By Daniel Grantham

What a remarkable campaign these last 2 weeks, to blacken the name of newly elected Wayne Nishiki- even before he is sworn in.

Those who followed the council over the last 14 years knew Nishiki as the often lone voice of conscience in the face of poorly planned developments, promoted mainly because they would make someone a lot of money.

Big money for land owners, financiers, builders, suppliers, realtors- and just enough for the workers to tide them over until the next project.

And big donations for office-seekers who made it clear they were development “friendly”.

Not for Nishiki, who declined to accept those kind of donations.

Nishiki asked what this development was going to cost the people.

Nishiki remained professional, cordial with applicants, worked to get answers and advocated for community interests, often in the face of combined attacks.

Nishiki retired 4 years ago to focus on his family’s business, and accepted a loan from a developer named Dowling, who learned to respect him on the council.

Nishiki apparently reinvests money earned back into their business, instead of taking it as income, a fact his attackers have seized upon to hold against him.

How odd to see his debt to Dowling described as a threat, when the current council and Nishiki’s opposition cannot praise Dowling highly enough.

The rush is now on to approve Dowling’s Makena project before a new council is seated.

So – Nishiki haters are afraid he might vote like the current council – and like Don Couch?

– Daniel Grantham, Haiku

The Maui Almanac has asked Maui County candidates running for office to complete a questionnaire of issues pertinent to voters. See a complete listing of  Election Offices & Candiates – Click here.

SUMMER STARR
Hawaii State Representative: 12th District

Age: 25
Occupation: Non-profit
Party Affiliation: Democrat
Sun Sign: Gemini
Website: www.electsummer.org

What is your position on TVRs? We must assure that they are not disturbing the peace, or disrupting the neighbors. But if legalized, the County is able to regulate and enforce those regulations. I think that this could provide income for many of our islands’ local families, who are in great need right now.

What is your plan to improve Maui’s water supply? We must repair our intake systems, build more storage facilities, and encourage the use of grey water, and water catchment.

Do you think development should be linked to infrastructure? I think that one of the first steps in creating any sort of development is to take into account the existing infrastructure, or that which will be created in lieu of existing facilities.

What is your position on MECO plans to have BlueEarth use palm oil bio fuel? To decimate one part of the Planet in an attempt to help another is counter-intuitive ad irresponsible. We should grow our own fuel and harness renewable energy from clean and abundant sources such as the sun and wind.

What can you do for stream restoration on Maui? As someone who has studied the ecological makeup of the ahupua’a it is only logical to allow streams to continue their natural course to the ocean. We can find a balance between justified use, and assuring the health of our ‘commons’ for future generations.

What is your position on Wailea 670, aka Honua`ula? Kihei is a rapidly changing district. Our infrastructure on Maui is stressed, and we should carefully consider this when deciding where to develop.

What do you think of recent proposals to license home businesses? Same as TVR. With regulations we can assure that people do not abuse the privilege.

What do you think of the Superferry? We need to respect the Democratic process. To call all of our State Legislators into a Special Session to discuss the needs of a private may not be the best use of our tax dollars. Regardless of how one feels about the business itself, we must first look at how the Democratic process is being treated.
Do you feel you would have power to affect it? How? As a State Legislator – Absolutely.

County Park business permits: Good process or needs to be changed? There are businesses that have utilized our parks, without harming them or disturbing our community members who frequent the parks. If people begin to take advantage of our park systems, they should be regulated.

Should the County acquire Makena Landing for a public park? Yes.

Should the County acquire roadways currently claimed by HC&S? If there are County roads that are under County jurisdiction, they should be available for use by the County.

Do you support another hospital on Maui?  Why or why not? We must examine if our current medical situation is serving our community as well as it could, and should.

Since so much of the Maui road system is state run, what can the county do to manage traffic? The State can encourage the funding for more mass transit.

How can you prevent developers from acquiring permits when they already owe the
county affordable homes or have other unfulfilled commitments? Our Island is facing tough times. We must assure that our residents have safe and secure homes before we allow special accommodations for luxury development.

What are your ideas concerning Maui achieving greater Home Rule? I think that this can be achieved without having to restructure the system at all. We just need legislators at the Capitol who are from the districts they represent, and will truly LISTEN to their communities.

What is your plan for Maui achieving greater Energy Independence? We must encourage businesses that want to develop renewable energy, to do so here. But we must make sure that the operation is as locally based as possible, this way we empower our communities, provide green collar jobs, and the money stays here.

What is the greatest challenge Maui faces?  How would you address this problem? Economy: 1. Help those who are unemployed get back on their feet. 2. Assist farmers and revitalize our agricultural systems. 3. Support renewable energy initiatives to wean us off our dependence of expensive foreign oil.

