Hawai'i Superferry - Chapter 5

[GeckoGeek]

Re: Hawai'i Superferry - Chapter 5

Hmmmm. Things have been kinda quiet the last day or so. Wonder what's going on in the backrooms? HSF isn't going to die that easily.

[Star of Gladness]

Re: Hawai'i Superferry - Chapter 5

Hmmmm. Things have been kinda quiet the last day or so. Wonder what's going on in the backrooms? HSF isn't going to die that easily.

Hawaii Superferry CEO Garibaldi on Hot Seat at noon Advertiser Staff
Hawaii Superferry President and CEO John Garibaldi
Advertiser photo

Hawaii Superferry President and CEO John Garibaldi will be on a special Hot Seat session today for a live blog chat from noon to 1 p.m. Just days before the Superferry was set to begin service, the Hawai'iSupreme Court issued a ruling directing the state to conduct an environmental assessment to determine the impact the service would have on Kahului Harbor on Maui. This came after the Superferry received state
approvals and the state spent more than $40 million in taxpayers' dollars on harbor improvements to pave the way for the ferry service.
Superferry officials started its service earlier than scheduled, resulting in a court order requiring them to halt service to Maui until Sept. 11; Superferry's move also set off protests on Kaua'i. Protesters there blocked the harbor and harassed passengers trying to exit the ferry.
The chain of events also resulted in a deluge of letters to the editor, on both sides of the argument.
Garibaldi will be taking your questions live today on The Hot Seat. It is expected to be a busy session, so it's best to be there live to ensure your questions gets in.
Go to TheHot Seat to post questions for the live chat that will be moderated by Advertiser Editorial and Opinion Editor Jeanne Mariani-Belding.
Or send your questions in advance to jmbelding@honoluluadvertiser.
com.

[Miulang]

Re: Hawai'i Superferry - Chapter 5

In 2005, HSF approached the 3 enviro groups on Maui to try to get them to agree to an EA that circumvented the State and Chapter 343. Isaac Hall, the lawyer representing the 3 groups, turned down HSF's offer.

In today's Maui News, you get to read both sides of the issue. You decide for yourself who's zooming who.

Information about HSF's proposal to do a pre-launch limited EA

Maui enviro groups' lawyer explaining why it was rejected

The actual proposal from HSF regarding a limited EA

Miulang

[craigwatanabe]

Re: Hawai'i Superferry - Chapter 5

And to Craig -- I'm pretty shocked at your surprisingly vitriolic anti-O`ahu stance here tonight. Can you honestly say that each and every single O`ahuan who comes to Hilo is a raging a**hole? Because that's sure the impression I'm getting from you tonight.

And gee, what would have happened over the centuries if residents of each island were banned from paddling to a neighboring island? Or what would have not happened?!?
Can anyone here say that 'invasive species' were not transported between islands centuries ago via canoe?

It's not so much of a total damnation of Oahu but more of a generalization...Okay SOME Oahu cars.

I'm telling everyone here that as one who has lived a long time in Honolulu...make that East Honolulu for over 44-years and have been a part of commerce and the media for half of that time, THEN moving to the Big Island and have spent almost four years here already AND have been immersed into the general public as a retail associate that has to deal with many many homeowners and building contractors, the general feeling is one of concern of what I have said before regarding the "Honolululization" of the neighbor islands.

When I made the decision to make the Big Island my permanant home a few months ago after waffling back and forth about whether to go back to Honolulu or not, I fully realized what it meant to be someone from other than Oahu where the center of life is for the state of Hawaii.

I've known it for decades having to deal with managers from the Gas Company on all islands and how they felt about how the Oahu managers seem to know better how to run the neighbor islands in their needs assessments. But because I was from Honolulu I never fully realized how deep this emotional scar ran because I was never part of them. Now I am.

You have to fully remove yourself from Honolulu and choose to permanantly make the outer islands your home to truly understand what people from the neighbor islands have been feeling all their lives...second rate to Honolulu.

The only thing left that keeps the outer islands unique...where Oahu cannot even come close to being, is it's physical isolation from Oahu.

But it's the fact that your personal car (And yes Mel it IS an extension of one's ego) can now make it to distant shores. Maybe I'm just not explaining myself clear enough but how do any of you feel when you see a California license plate on a car in Hawaii? Or better yet, an out of state license plate still attached to a car that has the current Hawaii license plate? It's as if the owner is so proud of their home state that they want everyone to know it.

We all do it, we wear our place of homage like badges of honor. It's on our bumper stickers, the clothes we wear, right down to our local dialects we choose to use when travelling abroad and meet others from Hawaii.

