Gladys Baisa forwarded this letter from Dick Mayer on last night’s meeting. It was addressed to Dr. Pang, the DoH Maui district chief. This is the full text.

I have never been to any State meeting (and I’ve been to hundreds) that was so poorly organized and the presenters so unable to clarify the main issues.

And with an audience of about 250, Honolulu’s Health Department looked like total incompetents. They were!

There was no sound system. There was no PowerPoint or use of media. The speakers were totally ill-prepared. The announced headliner, DOH Director Pressler, was a “no-show”. They arrived late, so the audience had to set up the tables and chairs. They did not have the bathroom keys. The initial MC (Environmental Health Deputy Director Keith Kawaoka) stumbled through a lengthy, useless introduction; then, perhaps fortunately, stayed out of the way. etc. etc.

And their presentation gave absolutely no confidence:

– that they knew what they were doing;

– what the financial implications of their suggestions would be on residents;

– where the problems were geographically;

– why Upcountry Maui was being picked on over many other areas with sizeable cesspool problems.

They made no suggestions of alternative solutions that would describe and evaluate relative financial costs of alternative strategies, such as:

— filtering/treating private well water since the County’s public water supply was okay;

— prohibiting private wells altogether;

— encouraging multi-resident filtration package plants for neighborhoods;

— allowing neighbors on small adjoining lots to build a joint septic system; etc.

They did not disclose to the public that they are preparing a special report next month for the EPA on the Upcountry situation (it was mentioned to me after the meeting). It will be interesting to see what effort DOH-Honolulu makes to circulate that EPA report to Maui officials and residents. Will we be able to critique it?

They made no indication that they wanted to come back to hold further discussions with the public or even with the Maui Water Department.

Thank goodness you were unable to be there to be embarrassed by these amateurs at running a meeting. They had NO control over the meeting or the questions. An audience member had to run the meeting.

I could go on, but you get the drift, Dick Mayer (Facebook photo of audience)