Strafing run at Salt Pond Beach

SUBHEAD: Lifeguards on duty thought the military helicopters were a clear danger to the public.

By Juan Wilson on 9 December 2017 for Island Breath -
(http://islandbreath.blogspot.com/2017/12/strafing-run-at-salt-pond.html)


Image above: Attack helicopter traverses Salt Pond Beach Park at low altitude from east to west as beachgoers watch. Note the chopper is right over cars parked at the far side if the beach. See image below for close up of cars. Photo by Juan Wilson.

This is the second time I have witnessed what amounts to practice strafing runs over an occupied county public beach park on Kauai, Hawaii. It is not welcomed.

Below are images and a short video that caught on my iPod as two military helicopters flying low and hot in at least four passes from east to west and back over Burns Field.

Burns is an unregulated airstrip at Puolo Point shared by small private civilian and commercial aircraft. There is no control tower, personnel or traffic regulation at the fields.


Image above: Vehicles park along fence of Burns Field for access to beach for swimming and fishing. Photo by Juan Wilson.

These maneuvers brought them over the Salt Pond Beach area including a sandy beach and ocean swimming area occupied by tourists and locals that often park near the end of the Burns Field runway.

one of  the helicopter's passed was higher from west to east. See video below.


Image above: The two  helicopters heading west over water of Salt Pond Beach Park in one of at least four runs at Burn's Field. In most they approached the area and dropped to lower strafing altitude. From (https://youtu.be/dQvwrn8EMPQ).

I spoke to the lifeguards on duty at the time. They were appalled by the risks of flying so low over a swimming area. They thought it clearly a danger to the public.

One aircraft appeared to be a UH-60 Black Hawk and the other a Bell Cobra attack helicopter, both used by the US Army.


The Navy operates two 7,000 foot long runways with a control tower, fire trucks and safety equipment just a few miles from this beach. Why can't the Army make what look like strafing runs there? Is it because they would have to ask permission of the Navy and might be turned down?


These copters likely flew from Oahu - Probably from the US Army's Schofield Barracks airfield.

See also:

Ea O Ka Aina: Kauai and Niihau endangered 9/24/16

Ea O Ka Aina: MV-22 Osprey landing at Salt Pond 2/5/17

Ea O Ka Aina: See film "Okinawa: The Afterburn" 3/18/17

Ea O Ka Aina: Marines backing off 8/24/12

Ea O Ka Aina: Unproved Osprey on Kauai 8/21/12

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Salt Pond dedication to Uncle Louis

SUBHEAD: On his 94th birthday Uncle Louis Almodova Jr (Da Mayor of Salt Pond) has beach pavilion named in his honor.

 By Juan Wilson on 25 October 2011 for Island Breath - 
  (http://islandbreath.blogspot.com/2011/10/salt-pond-pavilion-named-for-uncle.html)
 
Image above: Portrait of Uncle Louis Almodova Jr. by Evelyn Ritter in front of JJ Ohana Store in Hanapepe, Kauai. All photos by Juan Wilson.

Before 11:00am on October 24th, 2011 his family and friends were there the in main central pavilion at Salt Pond Beach. Moreover many of Kauai County's key political figures were on hand. As council members Dickie Chang and JoAnn Yukimura were having their photos taken with Louis I spotted fellow office holder Tim Bynum in the crowd.

I quipped to the Garden Island photojournalist Dennis Fujimoto that we almost had a County Council quorum, when low and behold Nadine Nakamura arrived. As usual Uncle Louie was charming and hospitable to everyone he spoke to.

Image above: Dennis Fujimoto set up for a photo op. Left-to-right Dickie Chang, Uncle Louis and JoAnn Yukimura.

Soon Kauai Mayor Bernard Carvalho was there in the county pavilion reading a declaration of the renaming of structure in Uncle Louis' name. Why this man and this structure? For decades Uncle Louis has dedicated part of almost everyday to enthusiastically greeting everyone he meets at Salt Pond Beach Park in front of the main pavilion.