But within the state of Hawaii we have distinct places where we connect from. Only on Oahu have I used the phrase "eh whea you wen grad" so widely. To neighbor islanders it's not so common a phrase to use because there aren't that many schools to choose from. Neighbor islanders live work and die together so they already know where they went to school.

Honolulu has become to the rest of the State of Hawaii much like America has become to the rest of the World...imposing. And with that a general paranoia of fear sets in that this monolith will consume the uniqueness of those islands in Oahu's massive shadow.

So when you couple that fear with the car (extended ego) you really get the paranoia notched up to "Witch Hunt" level and soon it spreads to those who can't see the value of what the SF can bring to each island, but a fear of being run over by "Them".

This is the genuine fear running around the neighbor islands. Not to say that all neighbor islanders feel that way or that all from Honolulu are that way, but in a general way that is the fear on the streets. Take the car out of the loop and suddenly the fear is gone. Stupid as it sounds but it is. Just look at what those fearing the SF is focusing on...an environmental impact assessment of how THE CAR will bring in invasive species, how THE CAR will cause traffic woes when the SF docks.

BUT where's the arguement about the massive amount of cars when they LEAVE the outer islands? I haven't heard anyone complain about the traffic woes regarding departures.

I repeat...it's all about Oahu cars and nothing else. If the first trip was from ANY neighbor islands to any other island including Oahu there wouldn't be that much protesting. BUT take the cars out of the picture and suddenly it's okay.

I mean even Mesa didn't have the kind of protest the SF did, and the SF is a LOCAL BUSINESS OWNED BY LOCAL RESIDENTS OF HAWAII. The difference between Go and SF is what they're transporting and from where...Oahu cars.

Don't get me wrong, I love Honolulu...it's my birth place, it's my stomping grounds, it's my hanabutta days. It represents virtually my entire life of living. BUT it's changed. It's not the same Honolulu I embraced from as early as 20-years ago. Hilo is what Honolulu was roughly 25-30 years ago and that's what I want my kids to grow up in, not the metropolis that was once my hometown.

And fast on my heels of departure comes Honolulu trying to bring that modern way of life to what I'm trying to escape on a super ferry. Maybe it's the name of the company itself that conjures up the paranoia. It's not just a ferry...it's THE SUPER FERRY, able to leap tall buildings...well you get the picture. The SF is larger than life with a name like that. Maybe a less imposing name that references the linking of all islands together as one would have been more appropriate and appreciative.

BUT it's the Super Ferry bringing more Honolulu cars closer to the neighbor islands...that is the fear. We see the traffic reports on all the morning TV news broadcasts just like you do on Oahu. Is that what we want here on the neighbor islands? I know it won't be that bad but everytime we on the neighbor islands experience any level of gridlock we all say in unison, "It's getting to be more like Honolulu".

[oceanpacific]

Re: Hawai'i Superferry - Chapter 5

Four of the five vehicles at my sister's Hilo home sport Honolulu license plates. Two were purchased brand new from Oahu dealerships, two were "pre-owned" Honolulu vehicles that were a particular make and model which my nephew could not find on the Big Island (although one was bought from a Hilo used car dealer who "imported" it from Oahu).

I drive a make over the last two decades which does not have a Big Island dealership for sales or service. I enjoy my car and prefer the comfort and familiarity that it affords me. I have every intention of utilizing HSF when service commences in 2009. It doesn't make any difference to me whether it's Hilo or Kawaihae - I'll just drive the remaining 60-mile distance to Hilo if Kawaihae is the HSF's only Big Island destination. I'm weighing the HSF fare vs. Hawaiian and/or Aloha, the vehicle fare vs. rental car cost AND the $30 parking fee at the airport parking lot for three days, and items I can carry in my car trunk vs. the freight charges for excess and over-sized baggage imposed by the airlines.

I come out ahead with HSF, even if the $$$ cost may be a little higher.

[Konaguy]

Re: Hawai'i Superferry - Chapter 5

Here is letter to the editor I submitted to WHT, SB, HA etc.

I see a lot of parallels between the current Hawaii Superferry debacle and the problems surrounding the Hokulia project on the Big Island. Hokulia, like Hawaii Superferry relied on government assurances that everything was legal. Thus investors in both projects poured money into both investments based on those assurances.

But low and behold the judiciary in both cases stalled Hokulia and Hawaiian Superferry at the cusp of when the investors were starting to make a return on their investment. Looking just at the surface you'd blame the judiciary and the people brought these lawsuits. But if you look deeper, the real culprit for both of these debacles is a government which puts business interests over the citizens interests.

I hope the latter will change. If not, businesses will decide to invest money elsewhere where government assurances can be legitimately banked on.

