This came in this morning as a comment by a reader, but I thought it worth elevating to a post.
Totally unrelated but something you may wish to mention or pursue.
That big brush fire in Poamoho that exposed a huge illegal auto graveyard was quite a story. But maybe, just maybe, there’s a much bigger story. How did those cars get there? Will authorities even investigate?Perhaps some of the cars were stolen or abandoned there by the owners, but the remote location and sheer number of vehicles suggests something else.
Did a towing contractor that was paid by the City or another government entity to remove abandoned vehicles and dispose of them properly simply dump the vehicles in Poamoho and pocket the money? If so, that would seem to amount to fraud, theft, conspiracy, racketeering, and some very serious environmental crimes and civil causes of action.
Did a private property owner remove the vehicles from some other area and dump them there? That many? Would individual owners of junk cars really go to all that effort to dump them in the same remote location? Would car thieves?
Some people in the community, including the many illegal squatters, surely know the answers. And will anyone even try to examine any Vehicle Identification Numbers that are still legible and try to track down the last registered owners, or see who has a contract to tow and dispose of abandoned vehicles in the area and whether they can produce records of proper disposal? Does anyone even verify that abandoned cars that get towed at taxpayer expense are disposed of properly?
Obviously, such an investigation would have been much easier if authorities had listened to concerned residents who had complained long before the fire, and had taken a hard look at the situation. But no. The state Agribusiness Development Corporation owns the property and said it hauled 150 cars out of the same area last year. 150! Did anyone even try to determine how those 150 cars got there? And a year later, there are hundreds more! Yet even that didn’t “light a fire” under authorities to get to the bottom of all this blatant illegal dumping on government property. That absolutely smacks of dereliction of duty on somebody’s part, or worse, complicity.
So now, will all the evidence simply get hauled away and forgotten about with the usual shrug? Will anyone even attempt to follow up on any of this? The dumping alone amounts to serious environmental crimes that pollute viable agricultural land and threaten the health and safety of the surrounding community, as evidenced by the fire. And maybe there’s much more to this.
The City Council, the Legislature, the Mayor, the Governor, the Police Commission, the Attorney General or SOMEBODY in a position of authority needs to demand answers!
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Fascinating!
This does indeed BEG for further investigation and lighting some fires under government departments that are responsible for contracting out to towing companies and any other associated activities that led to this mess.
I have a feeling there will be a lot of uncomfortable reactions from so called “leaders” here. We’re an ISLAND for f**k sakes…how does something like this happen and GO ON???
Mahalo plenty for raising these concerns.
Doesn’t it seem strange that this property went up in flames just days before the Agribusiness Development Corporation board was set to consider approving new leases for it? Can they even do that now that there’s a huge toxic mess littering the place? That fairly shrieks “liability.”
One sentence in the report linked above really jumped out: “(The Agribusiness director) said the fire burned away grass that hid the extent of the dumping and says the agency will help the new lessee hauled out the cars.” What??? Grass “hid the extent of the dumping”??? That’s preposterous. Anyone who takes a few steps off Kamehameha Highway could readily see “the extent of the dumping” and it’s clearly visible using the satellite function on Google maps, which also shows the well-established network of dirt roads there and the cars dumped right alongside them. The TV news report from the scene showed cars passing by on Kamehameha Highway in the background just a stone’s throw from piles of burned cars. There’s no way this massive dump was hidden by high grass. A blind person could easily find it. And the fact that many of the vehicles are turned on their sides or even flipped over sure suggests they were towed there, dropped off flatbed trucks, or pushed around by heavy equipment. How the hell does that happen on such a massive scale without the cops or the government property owner detecting it?
This was a disaster waiting to happen. It’s totally inexcusable. And it’s almost comical that all this dangerous activity was going on within easy walking distance of restricted military facilities and a huge National Security Agency installation, for crying out loud.
Suggest for every new car being brought in by dealers, they be responsible for getting one off the island. New cars every year is unsustainable!!
That’s a good point but the “disposal fee” will, of course, be passed on to the buyer. Provided you can even find a new car anymore!
Better the fee be passed to the buyer than to the general taxpaying public.
Part of the abandoned vehicle problem in the islands is that there is no large scrap metal processing facility. The shipping lines, like Horizon, used to offer discounted rates to ship junked and totalled cars in containers to the Mainland. But when Pasha bought Horizon, it stopped that service.
Maybe the shipping lines need to be incentivized or mandated to restart that type of shipping. Or maybe the state can rent a barge, fill it up with junked cars, and tow it to the Mainland.
Is there a connection between this and the House Committee attacking the Legislative Auditor over his audit of the very same Agribusiness Development Corporation? And isn’t this the same land that you were tangentially connected to through the Galbraith Trust?
There’s probably no connection, but it was really strange and interesting a couple years ago when people were complaining about aggressive towing practices on the North Shore and in Wahiawa and it turned out the towing company was temporarily storing the towed vehicles at a state senator’s house in the area until the owners paid exhorbitant fees to get their vehicles released. Didn’t smell right and always wondered if that was a legal commercial use of residential property but like so many other weird stories it just faded away and left questions unanswered. Here’s the story for whatever it’s worth:
https://www.hawaiinewsnow.com/2018/10/27/think-carefully-about-where-you-park-haleiwa-towing-complaints-soaring/
Dela Cruz. It figures. Perfect argument for legislative term limits.
$250/month he gets. Anyone REALLY believes that?
It seems pretty obvious that the real purpose for creating the Agribusiness Development Corporation following the collapse of Hawaii’s sugar and pineapple industries was to provide a way for big establishment land owners to get paid for their now fallow and surplus lands and avoid associated property taxes by dumping the lands on government, i.e. the rest of us taxpaying suckers. The state auditor found that the ADC spent many millions buying such lands but did very little else.
Is it any wonder that the power brokers and their minions don’t give a shit about crooks dumping a few hundred cars or any related environmental destruction? After all, taxpayers will just get stuck with those bills too.
Does anyone really believe the true mission wasn’t a success?
Other islands like Canary Islands drive around small minicars that fit living on an island . We don’t have the room to let all the abandoned and stripped cars clutter up our island.
The mix and match chop shops of scooters, bikes and cars at the druggie camps happen in broad daylight on sidewalks, parks and beaches. Across Oahu I see people actively removing and swapping parts or ones that have all different parts put on. Police should enforce laws for those who are the registered owners and have had their property stolen.
So it looks like the burned cars will be removed soon, but there’s no word on any investigation into how they got there. And even the car removal seems weird.
“Environmentalist Carroll Cox said the company contacted him, and he got clearance from the state Health Department for the cleanup,” reports Hawaii News Now.
Wait, what? An environmental watchdog who has no official role or authority to even enter the property is brokering an agreement for the cleanup? How does that work? And who’s supervising it? Is this just slapdash reporting or is the state really punting all responsibility to private parties? And what’s this costing? The news report makes it sound like all this is free and the state Agribusiness Development Corporation that owns the property is nowhere to be seen.
https://www.hawaiinewsnow.com/2021/10/02/hundreds-abandoned-vehicles-toxic-junkyard-wahiawa-set-be-removed/