Musings: Forbidden Fruit I

In early February 2013, a visitor drowned after jumping off an unpermitted dock at a Wainiha vacation rental. That incident, which I wrote about here, led to the Abuse Chronicles, a 20-part investigative series that detailed the illegal shenanigans associated with transient vacation rentals (TVRs) on Kauai.

Following the series, the County Council threatened to investigate the county planning department. The administration of Mayor Bernard Carvalho Jr. promised to reform. Both sides were loath to go after the people who gotten their TVR permits improperly. Instead, the department was told to get its act together and go after the “low-hanging fruit” — the folks who were running totally illegal TVRs.

Fast forward to last week, when the Council began its review of a proposed law regulating homestay/B&B operations on Kauai.

As Council Chair Mel Rapozo noted:

This is an opportunity to craft legislation going forward. The TVR issue … really was an embarrassment. It's just horrible what has happened. The low-hanging fruit that has been promised, what has been done? It makes it difficult trying to pass B&B legislation when owners say you cannot even enforce the TVR law. There's violations everywhere you look in the TVR neighborhoods. It's horrific what we're finding, and where's the enforcement? It's not there.

He then asked Planning to attend a January meeting to update the Council on its TVR enforcement efforts.

Though I hate to spoil the surprise, the answer is simple: Not very much. In fact, it's pretty much same-old, same-old. Business as usual, and all that.

The Kauai Paradise House — the TVR where the visitor drowned, and which I revealed as having been fully renovated without permits — remains open.

According to county documents, owner Victoria Leadley was issued a cease and desist order for “failure to meet ordinance requirements.” But she's appealing that order, and continues to operate in the meantime. The house is booked through the holidays.

In fact, the county has yet to revoke a single TVR certificate, even though it's sent out 13 cease and desist letters for a range of violations. These include: failure to renew, some of them for years; failure to meet ordinance requirements; failure to meet special management area requirements; illegal conversion of a guest house; and failure to meet ownership authorization requirements.

All of the owners are appealing the cease and desist orders, which apparently were not issued until FY 2015, even though the violations occurred much earlier.

Another seven TVR owners voluntary relinquished their certificates.

Meanwhile, it appears that problems remain with the Planning Department's record keeping. For example, in response to my public records request, Planning sent me a list that included all the TVR certificate holders who had been sent cease and desist letters. The list included the owners' names, TMK numbers and TVR certificate numbers.

That list includes Aloha Kai Beachfront Rentals, a Haena house owned by Laura and David Bancroft. Problem is, they never actually got a TVR certificate. The county's TVR log listed the TVR application for that property as denied on June 27, 2009, denied on Sept.18, 2009, denied on Nov. 2, 2012 and closed on Nov. 15, 2012. It was designated a “dead file” on Sept. 17, 2013.

So if they never even got approval, why are they being allowed to appeal the cease and desist order?

The owners know they aren't legit, because they don't post a TVR number on their Internet ads. Instead they misleadingly advertise “Hawaii Vacation Rental Registration Number W87848647-01,” which is their general excise tax number.

And if they aren't legit, how come they can continue to operate, with bookings through the Christmas holidays?

The Bancroft property tax records also tell an interesting story. The property was classified “homestead” in 2010, 2011 and 2012. That changed to “vacation rental” in 2013 and 2014. For 2015 and 2016, it's designated “commercialized home use.”

Tax records also describe the property as having three bedrooms, three bathrooms and a half bath, with the only additions a deck and solar panels. Yet Aloha Kai variously bills itself as a 5-bedroom, 5-bath, sleeps-12 vacation rental “just 20 feet from the sand and a “charmingly rustic home … with 4 bedrooms and 3 baths.“ It's actually a main house and what appears to be an unpermitted cottage with its own kitchen. The “romantic upgraded” cottage is rented separately, which makes this an illegal multifamily vacation rental.

