Mayors at sites that are illegally paved and have brought into the chambers pieces of AC that are not the thickness we pay for but, again, no response. 

By closing up all this waste and illegalities in the system we would have enough money to repave our roads properly without raising taxes but no one has the guts to go after whoever is responsible. And, that, for me is where the manager comes in. 

After reading that draft bills 2630 and 2631 propose to raise our fuel, vehicle weight tax and registration fees, the only exclamatory word I can think of is INSANITY!

Bill 2630 states that " the $100 million road repair bill was due to deferred maintenance accumulated over many years and was caused by a failure of public officials to  put enough revenues in the Highway Fund through fuel and vehicle weight tax and registration fees." 

Our vehicle weight tax was recently raised and now due to incompetence in the system we, the tax payers are asked to pay more money to rectify their mistake--unbelievable.

Before continually raising our taxes why are we are we not finding out where our tax money is going--particularly our fuel and weight tax. For 3 years none of our roads got repaved even though our council appropriated millions of dollars to do this job just as the budget has been appropriated for this purpose over the years. 

Again, those of you who were here have seen me repetitiously and factually show you how we were spending millions of dollars for AC (asphaltic concrete) repaving and were not getting the material we were paying for. But no one was willing to investigate and find out who was responsible for this illegal action so now you want to penalize the public with more taxes to pay for these gross mistakes. 

I can take any of you to a section of Hauiki road that was repaved in 2010 and show you where the center section is all cracking and coming off due the improper amount of AC ( not the 1 1/2 inches we paid for) put down for the final lift. And, with all due respect to Larry Dill he was not our engineer at the time and rectified this illegal mistake when he came aboard. 

And further, to repave a mile of road 20 feet wide costs about $350 thousand but the multi use path has cost us $5.2 million per mile and more---for a 10 foot wide, 4 inch slab of cement.  So why no investigation to see why this is happening by wasting more tax money? Both the roads and the path are 80% funded by the Feds with 20% coming from our pockets---all our money. 

And what about the millions of dollars of waste in the building and maintenance of our bridges--using cement instead of the prefab type. 

The system needs changing and with a county manager held responsible this waste and more and more taxes would not happen.

P.S.

Thanks to Council chair Mel Rapozo, his committee and hopefully a total of 5 members of the council we are on the verge of getting a County Manager. On May 4th and May 11th this issue is on the agenda-- therefore please, those of you who read this, e mail, write, and call our council members and tell them how much you want this form of government on Kauai.

Kaua'i Council chairman
Mel Rapozo
is a fine example
of what a public
servant  should be!

It's easy to send testimony by email, send your testimony to;
counciltestimony@kauai.gov
or directly to Council Chair Rapozo at;
mfrapozo@kauai.gov

Editor's note, Dakinetalk guest bloggers do not necessarily represent the opinions of dakinetalk. Guest bloggers are given space to express their beliefs and or opinions. We feel there are many roads and like to give people space to express their thoughts,after-all that's what dakine is...

Aloha, James "Kimo" Rosen---Blogger-n-chief, dakinetalk blog---

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

With all the stress of the world, don't forget to
watch the sunrise or sunset, it's free! 

Photo, James "Kimo" Rosen

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