Musings: On Human Wastage

Driving over to the beach, well before dawn, I passed a young woman parked in the place where the tweakers always wait for their ice delivery. Our eyes met, and I sent her a silent prayer of hope and healing. Down at the water, I walked by a man passed out in the sand, watched his bleary-eyed companion stagger out of their tent, beer bottles strewn around the campsite.

Saddened by the human wastage, I kept walking and looked up, where the boobies and iwa were soaring overhead, heading south to fish. The sun peeked up over the horizon, and a rainbow arched through a gray cloud. And so dawned another day in “paradise.”

Remember Lance Collins, the Maui attorney who challenged the county's attempt to obtain pro bono legal services to defend the pesticide/GMO regulation bill in federal court? And when finance director Steve Hunt denied his protest, he still pressed on, demanding a hearing before a state agency, threatening legal action?

What ever happened with that? I wondered.

Turns out it was a big “nevah mind,” with Lance agreeing before the hearing to drop his protest as moot. This is just one example of how people who don't even live here waste our county's time and money to pursue their own ideological, political and publicity-seeking purposes.

Another example is Bob Yuhnke, the Colorado-based attorney for the Environmental Defense Fund who drafted the anti-ag charter amendment that folks are now trying to get on the ballot. The document, which is is actually an ordinance disguised as a charter amendment, creates an omnipotent environmental czar. Its language basically tells the county to ignore state and federal law, violates the commerce clauses of the U.S. Constitution and runs roughshod over due process:

Strict liability. Any action, activity or conduct, or failure to act, that violates this Charter Amendment is an offense without requiring proof that the defendant knew or intended that such action, activities or conduct, or failure to act, would cause or contribute to the violation.

I keep waiting for someone to stand up and speak against it, someone like a respected local attorney, or a council member — other than Gary Hooser, who endorses it, even though he is sworn to uphold the law and do what's best for the people of Kauai.

But nobody's saying nuttin', except for Felicia Cowden, who is using her publicly-funded KKCR radio show to promote both the charter amendment and her bid for County Council. I tried to call in to her program yesterday, where she was allowing Yuhnke to speak unchallenged for 40 minutes, and she refused to let me ask a question. That doesn't speak well for a Council candidate.

And it doesn't speak well for a community radio station, especially one that is in the middle of its fund drive. And it got me wondering, where is KKCR getting its money? Is it getting paid to single-mindedly advance an anti-GMO/anti-seed company message? Because we haven't heard any other point of view for well over a year.

So I checked out its 990 tax form, and discovered its most recent filing was 2011, and all the donations are lumped together. Which means we have no way of knowing whether the station sold out last year to special interests, or if its station manager and Board are simply unwilling to provide any sort of balanced programming. Indeed, four of the nine Board members used their own shows to actively lobby for the pesticide/GMO regulatory bill.

[Update: Station manager Dean Rogers kindly sent me a copy of the most recent tax returns, which are available for review at the station.] 

But aside from Ed Coll, whose Spinning Wheels Turning blog has chronicled the station's dysfunction and recent unraveling, nobody is sayin' nuttin' about the demise of public affairs programming on our community radio station. Or at least, not publicly, though I hear lots of private stink talk.

Meanwhile, I hear the state isn't going to fund any additional ag and pesticide inspector positions for the Neighbor Islands. It's apparently taking the position that if the counties want to regulate pesticides, they can pay for the inspectors.

Which is fine, except right now the county is dealing with a serious budget shortfall. And we're still facing an unknown legal bill to defend Ordinance 960 — written by Center for Food Safety and Earthjustice — and, should it get on the ballot and pass, the charter amendment, as it will absolutely be challenged.

But what do CFS, Earthjustice and Yuhnke care? They're not paying property taxes on Kauai.

As I told a friend, Kauai's smallness makes it too easy for wackos to hold sway and too hard for people to speak up who should. Which means, be prepared to pay.