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Mahalo to Mayor Mufi Hannemann and his office for sending this to us! |  |
From the Mayor’s desk By Mayor Mufi Hannemann Don’t miss the very first Ewa Beach Sunset on the Plain on Saturday, October 25 and Sunday, October 26 from 11 a.m. – 10 p.m. We have only just added this to our calendar in response to continuous requests from the Ewa Beach community, led by Kurt Favella, for a Sunset event to be held in your area. City workers, community volunteers and local organizations are currently working very hard to make sure this inaugural Sunset on the Plain is a success. The event will be held at Ewa Beach Community Park and will feature entertainment, food booths and rides for the keiki. After the sun sets on Saturday, Kung Fu Panda will show on the big screen and The Game Plan will screen on Sunday evening. Parking will be available at the Ewa Beach Public Library, Campbell High School student parking site, or Campbell High School O Building parking lot. Bring your entire family out for this free extravaganza. While we focus on local projects such as this to improve the quality of life for families in Ewa Beach, across the nation we are hearing doom-and-gloom forecasts about our economy. Even here on the Ewa Plains, we have seen friends and neighbors lose their jobs to layoffs and cutbacks, but that’s not the whole story. There are many things we have done and will do, at the county level, to stimulate business and private sector job growth to mitigate the impact of a slowing economy. While the financial resources and statutory mandate for economic development rest with the state government, we at the City and County of Honolulu, in collaboration with business and labor, are doing our part to bolster our economy. There are important reasons to have hope and optimism about job retention and job growth. The bottom line is that Oahu is home to three-fourths of the state’s population and a commensurate share of the economy and we’re being proactive in supporting our leading industries of tourism and construction. On the local tourism front, my most important responsibilities in supporting economic progress are public safety and the infrastructure. My administration’s focus on public safety has contributed to our city’s ranking as one of the safest big cities in the entire United States. We have committed $1 billion for sewer infrastructure repairs and waste water treatment expansion, repaved nearly 600 miles of roads, and made improvements to the Honolulu Zoo, public golf courses, Hanauma Bay, Halona Blowhole, Neal Blaisdell Center, and other major attractions. The City’s capital improvement program for the current fiscal year is $955 million, with a significant part of the money spent locally and benefiting contractors, construction workers, architects, engineers, planners, suppliers, and other construction-related businesses. Among the spending is $245 million for sewers and waste water, $77 million for road repaving, $4.2 million for a Middle Street intermodal center, $6.7 million for the Joint Traffic Management Center, $5.1 million for a traffic signal maintenance facility, $4 million in improvements to police and fire facilities, $8.5 million for the East Kapolei and Ewa Beach fire stations, and $24 million for park improvements. All of these efforts will keep the economy pumping. The rail transit project, poised to break ground in late 2009, will generate an estimated 9,000 jobs in construction and related industries. Investing strongly in prudent growth and in infrastructure improvements will stimulate the economy and boost employment. The U.S. Department of Transportation estimates, for every $1 billion invested in transportation infrastructure generates $2 billion in economic activity. The City has budgeted $265 million this year for planning, design, and preliminary construction activities for the fixed guideway. We are also continuing to support growth in Kapolei. I recently signed into law three zoning measures that will spur new housing development and job growth in our second city. The new Kapolei projects will include more than 6,500 homes and businesses built in developments known as Makaiwa Hills, Kapolei West, and Kapolei Harborside. The developments are expected to create 7,500 permanent jobs and approximately 1,500 annual average construction jobs. While the future ahead looks promising, anyone who commutes from Ewa Beach knows that traffic has been especially heavy recently. I continue to urge commuters to consider riding TheBus, TheBoat, carpooling, bicycling or walking as an alternative to using private vehicles that clog our streets and highways. If you must drive, leave early, plan ahead for a longer commute and take care of your car to prevent stalling, breaking down or running out of gas. Be sure to check our Drive Akamai website at: www.driveakamai.org to get the latest information about lane-blocking projects and streets to avoid in the downtown area.
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