Do you support a Constitutional Convention?  Why or why not? The State Legislature is able to amend the constitution. To open the floor to a complete overhaul of the State Constitution may be dangerous. We must really consider what damage and what good could come of it.

What distinguishes you from your opponent(s)? I was born and raised Upcountry, and will fight tooth and nail to protect my Upcountry community.

Why should we vote for you? II have been a community organizer for years. I am grassroots and am not beholden to special interests. I am running for office to give the people a voice – not to make only my voice heard, but to make the voices of my community heard.

Henry Adams said: “No man should be in politics unless he would honestly rather not be there.” Would you care to make a comment on this statement? This is so true. So true.

This is the first in a series of interviews with Maui County candidates running for office in this Fall’s elections. See a complete listing of  Election Offices & Candiates – Click here.

KAHEKAI “KAI” NISHIKI
Candidate for County Council: Paia/Makawao/Haiku Seat

Age: 37
Occupation: Small business owner
Party Affiliation: Democrat
Website: www.kainishiki.org

What is your position on TVRs? I support home-based businesses as long as they are quiet, do not produce unpleasant odors and do not have significant retail traffic or impact on parking. By operating a business from our homes, Maui residents save money on fuel and congestion on our roads is reduced.  In order to support farmers and encourage local agriculture TVRS should be part of a working farm in agriculturally zoned areas.

 I would include vacation rentals in the category of home-based businesses provided the owner is a Maui resident who pays the resident income tax.  I do not support absentee TVRS owned by offshore speculators who drive our home prices up. To facilitate communication between the existing community and the TVR owner there should be an onsite manager -a person whom the neighborhood could contact. We might require approval by the communities that the TVRS are located in and create a mechanism for community input.

Nevertheless, I would oppose TVR use that causes problems for their neighbors.  The key to any home-based business is that it should not change the character of the neighborhood nor should it create significant parking, traffic, noise or odor problems.  There must be a way to support our local economy and protect the quality of life in our neighborhoods.

What is your plan to improve Maui’s water supply? We need to attack this problem on multiple levels.  Upcountry needs more reservoirs – possibly integrated with pumped storage so that MECO can use more low-cost wind and solar generation. I support rain-catchment and Gladys Baisa’s bill to use grey water for irrigating yards.

 For large-scale nonfood (other than processed food like sugarcane) irrigation, I support creating a pipe system that carries our treated water to the fields.  Currently, our water is treated to safe levels that are quite appropriate for irrigation.  (This has the added benefit of ending injection wells that have been implicated in ocean water quality deterioration.)

 At the same time we need to restore stream flows to our small farmers and taro lo’i.  The State Constitution makes water a public trust.  We need to manage it wisely.

 It does not make sense to change zoning so that more vacation homes can be built until we have put these measures in place and our residents are not threatened with mandatory water rationing or denied water meters.

Do you think development should be linked to infrastructure? Absolutely.

What is your position on MECO plans to have BlueEarth use palm oil bio fuel? I oppose using palm oil for any biodiesel plant here on Maui. This will simply yoke us to another foreign oil producer with rising prices just as damaging as petroleum prices.  Additionally it makes us responsible for the slash and burn rainforest clearing in Indonesia.

 Biodiesel has its place – there are a few companies currently operating in Hawaii who are creating a unique cooking-oil product. Biodiesel created from used vegetable oil, (this also keeps one less product out of the landfill) and buying secondary products that would otherwise go to waste makes sense.

 But we have to face facts that the conversion to biofuels is impinging on the world’s food supplies and driving up the price of food.  There simply is not enough land and water on Maui to supply the Blue Earth project with local feedstock.

What can you do for stream restoration on Maui? I support enforcing the State Constitution that water is a public trust. Agriculture is one of the top users of water in the water hierarchy. This does not mean that one or two large agricultural companies should control the water.  Instead, the State and County should control the water and small farmers who rely on stream-flows (especially for taro) should be given equal importance.  That means, in some cases, putting some of the water back in the streams.

What is your position on Wailea 670, aka Honua`ula? I oppose private sewage and water infrastructure that the proposed Wailea 670 project suggests. The County and the taxpayers of Maui will be forced with taking it over someday. This is similar to the Moloka`i Ranch’s utility crisis that Moloka`i faces.

 Until we have adequate water and sewer infrastructure, we should be concentrating on 100% local resident housing construction and public projects.