He works the crowd, especially the visitors, with good humored jokes and island anecdotes. He can talk with personal experience about plantation work, playing rumba music, WWII, katchi katchi dancing, operating a tourist bus back in the day and , and world championship baseball - He's got a Senior's World Series Ring in his pocket.


 
Image above: Mayor Bernard Carvalho reads the pavilion dedication to Louis.

After mayor Carvalho spoke it was time for Louis to speak. His closing comment was made as he pointed to all assembled. "Everything I am today is because of you". Then the crowd at the pavilion formed a circle and thanks were said, then it was time for a generous lunch for all present organized by his daughters Gerry and Pat.


Image above: crowd listens to Uncle Louis' comments. Nadine Nakamura (left), Dennis Fujimoto (center), Tim Bynum (center right), Uncle Louis' son (right).

When I first met Uncle Louis, back in 1997, I was showing my wife Kauai for the first time and we crossed the lawn in front of the pavilion. Then Uncle Louis was a spry eighty-years-old. He shouted out "Aloha! Welcome to the park!"

He carried a golf club handle fashioned with a spike for snaring abandoned soda cans and blowing paper. We talked and talked. We moved to Kauai in 2001 and have been lucky to see Uncle Louis several times a week. We have gotten to know his family too. My wife and I lost our dads. Louis may be your uncle, but for us he is kind of our local dad.

See also:
Island Breath: Uncle Louis Tales - Last Football game & the D7 Bulldozer
Island Breath: Uncle Louis - The Caretaker of Salt Pond
Island Breath: Uncle Louis - The mayor of Salt Pond
Island Breath: Unlce Louis Tales - The Rumba Kings
Island Breath; Uncle Louis Tells the Menehune Fishpond story
Island Breath: Hanapepe Mochi Pounding
Island Breath: Uncle Louis remembers the Eleele School Song
Island Breath: Uncle Louis tells the Two Dragons of Lawai story  

