• Cheers for Christine • Voting for Lum • Count me in • Fry the fish killers! • Hats off to all who helped • Don’t back COPE Act Cheers for Christine After reading the article: “South Shore resident takes
• Cheers for Christine
• Voting for Lum
• Count me in
• Fry the fish killers!
• Hats off to all who helped
• Don’t back COPE Act
Cheers for Christine
After reading the article: “South Shore resident takes to the street, keeping it clean,” I jump with joy! This happens to be my lovely daughter, and I am ever so proud that she is making a difference in the beautiful streets of Allerton Gardens, and along the beach in Po‘ipu.
Cheers for Christine!!
- Josephine Garcia
Alhambra, Calif.
Voting for Lum
So, Mr. Lum is going to run for Council. Good. I do not know Mr. Lum’s position on any of the public issues on Kaua‘i, but I can be very sure that anyone who is apparently so disliked and feared by our Council has to be a very good man. I shall vote for him. I shall contribute to his campaign. Perhaps, if he is elected, we might then have as many as three members of the Council who are not owned, heart and soul, by the developers.
Count me in
Walter Lewis distilled the elected island government problems and challenges very succinctly in Wednesday’s Garden Island editorial and what to do about it.
I am appalled at the affront to democracy that Kaua‘i’s band of council brigands, posing as my elected officials, present to the will of the majority. They are my representatives, not my keepers.
I am encouraging my friends and neighbors to affect a change in governmental direction and a return to meeting openness to which Ohana Kauai subscribes.
It is time to end the pettiness and refocus on the true needs of the people, young and old, that comprise this special place we call Kaua‘i.
Fry the fish killers!
In regards to the article “Five nabbed for chemical fishing,” the perps for this crime should receive the greatest fines and longest jail time possible. Such ignorant fishing methods not only kill coral reef habitats where fish live but leave no living fish for the rest of us to appreciate or harvest. Hawai‘i must learn from the rest of the world that uses methods like bleach fishing, dynamite fishing and cyanide. Tell these people to learn how to fish! They should be ashamed of themselves.
Sustainable community-managed subsistence fishing areas that employ Konohiki or caretakers might be an answer. This way we will have “Reef Watchers” to report such atrocious crimes.
A living reef gives our islands life.
Hats off to all who helped
On May 26, 2006, The Garden Island, reported “Ka Leo O Kaua‘i celebrates third year’s accomplishments.” The story detailed collaborative efforts between community, government and other organizations and agencies, to “address their concerns and strengthen their ties.” One example of citizens, community association, private interests, and Ka Leo collaboration was inadvertently omitted.
A Koloa flood meeting was broached at the March 24, 2006, Koloa Ka Leo meeting. The Koloa flood meeting occurred on April 10, 2006. The governor, DLNR, state Civil Defense, University of Hawai‘i faculty, USGS, U.S. Corps of Engineers, the mayor, Civil Defense, Planning, Public Works, County Council, and private landowners attended. It could not have been organized as quickly after the Ka Leo meeting without the unstinting support of the Ka Leo staff.
Thereafter citizens of Koloa-Kukui‘ula-Po‘ipu held a Koloa Community Association meeting on April 20, 2006, the transportation plan proposal meeting on April 27, 2006, a moratorium meeting on May 10, 2006, a KCA board meeting on May 18, 2006, the Transportation 101 meeting on May 24, 2006, and the Knudsen trust/shops at Koloa meeting on June 8, 2006. The traffic planner funded by the developers is making a presentation to the County Council on June 15, 2006, and later meeting with citizens of Koloa-Kukui‘ula-Po‘ipu.
Citizens have also attended three Planning Commission meetings on projects proposed for Koloa-Kukui‘ula-Po‘ipu, and they will attend a fourth commission meeting on June 13, 2006.
The County has more than “gone the extra mile” to assist the concerned citizens of Koloa-Kukui‘ula-Po‘ipu, the Koloa Community Association, and Malama Maha‘ulepu, organize and hold nine meetings in three months. All of the meetings were well attended. Citizens have voiced their concerns regarding drainage, traffic, and safety; identified the problems; and are working toward solutions to offer to the County for its consideration.
Hats off to Theresa Koki of Ka Leo; Susan Cox, manager, Koloa Neighborhood Center; Aaron Uyeda, Office of Community Assistance; Lt. Hank Barriga and Sergeant Patrick Barbarino, Kauai Police Department; and Mayor Baptiste, for their initiative and support. Hats off also to the citizens of Kaua‘i’s South Shore for caring enough about our community to take action to preserve our community and our quality of life.
- Hartwell H.K. Blake
Concerned Citizens of Koloa
Don’t back COPE Act
Citizens who love freedom, value community and believe in equality and fairness, take note! We are half way to losing all of these when it comes to our Internet access and local cable TV programming. In an eleventh hour vote on June 8th, the US House of Representatives passed the COPE Act of 2006.
This legislation essentially “sells” our unrestricted right of access to the Internet — an extraordinarily powerful right which we may have taken for granted — to telecommunications giants and media moguls intent on amassing yet more power and profits. It also weakens both local control of, and corporate responsibility and support for, local cable TV and community access programming.
Apparently, the majority of our representatives think we: a.) are more interested in saving $2 on our monthly cable bill than in free and equitable access; b.) only care about the Internet as a means of shopping and IMing and don’t care that big telecommunications giants will control what comes in and goes out of our homes, schools and libraries; c.) won’t notice the record-breaking sums of lobbying money spent on passage of this bill because we are so busy shopping on-line that we will fail to register their individual votes and; d.) are so accustomed to reality TV re-runs that we don’t actually understand the real consequences of this legislation.
But, there’s still hope! The COPE Act must now be considered in the Senate before it is pushed on for an expected Presidential signature of approval. For further information about this legislation and what we need to do to ensure it suffers the defeat it deserves, click onto http://saveaccess.org/faq or contact your local representatives.
Thanks for your attention — now I can get back to Internet shopping and reality TV reruns.
