Here is a great letter being circulated by a Maui Meadows resident that attended todays budget and finance meeting regarding landfill and refuse pick up cutbacks. Worth a read if you missed it: This morning my husband and I attended the Maui County Council Budget and Finance Committee meeting regarding the cutbacks in recycle pickups, and landfill closures on holidays. We had recycle and green waste cooking off in our containers for the last month due to these new changes. This meeting provided an opportunity to speak to the issue. We, the residents of Maui have become pawns in a political game. That became even clearer when Councilmember Gladys Baisa, in a very conciliatory manner, suggested to the Mayor, who was now in the hearing room, that the Council and Mayor should work together to find an immediate solution to the problem and restore services. The Mayors response was no response. Then he stood up, shouted that he wasnt going to put up with this and stormed out of the chambers. It was ugly, and showed a complete lack of leadership. You may not be aware that the Council has no authority to order any Department head to do anything. The Councils authority is financial--they control the purse strings, but cannot dictate how the money is used by departments. The Mayor does not allow Council members to directly contact any department in the County. All requests for information must go through the Mayors office. When we got our mail today, there was a letter advising of all the cutbacks. It says that the solid waste division did not receive critical funding from the County Council and the cutbacks are the result. I can assure you that if you had been at todays hearing you would have become immediately suspect of this explanation. So, let me cut to the chase here. The Mayor is furious with the Council because his budget was not rubberstamped, but was cut by $18 million dollars. Solid Waste Department got 98% of its budget request. I believe he is using the trash service, which creates problems for everyone on the island, to create a political problem for the Council members. The truth is, timing suggests there was an immediate plan to disrupt services, developed by the Administration as a payback. Only the Mayor can resolve this situation, but when he stormed out in a snit, he made it clear that was not his intention. We get left holding the garbage!
Posted on: Wed, 03 Sep 2014 08:54:19 +0000
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