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Hook, Line, and Stinker

SUBHEAD: A bill dealing with permitted camping at Lydgate Park is mired in non-answers and inaction by all concerned. By Andy Parx on 15 September 2011 for Parx News Daily - (http://parxnewsdaily.blogspot.com/2011/09/hook-line-and-stinker.html) Image above: "No Camping" sign at Lydgate Park from Garden Island News. From (http://thegardenisland.com/news/local/article_99411c72-dabb-11e0-9a80-001cc4c002e0.html). During the last month we've used the bill (#2149) to allow camping at Lydgate Park as a kind of case study of the long-practiced and well-honed dance of the headless chickens used by the last three Kaua`i administrations- especially in the Department of Public Works (DPW) and the now spun-off Department of Parks and Recreation (DP&R)- to run out the clock on county council oversight of various and sundry mismanagement schhemes. But the manner in which DP&R Director Lenny Rapozo's final "rope-a-dope" performance yielded a split decision in favor of the bill's passage last Wednesday, gave a whole meaning to "don't ask me- I'm only in charge here." Of course Rapozo's use of "the fog" and the "I not here" method of administrative oversight could not have been accomplished without council allies willing to look the other way at the misrepresentations and outright lies as well as the lack of any semblance of competency of Rapozo and his underlings. After months of non-answers to "the eight questions" that had been repeatedly asked, in writing, of Rapozo, the bill was moved out of committee to the full council where last Wednesday despite the fact that there were amendments pending and it was no where near ready for a vote... something that has inflamed Chair Jay Furfaro's hair on many an occasion in the past. Rapozo appeared after handing in the alleged answers just that morning, claiming he never had the questions, many of which had been sent in writing months ago, until the previous Friday. And, much to Furfaro's chagrin, they hadn’t even been distributed to councilmembers yet. The old bait and switch made an appearance too. Seems the originator of "the fog" himself, perennial county appointee Ian Costa who now serves as Rapozo's deputy, had unexpectedly shown up instead of Rapozo the week before with Rapozo conveniently on the mainland, allowing Rapozo to claim he had no idea what had happened the previous week. As we've previously described, it's a classic move Costa developed during the year-long "Developers Gone Wild," grubbing and grading hearings before the council in the 90's which exposed the early misdeeds of Jimmy Pflueger preceding the deadly Ka Loko Dam break for which Pflueger is scheduled to stand trial for murder later this or next year. The session began with Council Chair Jay Furfaro waving around what a real plan would look like, taken from a Virginia Beach Virginia campground saying "can you kokua me... this is what I'm looking for Lenny." The questions dealt with almost everything imaginable from lack of a sufficient number of toilets to insufficient staffing for maintenance and security and were seemingly at least partially a result of there being no written plan to make sure the professed "work-class facility" would even be run in an organized and coherent manager. But try as he might, Furfaro could not get a commitment from Rapozo to put together such a plan by the time camping was scheduled to begin, 60 days after the passage of the bill. Finally after twenty minutes of trying to get such a commitment from Rapozo, Furfaro demonstrated the council's archetypical part in the avoidance scheme by declaring Rapozo's "no" to be a "yes." Of course the run-around can't properly function without an administration shill. The role was made for Councilmember Tim Bynum whose "don't confuse me with the facts" rhetoric, previously honed on the issue of the bike path, consisted of declaring the questions to have been answered already- whether they were or not- and calling all criticism of the not-ready-for-prime-time "plan" to be too "meticulous." This left an opening for Councilmember Mel Rapozo to perform one of his classic ape-like chest beating routines consisting of lines like "That's our job, to be meticulous... guilty as charged." But perhaps the most Kafkaesque scene in the melodrama played out over the issue of the "fishermen" who have traditionally frequented the area since, well, forever. As championed by Councilperson Kipukai Kuali`i the council went back and forth, working to make sure fishers could go to the campground and essentially camp out while fishing without really being official campers. Of course the task was impossible on its face. How do you allow people to stay overnight in the campground, in their tents, as long as they leave their fishing poles stuck in the sand with the line in the water- as described by Kuali`i, and then distinguish who is actually camping without a permit and who is simply fishing. The council has been asking Lenny Rapozo, and Costa, for the actual metes and bounds of the camping area rather than providing the cruddy little map with dotted lines that had been made part of the bill. Mel Rapozo- an ex-cop- described the absurdity of the prosecution going to court with such a map and how any good attorney could raise enough questions to make it unenforceable. The answer apparently was simply, as stated by many, that the standard was "we know who is camping and who is fishing." Oh great. The island isn't sufficiently wracked with charges of "reverse racism" by the increasing number of uptight, malahini mainlanders who can't distinguish between the word "haole" as used descriptively and the more provocative "stupid f-ing haole." Now we have an area where the line between campers and fishermen is going to be- at least in their eyes- as much a factor of the shade of their skin as anything else. County Attorney Al Castillo didn't really help by hemming and hawing and finally maintaining that it didn't matter what the law said as long as there was "sufficient notice" in the form of signage to tell the users what made a fisherman a fisherman and what made a camper a camper. As if. Finally, the answer was to be as ambiguous as possible and the council inserted language that allows "fishermen" to "fish" any place in the campgrounds where there isn't an actual designated camp site. However all this probably doesn't matter one whit because, it was revealed, the county's park rangers are never there between 10:30 p.m. and 4 a.m. leaving enforcement of the unenforceable provision an academic matter anyway. The bill passed with Kuali`i and Mel Rapozo voting against it and now it's up to the DP&R to promulgate administrative rules- which promise to be as vague as the bill- in the next two months and decide which parts of the campground to "open for camping" with no real idea of what is going to happen, in a classic Kaua`i County "ready, fire, aim" manner. But whatever happens you can bet dollars to donuts that we haven't heard the end of the seven-year saga, especially when the first "you're not fishing, you're camping- I can tell by the color of your skin" ticket is issued. .

Kauai loses Kipu Falls

SUBHEAD: Administration bumbling and risk management misdirection take another beautiful spot away from public.

