The county watchmen..."

Have you ever been to a Kauai county council meeting, watched on on TV or live streamed on your computer?  If not link onto the enclosed URL every Wednesday at 9:00 A.M. HST.
http://www.kauai.gov/tabid/400/Default.aspx

Kaua'i county council has become one of my favorite reality shows, I usually watch via live-stream but sometimes on TV.

With the camera's focused on every council person and everyone who testifies you can gather quite a bit from body language.

Ken Taylor and Glenn Mickens are two members of the community that comment on almost every matter that comes up. When the camera's show council members during public testimony or right before their going to the podium you will see looks of rolling the eyes, arms crossed and stink eye.

More of us should attend meetings and ask questions of our elected officials, it's another way of checks and balances. Since I am not able to attend council meetings in person, I am thankful that we have a couple of die hard watchmen looking over what our elected officials do.

May I suggest no more rolling of the eyes and crossing of the arms when the watchmen go to testify. After-all the watchmen are our true public servants doing what they do for no pay, no car allowance or health insurance, just out of love and concern for Kauai, the aina' and it's people. '

Mahalo Nui Loa watchmen!

Mahalos Ken Taylor and Léo Azambuja !

Editor's note, for those not living on Kauai please read the enclosed article if you wish to understand this blog.  Aloha
http://thegardenisland.com/news/local/article_27b20748-545a-11e0-9c2c-001cc4c03286.html

The Garden island news recent article, "County agrees to $250K settlement with shrimp farm" is another fine example on why government has gone broke. We need to start electing people to public office who are educated and have brains.

Mahalos and thank G-d for Ken Taylor one of our county watchmen, Ken questioned a $250,000 settlement that had never gone public and wanted answers concerning this matter in a recent council meeting after Garden island  assistant editor Léo Azambuja brought this situation to the table with his award winning reporting!


Our council needs to grow a set of golf balls, every-time a potential law-suit comes up, they settle and try to keep it quiet because they say, "it's cheaper than going to court." We have a full time county attorney with a staff that should be capable of "winning"without bringing outside help, that's why we hired a county attorney in the first place.

It seems there will soon be a waiting line of people and business's filing claims that may not even be true to be able to live happily every after with taxpayer monies if this behaviour is not eradicated

"Adult tattletalers..."

When your a child you call them tattletalers, on the streets and in prison they call them rats. They are the people who enjoy being busy-bee's, gossip and telling rumors.

In a small community gossip is similar to tattletaling, sometimes it's true and sometimes it's not, when it's not it can destroy the person being tattled on.

I was looking forward to becoming an adult when I was a child and not having to deal with tattletalers, and for most of my adult life tattletalers have been absent.

I didn't realize adult tatletailers can range from a bigmouth, blabberer, busybody, fink, informer,,scandalmonger, snitch, stool pigeon, tipster troublemaker and whistle-blower.

Please don't tell me to move, I like it on the Garden island but never in my life have I seen so many adults who get off tattletaling as I do on Kaua'i.

I guess with no night life, ferry boats or plastic bags, there's not much else to do on a tropical island. On a positive note, it sure beats drive-by shootings, or does it?

"a fowl situation...!"

The chicken situation on Kauai is starting to smell foul. Thousands of wild chickens not only crowing at the crack of Dawn but at the crack of everyone's behind.

The sound is annoying as is the sound of gas and electric powered lawn mowers, weed-whackers, and weed-blowers going off constantly.

Noise pollution is out there as much as air pollution, litter, and polluted ocean waters.

The chicken problem is the one that is most easily remedied. I would take a crowing rooster over my neighbor using a leaf-blower, weed-whacker or any power tool for that matter.

Time to make chicken soup with Matzo balls out of a fowl situation.

Here's a simple solution to the overpopulated loud roosting chickens;

Somebody needs to start a dog and cat food company with chicken as the main ingredient. The chickens are free to harvest island-wide and the company would be hailed a saviour for controlling a noisy tormenting fowl situation.

eeer, eeer, eeer , eeer ,eeer!

"Homeless a Hero..!"

Brian Ward the "homeless man who was hailed a hero for grabbing the steering wheel of a Honolulu city bus out of control with the  driver in a state of shock and steered the bus to safety.

My congratulations to Brian Ward for saving the possible injuries and even deaths that may had occurred if he hadn't took action.

Not all homeless people are drug or alcohol addicted dirty people. Many of our sages were homeless including Jesus. I pray the story of Brian Ward can help shed a brighter light on homeless people.
http://www.staradvertiser.com/news/20110317_Passenger_saves_careening_city_bus.html

I feel the city of Honolulu should award Mr. Ward with a bus pass for life, and if Mr. Ward is up to it, maybe a job driving the Bus!

Mahalo Nui Loa Mr. Ward, not only are you a hero but a pretty cool dude!

"Let me be honest..."

I would like to give some advise to my politician friends. Many council-members say,"let me honest" when speaking during meetings. By saying "let me honest" they are basically saying everything prior to that wasn't honest.

Used car salesman say, "Let me be honest." therefore you may want to eliminate that phrase from your vocabulary if you want the public to believe you.

After-all I am being totally honest with you!

Let be honest ran as an opinion article in the Kauai Garden Island news on 10-22-11
http://thegardenisland.com/news/opinion/mailbag/article_df47f7ba-fc83-11e0-aab8-001cc4c03286.html

"Kauai county council meetings being live-streamed..!"

Kaua'i county council meetings are now available via live-streaming on your computer every Wednesday morning commencing at 9:00 a.m. What a great asset being to observe council meetings live! This saves gas and time for anyone interested in local politics.

Watch county council meetings at;
http://www.kauai.gov/tabid/400/Default.aspx  

The only thing missing is being able to testify from home, with the price of gas and most people do not have a 500.00 a month car allowance as do the council-members.

There is a simple solution, the county could download "Skype" so people from home could testify. It would be an added asset to the live streaming process. Skype is free computer to computer and would actually be more controlled than live testimony, since the chair could easily enforce the 3 minute limit by use of 'skype,' people would have to stay within the three minute limit or be cut off.

Please consider adding skype to council live-streams.

One more question for the county council, does public testimony really matter? Has any-ones public testimony ever changed the mind of any council member on anything? My guess is not.