It’s positively Fasi-esque
New Mayor Kirk Caldwell has taken no time in taking a lesson from the old school of the late Mayor Frank "Fasi gets it done," who recognized that filling a pothole would turn into votes in the next election.
It gets to the heart of what matters to regular folks on a regular basis. Clothed in jeans and a firefighters union T-shirt, Caldwell on Wednesday shoveled hot-mix asphalt into a hole on Gulick Avenue in Kalihi, caught by cameras.
"We go to those roads in the worst condition and we pave those roads first," Caldwell said.
He said the public can call a hotline, at 768-7777, to order fixes "anywhere from a couple of days to a couple of weeks."
Let’s hope such expediency on public problems can be maintained — and we’re not talking just potholes.
Don’t rig cars for silent running
It seems ironic that in this age of noise pollution and other urban annoyances, there would be a case for technologies that create more noise for the public good.
Federal regulators from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration are proposing minimum sound standards for hybrid and electric vehicles.
As it turns out, these vehicles tool around the roadways of the nation so quietly that pedestrians can be unaware they’re coming.
The islands certainly have their record of woe with pedestrian fatalities, so anything making the highways safer should be welcome around these parts, too.
But do the artificial sounds have to be "vroom, vroom" or "putt-putt" or the like?
How about some slack key guitar? This is Hawaii, after all.
