Council should fix ‘broken’ Ethics Board
Council should fix ‘broken’ Ethics Board
It is a sad day for our island. The members of our County Council turned down the opportunity to fix our broken system of checks and balances. An Ethics Board that is wholly appointed by the mayor is not a separate board from the mayor’s office.
Regardless of their desire to be objective, the members are connected to the person who appointed them whether through friendship or similar opinions. You are honored to be asked to serve and you are aware of that privilege when making difficult decisions.
The success of our democracy depends on the separation of powers. The Ethics Board is a judicial body and should be clearly separate from the legislative branch of our government.
The concept put forth by Margaret Wille is a good plan for creating a board that is distinctly separate. The board would be balanced with mayor’s appointments and council members’ appointments. That would give the citizens a feeling that any ethical decisions were made in a fair and equitable way and eliminate any question of favoritism or loyalty. It also would ensure we have enough members to have a board that is able to operate regardless of absences.
Please encourage your council member to fix this broken system.
Joyce O’Connor
Waimea
Suggestions to speed up highway project
The Queen Kaahumanu Highway widening project going on between the airport and the harbor is nice to see. However, the traffic disruption is something I’d like to address. The southbound lane of the highway gets backed up to as far as Kukio. It may be farther, but that is the worst I’ve been caught in. I’ve timed two instances from the lava tube and Kukio to the Old Industrial Area. The times have been one hour and 12 minutes and one hour, respectively. I think this is an excessive burden on me and others facing this delay. Not only are we taxpayers funding the project, we are then subject to the consequences of below average traffic mitigation planning.
I recall from the Goodfellow Bros. website that the project is expected to take two years to complete. I have a few suggestions as to how we can possibly alleviate some of these delays, or at least shorten the duration of the project.
1. More shifts. Workers are currently operating approximately 7 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday through Friday. I suggest a schedule that incorporates nighttime and weekends. More hours operating during the same stretch of time should shorten the overall duration of the project. Color me disappointed this wasn’t implemented from the beginning. The 3 to 5:30 p.m. shift on weekdays should really be thought of as a very bad time to operate and disrupt traffic.
2. Cops or signs to keep people moving. As I finally make it to the OTEC road and Kohanaiki area, the traffic seems to speed up. This makes me think there is no actual road blockage. People have simply slowed down to watch the machines. Then there is a sort of chain reaction of braking and before you know it … traffic. Could we simply have cops or signs encouraging people to keep it moving?
3. Shaded fencing. Eight-foot shaded fencing will make the spectacle of road work much harder to see, therefore keeping drivers focused on driving.
Ryan Platt
Kailua-Kona