 We are facing a time of serious economic slowdown and we need to do everything we can to provide jobs. Perhaps, with a new leadership at the Federal level, more Federal and State funds will be released to provide for infrastructure and housing. I’ll be doing everything I can to get State and Federal (and County) funds for infrastructure and resident housing so that we can keep our construction workers employed without having to sell out to the off-island luxury vacation home developers.

What do you think of recent proposals to license home businesses? As I said in my answer to the TVR question, home businesses are a benefit to our citizens and to our infrastructure.  And as we go into this economic downturn, they may be vital for some of our resident’s survival.

 So, in general, I support home-based businesses.  However, they must have negligible retail traffic, (perhaps no more than one customer per hour average?) not produce any noise, (except where large lots make it inaudible to neighbors). Home-based businesses should make sure there is adequate parking and make sure their customer’s cars are safely parked and not in the neighbor’s yard, or spilling out into the street. Most importantly, if TVR owners would like to continue staying in business, they should work very hard to not get a lot of neighbor complaints.

What do you think of the Superferry? Do you feel you would have power to affect it? How? I think ferries in general are great.  However the Superferry was poorly designed.  It required $40 million dollars of our money for ramps because it doesn’t (as other ferries do) carry its own ramp.  It guzzles gas and from my calculations, it will be more expensive than flying and renting a car once they end their promotional prices.

 Therefore, I believe we spent a lot of money on an enterprise that crowded our harbors (which is needed for freight) and may not be able to survive.  I wish that it had had a more economical design and with more community input.

 Unfortunately, the State Department of Transportation has been resistant to listening to the Maui County Council.  In order for the County Council to have any effect on any harbor issues, we need an amendment to the statutes giving each county the ability to review projects prior to implementation.  Without that, Maui County cannot control our harbor development.

 We need to realize that close to 98% of our goods come through Kahului Harbor and that it is already maxed out. This is a serious issue that needs to be addressed.

County Park business permits: Good process or needs to be changed? Our parks are for our residents.  It is reasonable to restrict crowding by activity businesses so that our residents can enjoy their parks.

 I applaud the way that the Kanaha kiteboard and the plethora of windsurf companies that have worked to co-exist with the swimmers and paddlers – going so far as to install buoys to mark off an area for swimmers.

 The bottom line is that if people don’t push it and take advantage, we won’t have to regulate.  Unfortunately, it just takes one bad apple to wreck it for the rest of the businesses.

 When that happens, we have to regulate.

Should the County acquire Makena Landing for a public park? Definitely.

Should the County acquire roadways currently claimed by HC&S? Yes.

Do you support another hospital on Maui?  Why or why not? I support small, public, satellite-type acute-care hospitals in Kihei, Lahaina, Kula and Hana that are being proposed.

 Since private hospitals can turn away people without money or good private insurance, this would leave many of our residents without a hospital.  For that reason, I am cautious to the idea of switching from Maui Memorial (a public hospital who has to take everybody) to a private hospital that might only take our affluent visitors and wealthy mainland retirees.

 The idea of small satellite acute care hospitals solves our problem of immediate emergency care so that no resident has to travel a long distance when having a stroke, heart attack, asthma attack, injury, etc. and where immediate care is of the utmost importance.

Since so much of the Maui road system is state run, what can the county do to manage traffic? There are many strategies for reducing traffic.  First and foremost is to support and increase our bus system.  With skyrocketing fuel costs, our buses have turned out to be lifesavers to many of our working residents who can no longer afford to drive their own cars to work.

 Obviously, we must do better when we approve subdivisions.  We also need to get away from single-use bedroom communities and mix grocery stores and other essential stores in with housing so that folks can easily walk to do their shopping.

 We need to do everything possible to make it easy to use neighborhood electric vehicles (NEVS) that are small and cheap to run.  That means providing 35 mph or less routes for NEVS to travel from subdivisions to shopping.

 Safe bike paths and walkways are essential in connecting communities and we should make these a priority.

 We need to encourage the tourist industry to get away from putting folks in individual cars.

How can you prevent developers from acquiring permits when they already owe the
county affordable homes or have other unfulfilled commitments? The County Council has been changing the General Plan’s zoning variances to appease developers.  That has to stop.  If someone buys land zoned “park” (as those at Palauea Beach did) the law, says they cannot build. We must stop giving out variances!

We are finishing a comprehensive General Plan.  Now, we need to stick to it.

What are your ideas concerning Maui achieving greater Home Rule? We need to work with our legislators to get more input to the Department of Transportation (DOT). Currently, the DOT controls our harbors and road and I think we really need to get a larger voice in determining our future.