And according to FlipKey reviews, not everyone is happy with the arrangement:

We couldn’t figure out what was going on with the house that this studio is attached to. The house is above and next door, basically surrounding the studio. Sometimes it seemed like a local family was staying there with all the local vehicles parked behind the house. Lots of chatting and some work seemed to be going on. At the end of our stay a huge wedding party moved in. About 15 young people with 5 cars and they kept blocking us in. We lost all privacy and it became very loud. You could hear every foot step above and the toilet flushing down the wall. They even set up a tent in the front yard right in front of our patio. The worst part was that the property management company gave this group the key code to our unit instead of the attached house and they walked right in to our unit by mistake while we were there. I felt unconformable knowing that 15 20-somethings had access to our studio. There was no additional deadbolt or chain to secure the front door. I wouldn’t recommend staying here if the attached house is occupied. And I wouldn’t take the gamble staying here again.

An October guest was similarly displeased:

I wouldn't recommend this place to most people, but if you aren't super picky, want to be steps from the beach and don't want to be in the condo world this place might be worth a try.

Other reviewers dissed the main house, too:

We gave property 4 stars overall because of location, but dirty towels were folded on towel racks for our use, 3 lights out in one bathroom making it very dark & light fixtures very dirty, old junk left around property making it look shabby. It is obvious owners use this as a rental property lacking personal loving care. FYI - there is no hammock as shown in photo.

FYI: There's still something very fishy going on with Kauai TVRs. Will the Council finally press more vigorous enforcement? What will it take to clean up this mess? 

Musings: Ratchet Up the Rhetoric

The opening of the state Legislature is right around the corner, which means it's time to start ramping up public fear.

So it's no surprise that the chief fear-mongers — Center for Food Safety, Gary Hooser's HAPA and the anti-GMO Hawaii SEED — are co-sponsoring events intended to make folks anxious about only one thing: agricultural pesticides.

For the first event, set for next week, they've aligned with a motley crew of supposed environmental advocacy groups. These include Honua Consulting, which just got a $200,000 consulting contract with the Oahu high-speed rail project, and a new group that blatantly ripped off the name — North Shore Ohana — of a legit Kauai entity that pursued important public shoreline litigation.

Yeah, if you've got no creds, and no legitimacy, why not just steal from a group that does? Ethics, like facts, are not highly valued by the “ends justify the means” anti-GMO crowd.

Anyway, they're bringing in writer Sandra Steingraber, who produced an advocacy film, “Living Downstream,” linking chemicals to cancer. Ironically, the film was financed by the Ceres Trust, which is funded with a manufacturing fortune, and the Kendeda Fund, which gets its money from the ex-wife of the Home Depot mogul. No chemicals or toxins there!

Steingraber will be flying to Oahu a week after speaking in Paris on “Keeping Fossil Fuels in the Ground” — well, except those she wants to make use of for her own travels. This is yet another example of the hypocrisy and not-so-clean cash behind the anti-GMO movement, which has billed Steingraber's talk as “For the Keiki.” The ad for her “free” lecture (but be sure to buy a book) asks:

Don't you believe that our keiki deserve a safe, toxin-free environment?

Of course they do. But these groups have targeted agricultural entities as the sole foe of that goal — even though they aren't the largest users of pesticides in the state, and there hasn't been one documented case of pesticide poisoning by seed companies. There isn't any attention paid to education, even though pesticide poisonings most often occur in the home, with products available at places like Home Depot.

As an aside, Reuters is publishing a harrowing series on all the drug-addicted mamas — abusing meth and opiates, the latter frequently prescribed by doctors — having drug babies, with little oversight from social services agencies, resulting in the abuse and deaths of too many kids.

But no, parental drug abuse can't possibly be a problem for keiki in drug-riddled Hawaii. Nope, the seed companies are the gravest — indeed, the only — threat to the health of island keiki. Go figger.....

