"How many more years of Mt. Trashmore..?" ' Glenn Mickens' (Hawaii's Watchdog)

Glenn Mickens has lived on Kauai  with his wife Ruth for the last 27 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...


How many more years of Mt. Trashmore

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

How many more years must the public wait to see a true recycling and solid waste program get operational on Kauai?

Where is the curbside pick up for cans, paper, and green waste that we were promised long ago? Where is the MRF that  Council woman JoAnn Yukimura has worked so hard to get for years? I have lived on Kauai for almost 27 years and heard when I got here that our landfill only had 5 more years before capacity was reached. That 5 and 20 more have come and gone and all that has been done is heighten and widen Mt Trashmore with no new landfill in place.

So what is causing this problem with not only our solid waste program but with so many other ills that are permeating our county?

Our late council member Tim Bynum had the courage to say before an election rally that, "we are not hiring the right experienced people to head our departments and thus problems are made and do not get solved."

The late councilman Tim Bynum
along with Ed Justus
campaigning for re-election

This may not be the only cause of our multitude of problems but, it is certainly one of the major ones. The person in the "trenches" cannot be expected to do their job right if the person leading the department does not have the proper skills to tell them what to do. 

Our Council certainly found the right person for our Auditors position, Ernie Pasion. And, for me he was the best, most efficient person they ever hired. He did his job by following his Yellow Book  without fear of uncovering anything that could cause his job loss.  The 8 audits that he did were outstanding and hopefully they will be publicly reviewed to see if all his recommendations have been incorporated to make our county more efficient.

Mayor Carvalho
with dignitary
Ivanka Obama

 
The Mayor hired Larry Dill as our county engineer who was doing a fine job but for some reason he left and took a job with the State Highways Dept. 

The point is that there are a lot of very experience, qualified people out there who could deal with our problems and solve them but we are not hiring enough of them.

Grocery stores all over America
have Kiosks to return bottles and cans.
The state of Hawaii is
acting like a third world country
 in returns.
Elect politicians with brains.
Photo above;
Linda Gross returning cans
at a supermarket in Buffalo N.Y.

 

Our solid waste program certainly needs help and both the Administration and the Council share in the responsibility of finding out what needs to be done. 

2016-2018-Kauai county council; Left to right
Mason Chock, Arthur Brun, Mel Rapozo
JoAnn Yukimura, Ross Kagawa,
Derek Kawakami, Arryl Kaneshiro

P.S.

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

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