What is your plan for Maui achieving greater Energy Independence? We already have no-cost or low-cost loans for solar hot water on every roof.  And next year all new homes are mandated to have solar hot water.  That saves 40% off the utility bill and the increased up-front cost and additional loan payment is completely paid for by utility savings. So the buyer actually saves money.

 We need a similar program to help folks install photovoltaic and wind turbine net metering systems.  We can create a no-cost-to-the-government program modeled after one in California that allows people to pay their loans off with their property tax.  Thus, people with bad credit or big loans on their homes will be able to get low-interest loans.

 Rather than continuing to install generating units to meet increased peak load (mostly air conditioners) we need to implement time of day pricing on electricity.  However, the State Public Utilities Commission (PUC) controls this, and it is up to them whether or not this will happen.

 Then we need to lift the cap on net metering.  This means rather than install new generating units, MECO needs to install new storage in order to match generation with load.  Other countries and states already do this.  We are very behind the times.

 The beauty of lifting the cap on the net metering system and adequate storage capacity is that it reduces the costs for us – the ratepayers and it concentrates more on solar and wind power. (Again, the State Legislature controls this.)

 There are even more bold ideas we can pursue but I’ll leave those until another time.

 The key is to switch to solar and wind power that brings down the cost to the ratepayers.  Curiously enough, good renewable is cheaper!  

What is the greatest challenge Maui faces?  How would you address this problem? The economy, at the Federal, State and County levels is a huge concern. By implementing new energy generating projects and new energy-saving projects we could increase our local economy while reducing our need for imports. Also, another challenge is balancing growth while preserving our culture and ‘aina.

Do you support a Constitutional Convention?  Why or why not? I am wary of a Constitutional Convention.  At the moment we can amend our constitution (and have) but it takes a two thirds vote of the Legislature before it is put before the people.  A constitutional convention allows amendments with a simple majority of those voting.

 I don’t want the rights guaranteed by our constitution to be at risk. The American system is based on Majority Rule and minority rights. Minority rights are guaranteed in the constitution.  By allowing a simple majority to change the constitution, you run the risk of eliminating minority rights.

 This is simply an unnecessary risk.  We can change the constitution any time we want by the ordinary amendment process (requiring a two-thirds vote).

What distinguishes you from your opponent(s)? My opponent has consistently voted in favor of offshore development corporations at the expense of our local residents and without mandating infrastructure prior to building.  I want to provide jobs and homes without damaging our quality of life.

 I believe that I have the courage to initiate change that will create a good life for our residents and yet preserve these things that make Maui the island we love.

I believe that I have the courage to initiate change that will create a good life for our residents and yet preserve those things which make Maui the island we love.

Why should we vote for you? I humbly ask for your vote because I will work hard for you. I will listen to your concerns.  I am open to being persuaded by logic and facts. I care about doing what is best for the future.   I was born and raised on Maui, my parents are here and I hope to preserve our island so that my (and your) children can stay on Maui and enjoy our unique and precious way of life.

Henry Adams said: “No man should be in politics unless he would honestly rather not be there.” Would you care to make a comment on this statement? It certainly takes courage to run for office and Henry Adams speaks of the paradox between humility and a large ego many politicians portray. However, I feel that it is necessary that I run for office in order to provide a better future for Maui County. In the United States, we are privileged to be able to have a voice in the Government and I believe that I represent many of the voices of Maui County, who would like someone like me to represent them on the Council. It is important to put my desire to create the best possible future for Maui above personal aspirations that I may have and this is what I believe Henry Adams was referring to.

Vanilla Ice Cream Day Day 205 of 2008 161 days left in this year

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HAWAIIAN WORD OF THE DAY — ‘Koho: Election
PIDGIN WORD OF THE DAY — Plantesen: Plantation
HAWAIIAN PROVERB OF THE DAY —  “A goose mate returns to pollute the house.”
HAOLE SAYING OF THE DAY — “No man should be in politics unless he would honestly rather not be there.” (Samuel Adams)

WEB SURF SPOT OF THE WEEK — Graphjam

WEB VIDEO OF THE WEEK — JibJab – Election 2008
NETCAST OF THE WEEK — Tekzilla
GOOD DEED SITE OF THE WEEK — Give Rice to the Hungry

BORN ON THIS DAY — July 23rd
1892: Haile Selassie, emperor of Ethiopia
1936: Anthony M Kennedy, supreme court justice
1936: Don Drysdale, Hall of Fame baseball pitcher
1938: Ronny Cox, actor
1961: Woody Harrelson, actor
1965: Slash, rock musician
1967: Philip Seymour Hoffman, actor
1973: Omar Epps, actor
1980: Michelle Williams, singer