Steingraber's talk will be followed next month by HAPA's “International Food Justice Summit in Hawaii,” whereby they'll trot four as-yet-unidentified “experts” around the state to:

“weave together a story of how our local struggles are connected, share inspiring stories of grassroots victories from around the earth, and explore how the world movement can grow (together) toward transforming the food system to be more democratic, equitable, ecologically and climate -sensible, and to feed people rather than corporate profits.”

First, we've had quite enough stories and storytelling, thank you very much. How about some truth, followed by some actual action? Because none of these Hawaii groups have actually done anything concrete to transform the food system. Indeed, one could make a strong case that they're guilty of food injustice, as in consuming more than their share, simply by observing the paunches and jowls of the most ardent activists.

And enough already with the empty rhetoric about “corporate profits.” Center for Food Safety and HAPA love to demonize corporate cash and place themselves above the filthy money-grubbers, with HAPA grandly claiming its “mission is to catalyze community empowerment and systemic change towards valuing `āina (environment) and people ahead of corporate profit.”

Yet HAPA and CFS are funded almost solely by corporate profits, including those gleaned from fossil fuel exploitation and other toxic enterprises.

Speaking of Gary, I was quite touched to read his little tribute to me in his Thanksgiving blog post, where he wrote:

My thanks today goes [sic] out especially to those unique individuals who go the extra mile and who work relentlessly toward the goal of making our island and our planet a better place. I am speaking of those who are willing to stand up and be counted and speak truth to power even when the topic is controversial and the position perhaps unpopular.

Aw, gee whiz, Gary. Glad you've finally seen the light. Maybe now you'll stop leaving all those nasty "anonymous" comments about how I'm a paid industry shill.  (Hint: It's super easy to identify people when they use the same language in their Facebook posts that they do in their “anonymous” comments.]

I also noticed that Gary is using his very limited time on the Kauai County Council not to advance food justice or improve farming opportunities or support local ag, but to crack down on those who improperly try to influence legislation. You know, like how he does when he goes to the Lege and uses his Councilman title to lobby for HAPA's agenda. 

As he wrote on his blog:

The Hawaii State Constitution requires every County to regulate those individuals and organizations who are paid to influence government actions, however Kauai County does not presently have a “lobbying ordinance” in place. I have a proposed draft Bill that addresses this issue which is now under its final legal review and is expected to be introduced in late December or early January.

Oh, goodie. Let's hope the Council adds language that Gary is sure to omit; namely, verbiage that prohibits a Councilman from missing meetings he's paid to attend so he can misuse his elected position to lobby state lawmakers and Syngenta shareholders on issues that directly affect his nonprofit.

Musings: Eye-Catching

A few things caught my eye in recent days.

Like this report, which shows that more Americans have been killed by guns since 1968 than all the wars we've participated in combined.

The numbers look like this: About 1.17 million people have died in combat since the founding of the U.S. About 1.49 million have died of a gunshot since 1968.

America has some 33,000 gun deaths annually. Most are suicides. Homicides account for 11,000.

Other troubling stats: There have been at least 1,042 mass shootings since Sandy Hook. On average, there is more than one mass shooting per day in America. Since the Aug. 9, 2014, police shooting of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri, police have killed at least 1,112 people, the majority by gunshots. And police are more likely to be killed in states with high rates of gun ownership.

I know folks love their guns, but this is getting more than kinda nuts. Especially when so many nuts have guns.

Then there were the stats about who is buying property in the Islands. Not surprisingly, it's a lot of folks from the mainland and other countries. Because who else can afford a house that costs, on average, over $500,000?

On Kauai, local buyers (and by that is meant residents, not “locals” per se) accounted for just 54.5% of sales. On Maui, it's even lower — 48%.

Not surprisingly, the state's highest home prices were found in Hanalei, where the real estate market has been given a big boost from the highly lucrative vacation rental trade. Unless there's a massive tsunami, which is likely at some point, that area has been forever lost to locals.