 By Andy Parx on 25 August 2011 for Parx News Network - 
(http://parxnewsdaily.blogspot.com/2011/08/parkyakarkus.html)


 
Image above: From View from top of Kipu Falls in Puhi with a crowd of visitors. From (http://angiemattwedding.com/beach.htm).

 It was only a matter of time and everyone knew it. So when the land gluttons Grove Farm announced they were putting up a gate and no trespassing signs at Kipu Falls after countless deaths over the decades- deaths of both locals and tourists, press reports notwithstanding- it wasn't unexpected. But what was, if not surprising at least gut-grabbing, was the fact that they had offered to turn the area over to the county for a park and the county turned them down due to "liability" according to at least half a dozen press reports.

What- or more to the point "who"- the words "the county" refers to isn't stated but one can only assume it was the administration of Mayor Bernard Carvalho who, without letting anyone know, gave up the chance to obtain an incredible asset for the people of Kaua`i. What's more it really isn't the administration's decision to make. The county charter makes it plain that the acquisition of property comes under the purview of the county council which apparently was not even asked since any communication would have had to have been placed on the council's agenda for any discussion to have taken place. Instead, as is typical of Carvalho's administration, the decision was made behind closed doors with no input from the public. "Liability" has been the cry of past administrations in rejecting donations of property.

The second access to Kaupea (Secret) beach was turned down by the Kusaka administration citing liability, although rumor has it that Carvalho has told people that he's working on getting it "donated" to the county. That's fifteen years of no access to the second beach there which often becomes inaccessible from the current county access during the winter. Liability can and should be able to be minimized and even eliminated, if we assume we actually have people with half a brain in the Parks and Recreation Department who can properly determine signage and other safety measures. Liability is related not to the inherent, natural dangers of an area but to the degree of negligence of the owner in the unique situation that is cited in a lawsuit.

The recent determination that the state was libel for the deaths of the tourist who fell off Wailua falls was not simply because the area is state property but because the signage was so poorly designed and placed that it apparently directed the woman off the cliff. What Carvalho is essentially saying is that there's no one in his administration competent enough to minimize the liability inherent in owning Kipu Falls.

 It's hard to say which is worse; the county turning down the potential gift of one of the most beautiful and popular spots on the island and one that attracts thousands of tourists every year or that they did it secretly without even asking the body that actually has the power to make that determination... much less asking the taxpayers and citizens who would have to bear any burden of any potential liability. It's not too late for this outrage to be overturned. If you're as pissed off as we are, contact your council at councilmembers@kauai.gov and tell them that you want them to at least look into if not accept Grove Farms offer to turn Kipu Falls over to the county.

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Parks & Recreation Master Plan

SUBHEAD: Give your input on the future of Kauai County Parks! Fill in the Questionnaire. By Linda Pascatore on 24 April 2011 for Island Breath - (http://islandbreath.blogspot.com/2011/04/parks-recreation-master-plan.html) Image above: Looking northeast from Puolo Point. Eleele in distant right. Photo by Juan Wilson. Kauai County is gathering public input for a new Master Plan for our County's parks and recreation system. Please fill out the on-line questionnaire to give your priorities. There is space at the bottom of the form for personalized comments. Here is the link for the Park User Survey: http://www.kauaigovonline.org/surveys/ParkUserSurvey.aspx My personal priorities are for more walking and bike paths, more natural recreation, and less development of sports facilities. I also used the last question, number 16, to propose my personal hope for the county to acquire the land at Puolo Point near Salt Pond Beach Park for a nature preserve: Several years ago, the state offered Kauai County the DOT land at Puolo Point (next to Salt Pond Beach). Mayor Baptise held a community meeting at Eleele school, and the consensus of the community was to make it a nature preserve, in it's natural state, and protect the salt pans. Mayor Baptise refused (he wanted to develop the park, and possibly put in a drag strip--terrible idea!), and he was not happy with community consensus. Please acquire this rare piece of undeveloped wet land shore, and make it a nature preserve. We see water birds and pueo there regularly. It is one of the few undeveloped pieces, and a local treasure. See also: Island Breath: Leave Puolo Point Alone 5/26/06 .