Good morning fellow 2aHI members!
It's been another month and once again it's time for the Hawaii Kai Neighborhood board meeting.
Chair Knudsen is traveling abroad and the range was not on the agenda, but, eternal vigilance being the price of freedom, I went anyway. Macsak showed up for the first few minutes then dug out to get some well deserved rest.
Before I get into the meeting particulars, there was an HKNB member sighting at the gun show over the weekend!
Mac saw him first and pointed him out to me and sure enough, Robert Clark, the member that chastised chair Knudsen for abusing his power at the last meeting was there!
It's nice to know that we at least have one potential ally on the board besides Paige Altonn.
Now for the meeting summary;
HFD: Reported on the number of fires
- trees down [2] etc. There were 7 search and rescues, only one of which was for Koko Head trail. Nice to see them breaking out that info.
HPD: Reported number of burglaries [3] car thefts [3] break ins [3] thefts [20] etc. Paige Altonn questioned why her sheet said there were some 5,400 [!] calls in the area and he only mentioned a few. The officer explained that many of the calls were not related to any crimes or were for traffic violations and such.
He also said that there were really no major problems caused by the carnival over the past two weekends.
The Board of Water Supply sent a rep., there was an 8 inch main break, and he warned of a phone scam by people demanding payment of past due amounts, said they don't do it like that. If in doubt, call.
Publicly generated issues,
This one is quite interesting, a nurses aid from Kamiloiki Elementary School stood up to tell this story.
She was driving her daughter home from school on March 11th, as she passed by the HK golf course, a golf ball embedded itself in her windshield, shattering it! She was, of course, quite shaken and pulled over to gather her wits and call HPD. While she was waiting for HPD, and being thankful that the ball hadn't gone through the windshield and hit her daughter, who was sitting in the front seat, another golf ball came whizzing past, missing her by the narrowest of margins!
I've been hit by a golf ball before, just in the shin, on the bounce, and it left a knot the size of 50 cent piece and hurt like hell. If a ball were to hit someone in the head full force, especially a child, it would do major damage at the very least, and could possibly kill someone.
Well, she made her report to HPD, called the golf course, basically she called everyone she could think of trying to get a response. The only one to get back to her was Councilman Chang's office, who told her they'd look into it. Can't say I'm a fan of Coucilman Chang, but he does seem to be responsive to the needs of the community. She was at the meeting trying to get support for putting up some kind of barrier to prevent this from happening, as she's since found out that this is not an uncommon occurrence. Her biggest concern was that kids from Kamiloiki walk home along this route and somebody could get seriously injured. The board said they'd get back to her, and Paige Altonn went and sat with to get more info.
Personally, I think they should close the golf course, or at least the holes fronting the road, until improvements can be made to keep the community safe! It's the only responsible thing to do. We can't allow this scourge of errant golf balls to continue to endanger the community and our children! I believe I'll speak to this at the next meeting, just so they don't "forget".
Mayors Rep. Tim Houghton: Road repairs in HK going well, on schedule. Repair of buildings at Koko Head District park bid out, Moanalua Bay bathroom project, on schedule, Signs at Sandy's to prevent homeless camping being addressed, Ron Livingston [ HRA] stood up to make a complaint about the slide at the park being broken for the last few years, decrying the slow response time of C&C to problems like this.
Councilman Chang: The only mention of the range here, "someone" was complaining about the effectiveness of the range improvements, no new rules posted at the range, steel targets not taken down, etc. Referred to Parks and Recreation for action.
Missed Rep. Theilens report due to smoke break.
Rep. Ward: Seemed more concerned with coqui frogs and red ant invasion, as well as the "Great Carnival Controversy" Nothing of substance.
Govs Rep.: Spoke of the reduced revenue projection for the state, tried to put a rosy spin on it. Growth has peaked, but they'll keep spending our money anyway, said they're "leaning forward" to work with the legislature, etc.
Sen. Slom: Respectfully disagreed with the Governor on the budget outlook, comment on the $1 Billion in unfunded liabilities, wondered where the $200 million for the Hawaii Health connector was spent, as nobody seems to be keeping track and our enrollment is the lowest in the nation. Here's a bit of good news for the guy's in the newly created "Cigar room" he is supporting HB1849, HD1, to limit taxes on premium cigars! Kauai grows premium tobaccos which are shipped to Nicaragua to be hand wrapped and then shipped back to Hawaii, creating jobs and another fine product from our state.
Rep. for Rep. Hashem: Counted 24 "umms", a new record, nothing of substance here.
I hope you've found this report to be informative.
As always I'll be here for the foreseeable future.