As Civil Beat reported:

More than 38 percent of mainland homebuyers were from California, followed by 10.5 percent from Texas and 8.5 percent from Washington state.

And what's the first thing folks do when they get their piece of “paradise?” They feel compelled to “save it” from something (other than themselves, of course) and thus give money and support to misguided causes and the politicians who advance them.

Let's face it. Local culture is fading. And that's sad, because it's as distinct as many of the plants and animals — also endangered — that make Hawaii unique. 

Finally, Jan TenBruggencate had an interesting post yesterday on the link between fear, unfounded allegations and denial. Though he uses climate change as an example, we've certainly seen it at work with biotech crops and pesticides. As Jan wrote:

The Michigan State folks conducted a study that gave a large group of people positive messages about resolving climate change, and negative messages about denying it exists.

The negative messages resonated. The positive ones didn’t.

The researchers found that the positive messages didn’t change anybody’s mind, and the negative message significantly weakened support for climate action.

People getting the negative message were more apt to doubt the existence of climate change. And that applied to both conservatives and liberals.

Which is why we keep seeing the anti-GMO/anti-ag groups delivering a relentless stream of negative messages. They intentionally sow “seeds of doubt.” And they're so blatant about it that they actually hosted a conference entitled “Seeds of Doubt” to convey this ominous — but ultimately false — message:

Use of genetically modified organisms (GMOs) in the US is quickly becoming one of the most dangerous and dramatic health threats ever to affect our planet.

Nope, you don't need to bother with facts and evidence when you're plying the timeworn trade of sensationalism and fear.

Or as Jan aptly noted:

Fear and allegations of conspiracies are powerful tools—if you can use them and still sleep at night.

Musings: Gems and Blems

Though it's a sort of torture to watch Kauai County Council meetings — I'm always acutely aware of the limited minutes of my life ticking by — they do sometimes turn up a gem or two.

Like this bit of complete cluelessness, uttered by Councilman Gary Hooser:

Working together, taking our time and not reacting to the mob mentality as mentioned earlier, we can find a way to reach some common ground.

Wow. Great insight. It's just too bad he didn't have it when his own red-shirted mob was outside the Council chambers at 3 a.m., bullying a vote on his anti-GMO Bill 2491.

Because there's no mob scene around the B&B/homestay issue, which Gary was referring to. Just residents sick and tired of seeing their property taxes go up, and their neighborhoods turned into defacto resorts, because the County is unwilling and/or unable to regulate transient vacation accommodations in all their many forms.

In this case, Gary is pushing a measured approach because he wants to grandfather in all the existing homestays, which neither the planning department nor the Council majority seem to support.

Except for Councilwoman JoAnn Yukimura, who finds it “very unjust” that all the people who for years never did seek a B&B use permit — and yes, they were available all this time — aren't being given automatic approval.

According to information I obtained under a public records request, the planning commission approved homestay use permits in 1988, 1989, 1990, 1993, 1994, three in 1998 and one in 2004. It also denied two permit requests in 1998. There obviously was a process, which some homeowners did seek out and use, to obtain permits for lawfully operating a homestay/B&B.

So can we please cancel the pity party for folks who have been operating for years while claiming there was no process to get a permit?

Councilman Mason Chock also demonstrated that he's uninformed when he noted a “small handful” hadn't “gone through the process” and he was “inclined to ensure they're heard and what can be done for them to continue.”

In fact, 11 people who were operating homestays without permits have managed to obtain them in the past six months, using the existing use permit process. These include several on ag land, which would be prohibited under the proposed homestay bill.

To date, planning has approved 20 use permits for homestay operations.

In recent months, another nine operators withdrew their applications for various reasons, like maybe they had illegal structures or other planning/zoning issues. Two had their permit requests denied. Seven are fighting their denials though the contested case process. Action was deferred on three and another one went to the planning commission last month.

