Age of Idiocy on the Wane?

July 5, 2009 9:12 am tr > MAUI TODAY, Maui Curmudgeon

Bikini  Day Day 186 of 2009 179 days left in this year

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HAWAIIAN WORD OF THE DAY — Hukilau: Fishing Net
PIDGIN WORD OF THE DAY — Jalike: Would you like to do…?
HAWAIIAN PROVERB OF THE DAY — “Nau ko’u aloha”: My love is yours!
HAOLE SAYING OF THE DAY — “The hottest places in Hell are reserved for those who in time of great moral crises maintain their neutrality.”   (Dante Aleghieri)

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July 5, 2009: As long as there is one conservative/republican breathing oxygen on planet earth, the threat of American political idiocy remains, but recent occurrences do give the more intelligent a glimmer of hope. Obama is easily one of the most intelligent people to hold the office or president. Congress remains democratic (one hopes it would get organized, but no), and even the Supreme Court is poised to get a new member. Whither Maui?

The council, of course, remains as it always has – hopeless. Rarely have nine humans gathered to “govern” who have been more incompetent without being corrupt. You want corruption? Visit Kauai. You want do-nothing incompetence? Maui’s your place. It’s hard to think, faced with the appalling ineptitude of someone like Mike Molina, that the council has seen worse, but it has.  What really galls the thinking person is when these morons become mayor.

Charmaine Tavares gets my vote as the most incompetent Maui mayor ever – though recent history offers two tough competitors. The first is, of course, Kimo Apana, the class clown of legislators and a bubblehead who rode the powerful backing of civil service unions into the office only to lose it four years later. The second was more insidious – republican Linda Lingle. For 8 years Lingle raped the county treasury, and became the first mayor of Maui County to leave the county in debt. She sold hundreds of cheap permits to beach businesses, which brought the ruination of some fine shoreline and for which we are paying today in mangled parks, and hearings to reduce business access to the remaining beaches (duh!). And she ruined Maui, by throwing building permits to grateful hotel and condo conglomerates like a parade clown tosses candy to gazing children.

But Tavares is worse. Having been so incompetent in her civil service position at the Department of Parks and Rec, she was removed. Charmaine had nothing better to do than to use her daddy’s name again and get on the county council, where for ten years she did absolutely nothing. (Go ahead – name ONE THING she did while there – uh huh). Butting her head against term limits, she had nothing better to do than run for her daddy’s former office – mayor. Backed very quietly by business, she barely eeked out a victory over Alan Arakawa.

The good news in the coconut wireless is that Arakawa is going to run again for mayor. We have an opportunity to reverse a real wrong.

Lots of people hated Arakawa, but then, every person who tries to effect change for good must expect that. He was a micromanager, yes, and that slowed down some things. But boy did he try to get things done. Shoreline restoration, beach access, he even tried to move along some home building in Kahului , much to the consternation of several homeowners – in Kahului! You can bet that with the guaranteed shrinkage of revenues from reduced home taxes the next two county budgets will be painful. Charmaine hasn’t done a damned thing about this looming catastrophe. I would bet Arakawa would have already had a commission appointed to study the upcoming challenges and begin to work on solutions.

And that’s why Charmaine is the worst Maui mayor ever. Some mayors damage by what they do – but at least Lingle’s illegal shenanigans got some poor people employed. Charmaine’s inaction has only made Maui’s future much bleaker, hurting thousand’s of Maui residents.

Here’s hoping that the rumors are true, that Arakawa does run again and this time he beats the hell out of Charmaine. Last election, a newspaper asked each of them what their dream job was. Alan’s was to serve his community as mayor. Charmaine’s was to open a bowling alley. If it means her loss, I’ll be the first in line to buy a bowling ball.