DISQUS

Outsourcing: Yeah, there is a lot of that going around.

Even NCL America which took over the defaulted Maritime Loan Guarantee from American Hawaii Cruises and supposedly hires Americans has mostly hires workers not from the actual states.

Their wages and working conditions are awful...which they can get away with because they have access to nonAmerican workers who are willing to undercut us.

There's a move on now to repeal the Jones Act "to make goods cheaper". This is getting a lot of play by politicians in Hawaii such as Ed Case, former rep and failed senatorial candidate. I'm thinking this is will just open the door to worse wages and conditions and impair our national security. What's your take?

Yes, Kaua'i is even smaller in population than Maui. And you are correct that even though on both Maui and Kaua'i people testified at meetings, it was only on Maui that a group actually hired a lawyer to formally file against the finding of no significant impact.

So in answer to your question "where were all the protesters..." they were at the meetings but didn't have the money? knowledge? to take it to the next level and file a lawsuit on Kaua'i 2 years ago, as they did no Maui.

But my question is: Why do the citizens have to spend over $70,000 on legal bills and file various lawsuits to get Lingle to follow the law?

That law (requiring an EIS) is a good one. Instead of spending 140 million in federal loan guarantees and 40 million in state money in a big rush without determining ways to mitigate the impacts (without, for heaven's sake even supplying PARKING) planning the project in a deliberate and careful manner is by far more responsible.

Lingle let herself be pressured into cutting corners. This corner cutting fell heaviest on the neighbor islands.

And I suspect that had a thorough study been done, it would have become immediately clear that the project isn't economically viable.

There are any number of conspiracy theories about what is going on but do the math on the capacity * rates - fuel and I think you'll see it comes out to be a negative number.

In the realm of pure speculation my first guess was that they were going to get the operation up and running on borrowed money, flip it and then let the poor sucker who bought it go bankrupt or apply to Hawaii for subsidies.

They talk now about leaving Hawaii if they don't get operational soon. So I infer from that there is another use for the ferry which could be profitable...perhaps being leased to the Navy as its sister ship WestPac is. Perhaps that was their fallback plan from the beginning...get 180 million in civilian loans and handouts and then say, "gee, we're not profitable and we have to make the payments so either give us a State subsidy or we'll have to lease to the military."

However, I haven't seen the scenario you outline talked about. Particularly since it doesn't make much sense, most people would have ignored anyone who postulated it.

You're post indicates that you feel that (some of) the residents of Kaua'i and Maui just don't want more people coming.

I think what you are seeing is a tremendous culture clash between what has been described as "the American Dream" (e.g. work hard and make a lot of money) and the Hawaiian culture which is embodied in our state motto: "Ua mau ka ea o ka 'aina i ka pono".

As with all Hawaiian sayings this has meaning on many levels but best translated to: "The life of the land continues (is preserved) by doing the right thing (harmony with correct behavior)"

So we have people who see the land as something that they use (up) to create their dream of monetary prosperity coming to a place where the land is seen as something to be preserved in its natural state and where the measure of success is not monetary but how you live your life in harmony with the virtues of ha'aha'a (humbleness), lokahi (unity) and aloha (a VERY misused word that I won't even attempt to explain)

Granted, this is idealized. But you get the basic culture clash and why your statement has truth to it.

We did go to every meeting including the PUC. As usual, they ignored us which is why the County Councils had to pass resolutions asking for an EIS....which were also ignored.

You can see videos of the various meetings which were packed with people testifying about the problems that needed to be solved before the Superferry started operating.

Tapes of our concerns and testimony at meetings going back to 2004 are at www.akaku.org.

If they had only done the EIS starting in 2004 when we asked them, this whole thing would be over with.

But they kept saying, "we'll lose our funding" if you make us do an EIS. Like all good cons, this required that the marks (the taxpayers) be rushed into investing prior to looking at the whole picture.

I don't see how my post constitutes a "rant". However you don't have your facts straight.

The lawsuit was brought by those on Maui. However the law which the Superferry broke applies to the entire state.

You missed the whole point of my post. Yes, the state government should pay for the roads but they don't because they are controlled by 'Oahu.

That's why we want an EIS...if the EIS says the State has to spring for road improvements prior to the Superferry's commencement, then we have leverage to get the money out of them. Otherwise - no leverage - no road improvements.

As for cruise ships, you obviously don't live on either Maui or Kaua'i or you would see the full size buses from the car rental places lined up waiting to pick up the thousands of passengers off the cruise ships..

To put this in perspective: We only have about 120,000 residents on Maui. We are a SMALL island with limited room.

I'm thankful the Superferry postponed their service. It was clear from the 1000+ angry Kaua'i people at Lingle's meeting, that the situation was going to escalate.

Using homeland security rules to smash peaceful U.S. citizens who are seeking redress from their government is taking us down a dangerous road to losing our freedom and Constitutional rights.

To threaten 20 year sentences, $25,000 fines and using Child Protective Services to remove under-18 protesters from their parent's custody is an unbelievable corruption of our terrorism and family protection laws.

The Superferry can read the Hawaii Laws as well as anyone. They are unambiguous. An EIS is required when using State or Federal money. The Superferry is receiving corporate welfare from both the State and the federal governments.

If you are going to mooch off the taxpayers, you owe it to them to obey the law.

80% of Hawaii's population lives on 'Oahu. The outnumbered neighbor islands have been getting the short end of the stick on Dept. of Transportation projects.

We got stuck with cruise ships which clog our harbors causing our freight ships to have to wait outside 4 days to unload while the cruise ships stay at our limited docks for days at a time.

The cruise ships brought horrendous traffic and other problems.

Oahu-centric Dept of Transportation foisted the cruise ships off on us but has done nothing for our roads or harbors to expand the capacity.

If we don't get an EIS before the Superferry starts service, we lose our bargaining position for getting help with the problems in traffic etc. that the superfery brings.

That's why Maui, Kaua'i and Big Island County Councils all passed resolutions asking for an EIS prior to Superferry commencement. But Lingle ignored them and decided to ram the project through in violation of the law.

And this is the result - angry residents who have to protest to get the Superferry and their own state government to obey the law.

The protesters say that the Superferry, in sailing prior to the EIS was breaking the law and that therefore their presence in the water was entirely legal.

Now Superferry is taking reservations for Oct 1st, 2007. If there is no compromise on the major issues (e.g. no cars, speed less than 13 knots, etc) while the EIS is being prepared, then it is going to get really ugly as Gov. Lingle's "unified command" of Homeland Security, FBI, Police, DLNR, Coast Guard, National Guard try to smash otherwise law-abiding, peaceful residents of the neighbor islands.

Hopefully, the Superferry will see that prolonging and intensifying this confrontation is not in their long term interest and, for once, make a genuine effort at compromise rather than just cranking out more PR misdirection and rah, rah we're so great advertising.