Though planning has screwed up plenty, homestay operators are being heard and given ample opportunity to make their case. Councilmembers should check their sympathy, especially when it's directed toward their friends, and allow the planning commission to do its job.

What they need to focus on now is crafting a bill that doesn't repeat the same errors as the TVR law. Councilmembers spoke a lot about the need for a fair process, which is why the issue of grandfathering in current users is such a big deal. As a reader noted in comments on a recent post:

Grandfathering is a term to allow a previously legal use to continue when laws are made that no longer allow that use. It is severely wrong in this situation, where B&Bs have always been allowed with a Use Permit. Grandfathering was never meant to allow Un permitted uses to be made legal. And the current home stay process should not grandfather any operation that did not bother to get a Use Permit and in fact did operate illegally.

A previous Council made that terrible error when it passed a TVR law that allowed only those who had been illegally operating to seek permits. The law-abiding folks were forever barred from obtaining the lucrative permits that run with the land. It was one of the most unjust acts the Council has perpetrated, and it screwed locals big time. It's simply not fair to again let folks slide when they failed to use an existing process and instead chose to gamble that the county wouldn't enforce against them.

As Council Chair Mel Rapozo noted, tourist accommodations have always been illegal on ag land under state law. That's why it was such a travesty that a previous Council — including JoAnn — amended the TVR law to allow them there. While I'd rather see homestays than TVRs on ag land, neither is appropriate.

Councilman Ross Kagawa got it right when he observed: “Just because a mistake was made doesn't mean we gotta continue the mistake.”

Amen. So revise the homestay bill to require inspections of the property, and deal with enforcement.

Mel revealed that the Council, along with its legal analyst, has been investigating some of the TVR abuses. “There's violations everywhere you look in the TVR neighborhoods,” he said. “It's horrific what we're finding, and where's the enforcement? It's not there.”

Mel wants Planning to address the Council next month about its enforcement efforts against illegal TVRs, and its plans to enforce the B&B/homestay law. Because without enforcement, what is the point?

There's another interesting issue that hasn't come up. Folks who bought properties in the visitor destination areas, where homestays and TVRs are allowed, ostensibly paid more for that privilege. Is the county going to be sued if it continues to erode their property values by allowing a proliferation of visitor accommodations outside the VDA, either by permitting outright or failing to enforce?

Finally, though JoAnn admitted she had not even read the homestay bill, which is only four pages long, she was bemoaning the fact that the Council couldn't question people who testified, due to a recent rule change. “it's important to understand the circumstances each person is speaking from,” she sniffed.

No, it's not. Rather than rely on the self-interested comments of the public to guide her in “good decision-making,” perhaps JoAnn should start by doing her homework and actually reading the controversial bills that come before the Council.

That, and pay attention and/or reference written testimony, so you don't throw a hissy fit when your colleagues won't allow a person to repeat their entire six-minute testimony because you didn't capture all the points. It's a public process, JoAnn. It's not all about you. 

And Gary, "bite me" — the phrase you uttered to Ross — is never an appropriate way to speak to another Councilmemember. Especially when you love to lecture folks about treating the Council with respect. 

Time to grow up — and learn a new comeback. That one is juvenile and tired already.

Musings: Calling All "Victims"

In a strange reversal of events, anti-GMO activists are trying to drum up supposed victims of westside Kauai “pesticide pollution” to satisfy a news team.

In a Facebook post yesterday, anti-GMO activist Laurie Cicotello wrote:

NBC is planning to come to Kauai to do a piece re west side pesticide pollution. It will be on Nightly News and Dateline or Frontline.

We need exposed/affected residents/fieldworkers.

This is a great opportunity for nationally and possibly internationally getting the word out.

Please PM Marghee Maupin if you would be able to be interviewed or if you have any suggestions. Thank you.

Now, if people actually had been the victims of westside "pesticide pollution," wouldn't you have them in place before you pitch a national news team on the story, rather than try to find some victims to satisfy the spin you've already created?