Aaron Stene
Kailua-Kona

[waioli kai]

HSF, Inc. fascist fairies , Re: Hawaii Superferry - Chapter 5

... I enjoy my car...
I come out ahead with HSF

"I, me, the center of my universe, the only universe that truly counts to me."

American culture sanctifies, is fundamentally rooted in the glorification of the materialist pursuit of personal pleasure. Americans' premier inalienable right, being specifically American hedonism, Western hedonism, is the pursuit of pleasure, which attainment (albeit necessarily of a very temporal nature) is deemed the highest good.

Honolulu materialUSt Americans are not a bit different than other materialUSt Americans: they consider whatever pleasures their monies can afford them are pleasures which are their right to enjoy, neighbor islanders be damned.

What ever happened to the superfascUSterry's infatuation with the promotion of their H-3 analogy? The concept of their H-3 freeway out of Honolulu to other islands sold really well in Honolulu. Did HSF, Inc. fascist fairies finally realize they were awakening residents of neighbor island communities to the realities of irrevocable loses such communities would have to endure as a result of such communities being made an H-3 terminus for the pleasure of Honolulu County and US investors?

[waioli kai]

HSF value? , Re: Hawaii Superferry - Chapter 5

.

" So when you couple that fear with the car (extended ego) you really get the paranoia notched up to "Witch Hunt" level and soon it spreads to those who can't see the value of what the SF can bring to each island, ..."

??" the value of what the SF can bring to each island "?? And what are those alleged values? Maybe one HSF supporter could explain what that value is.

"... the SF is a LOCAL BUSINESS OWNED BY LOCAL RESIDENTS OF HAWAII."

A local resident? As opposed to what other kind of resident. I don't believe HSF was/is locally financed, is locally owned no matter what state recorded documents may allege.

[waioli kai]

corporatist interests/government/citizens , Re: Hawaii Superferry - Chapter 5

I see a lot of parallels between the current Hawaii Superferry debacle and the problems surrounding the Hokulia project on the Big Island. Hokulia, like Hawaii Superferry relied on government assurances that everything was legal. Thus investors in both projects poured money into both investments based on those assurances.

But low and behold the judiciary in both cases stalled Hokulia and Hawaiian Superferry at the cusp of when the investors were starting to make a return on their investment. Looking just at the surface you'd blame the judiciary and the people brought these lawsuits. But if you look deeper, the real culprit for both of these debacles is a government which puts business interests over the citizens interests.

I hope the latter will change. If not, businesses will decide to invest money elsewhere where government assurances can be legitimately banked on.

The following underlined doesn't make sense:

"...the real culprit for both of these debacles is a government which puts business interests over the citizens interests. I hope the latter will change. If not, businesses will decide to invest money elsewhere where government assurances can be legitimately banked on."

You first state that government and business investors are in bed together, then you say you're disappointed that even though the sex is great that government can't seem to keep it's vows with investors but instead reaffirms its vows with citizens and citizens' interests.

No doubt there are a significant number of government bureaucrats who figuratively when not literally bed with big business interests, but it is government elected officials who really consummate governments' relationship with corporatist interests. Such elected officials can best sell out citizens' interest only as long as they remain in office, then corporatist interests must hope they have sufficiently nurtured and compromised the candidate who can win election to continue serving corporatist interests.

[waioli kai]

Re: HSF value? , Re: Hawaii Superferry - Chapter 5

.

"... the SF is a LOCAL BUSINESS OWNED BY LOCAL RESIDENTS OF HAWAII."

A local resident? As opposed to what other kind of resident? I do not for a second believe HSF was/is locally financed, is locally owned no matter what state recorded documents may allege. People with lots of money in Hawaii avoid Hawaii income taxes by not being legal residents of Hawaii. They effectively live in Hawaii but damn sure do not pay state income taxes as do resident citizens/taxpayers of the state.

The Maui Land and Pineapple board with its AOL leftovers is about as local as Hawaiian Telcom's Carlyle Group, Princeville's Morgan-Stanley pirates, or Waikiki's Trump charades.

[waioli kai]

garrulous deception , Re: Hawaii fascist fairies - Chapter 5

Garibaldi certainly has learned to live up to his name. He is a master of garrulous deception to promote bald-faced lies. Taking him at his word one would be led to believe that he answers all incoming phone calls to HSF which calls all support his operating to and from their communities; that residents of Maui and Kauai can't wait for the chance to take their personal vehicles to Oahu on his monstrous ferry to drive around Oahu and fill up with merchandise; that his highspeed monsterferry can avoid all whales, seals and turtles, or that least marinelife will have plenty of time to avoid his speedy monster ; that only a handful of non-Oahu people are against his monsterferry; that the Coast Guard is his tool, not the people's; that his monster and its investors are being wronged, not the citizens whose Governor is so in love with his monster that she has lost all sense of what is right and what is wrong.