Wouldn't those supposed victims of westside pesticide pollution already be well-known to the anti-GMO groups — especially Marghee, who presents herself as the health care advocate for westsiders? I mean, wouldn't she have the health records of folks, and thus be able to easily identify them — and document her claims — without having to do a call-out on Facebook?

Come to think of it, why hasn't Marghee or anyone else from the anti-GMO movement — including its Kauai leader, Gary Hooser — been able to provide any documentation of anyone affected by "pesticide pollution?” Surely, if people are suffering from “pesticide pollution” Marghee and the others would be able to provide blood and/or urine tests showing elevated levels of pesticides.

Especially since none of the environmental tests done on the westside have documented any pesticide pollution whatsoever.

Yet the complete lack of documentation didn't prevent Marghee from writing a letter to the editor recently in which she tried to make a case that Kekaha students have low achievement scores because of pesticide exposure. She wrote:

Kekaha Elementary School children are chronically exposed to up to 90 pesticides on a regular basis. A very dangerous pesticide, Chlorpyrifos (originally manufactured by Dow), was found in air samples four separate times at Waimea Canyon Middle School. It is likely that air samples at Kekaha Elementary School would show similar exposures, given that Chlorpyrifos is the most heavily sprayed restricted use insecticide on Kauai.

This is the kind of flawed thought process that characterizes Marghee — who, as a health “professional,” should know better — and too many others in the “red shirt” brigade.

First, just because ag chemicals are applied on the westside does not mean that Kekaha students are “chronically exposed.” And just because chlorpyrifos was found in air samples at Waimea Canyon Middle School doesn't make it at all “likely” that the air around Kekaha school would have the same results.

And what Marghee, Hooser and the others who like to fear-monger always and intentionally fail to note is that the pesticide levels detected were well below federal accepted limits.

The state Department of Health report on the air samples notes, emphasis added:

Five pesticides were detected in the indoor and outdoor passive air samples and the high volume outdoor air samples collected at Waimea Canyon Middle School. Those pesticides were chlorpyrifos, metolachlor, bifenthrin, benzene hexachlorides (BHCs) and dichlorodiphenyltrichloroethanes (DDTs). BHCs and DDTs, likely from past uses and ubiquitous throughout the world, were detected in all air samples collected from Kauai. Concentrations of the pesticides and MITC were well below health concern exposure limits or applicable screening levels.

The same air samples that found chlorpyrifos also identified 29 chemicals associated with stinkweed, which DOH determined to be the cause of the school kids getting sick. But though Marghee will accept the report's pesticide findings, she refuses to accept the stinkweed finding.

You just can't have it both ways — unless you really have no interest in facts, the truth or public health, and instead are just trying to hammer an anti-GMO ideology. Which is why there's so much misiformation floating around.

Meanwhile, Hooser's HAPA group is moaning on Facebook about the “collapse of journalistic standards” because some reporters writing about GMOs supposedly failed to identify scientists who supposedly had ties to industry.

No, the collapse of journalistic standards occurs when HAPA sends The Garden Island a press release, which the newspaper prints verbatim, and when the anti-GMO movement pays reporters like Chris Pala and Paul Koberstein to write anti-GMO stories peppered with fake “facts” — like the supposed pesticide sickening of Waimea school kids — and then uses those inaccurate articles to keep promoting its bullshit.

And it happens when groups like HAPA and Center for Food Safety make up problems and then try to drum up media coverage of undocumented harms.

If NBC does come to Kauai, let's hope it comes without a preconceived bias and actually does some digging to document whether pesticide pollution is indeed occurring, and if so, the culprit. We've seen so many inaccuracies perpetuated about the situation on Kauai. And let's really hope NBC does its own source scouting, rather than accepting victims presented by someone like Marghee, who has zero qualms about lying and thus zero credibility.