[dick]

Re: Hawai'i Superferry - Chapter 5

I'm telling everyone here that as one who has lived a long time in Honolulu...

THEN moving to the Big Island and have spent almost four years here already

When I made the decision to make the Big Island my permanant home a few months ago after waffling back and forth about whether to go back to Honolulu or not, I fully realized what it meant to be someone from other than Oahu where the center of life is for the state of Hawaii.

Good lord, get off your high horse (again).

You spend a whopping "almost four years" on an island other than Oahu, and suddenly you're an expert.

Well, as someone who is actually from an island other than Oahu (Maui), but lives there now (I guess I'm corrupt now, huh? -- and it looks like you missed a previous post of mine) this ferry affair is great for all of us. I want to be able to go back home, with my car. I know Maui people who want to take their cars to Honolulu. Hell, in 2009 I want to take my car to visit my sister and her family in Honoka'a. Look out, man, I'm invading.

I talked to people other than the protestor folk in Kahului when I was there, and not everyone was afraid of it. Believe it or not.

I get the feeling that you may be making feeble attempts at the "devil's advocate" thing, but it's really coming across as you being extremely narrow-minded and somewhat foolish.

Look, not everyone wants to live in a fairy tale neverland of the past. It's 2007, fercrissakes, and it's time this state actually has a reasonable mode of inter-island transport aside from aircraft.

[mel]

Re: Hawai'i Superferry - Chapter 5

... the "Honolululization" of the neighbor islands.

But it's the fact that your personal car (And yes Mel it IS an extension of one's ego) can now make it to distant shores.

You are beginning to sound like these sovereignty groups who want to turn the clock back 100 + years to 1893.

Modernization is a fact of life.

Accept it.

Cars are not evil. Even the ones from Honolulu. A Ford is a Ford is a Ford. A BMW is a BMW. A Chrysler is a Chrysler. A Toyota is a Toyota. Etc, etc. It deosn't mean a damn difference as to what island the car is from.

There are more vehicles that have been shipped to neighbor islands by Young Bros and Matson. Those firms will continue to do so, whether the vehicles are from the mainland, Japan or Oahu. Big deal.

And for me, my car is just a utilitarian vehicle. It is not an extension of an ego. Just affordable transportation.

So like is a Bus an extension of a bus driver's ego? I don't think so. It is just a huge tool that he or she uses for work and transport.

As much as people on the neighbor islands perceive to hate change, they accept it even if the change was and is still opposed. Every time I go to Hilo that WalMart store is the most busy retail establishment there. People are there all the time buying stuff. And more stuff.

They go to your Home Depot store and buy stuff too and damn HPM Building Supply who has been there for a long, long time in Hilo. Home Depot has developed a national reputation for service and goods, and people expect the same level of service and choice that they get from Home Depot stores elsewhere. Tough if you guys can't fulfill customer expectations, but that is what the national brand builds in the customer... certain expectations.

Change and modernization is the way of life. People cannot be stuck in King Kalakaua days forever.

Bring on the Superferry. I want to drive my car on the Big Island.

BTW, I am originally from the Big island, and it already is not the same island that you only moved to 4 years ago. Changes have happened and will continue to happen.

[dick]

Re: Hawai'i Superferry - Chapter 5

Mel brings up a good point about these "big box" places opening up. And the ensuing freak-outs.

When I was growing up on Maui, and Safeway came along in the '80s, people cheered. Then there was Costco, and K-Mart, and Wal-Mart, and Home Depot... the list goes on... (KrispyKreme??) people cheered.

You know who the loudest weepers and moaners are? The people who aren't originally from the island. Why? Because they moved to the island with some twisted idyllic concept of what the island was like when they got there, or visted a few moons ago, and want to keep it that way. Progress and the wishes of the actual residents be damned. They just "want to get away from it all and live like how it used to be." Never mind that people actually live real lives there.

I see it all the time.

Well, TS. A lot of residents actually want it. And to try and keep progress from happening just because you want to wallow in yesteryear is pretty lame.

Something to think about.

[joshuatree]

Re: Hawai'i Superferry - Chapter 5

I don't think it's really the cars themselves that bug people who dislike the ferry. It's the notion that now the islands are no longer islands because the ferry provides a virtual bridge. The airplanes and barges can practically do the same but in people's psyche, the planes and barges bring components over, either the pax or the car or belongings. The ferry can do all at once and this basically makes the islands seem like one piece of land. Some people never like change but ironically, the only thing constant in life IS change.