• Move the fence or deny the permits • A coward’s choice • Experience vs. popularity Move the fence or deny the permits Hawai‘i law includes a mandate that Native Hawaiian culture must be protected or, if once lost, restored.
• Move the fence or deny the permits • A coward’s choice • Experience vs. popularity
Move the fence or deny the permits
Hawai‘i law includes a mandate that Native Hawaiian culture must be protected or, if once lost, restored. So, why block a traditional coastal trail (alaloa) at Larsen’s Beach (Lepeuli) with a cattle fence when it can be easily built on the mauka side of the trail instead?
Ask the landowner, Waioli Corporation, whose mission statement is to manage and preserve their holdings as historical and educational resources for the community. What a contradiction!
Very soon, a decision will be made by DLNR to approve a permit for the lessee/rancher to install cattle fencing that will block the historic coastal trail through the Lepeuli ahupua‘a. It has never been blocked before.
This coastal right-of-way provided access between kuleanas, taro lo‘i and ahupua‘a for centuries. Native trails (ala hele) are an important part of the cultural landscape and way of life for residents.
Why must 20 acres along the beach be used for grazing when there are 600 adjacent acres already being used for cattle operations? Pasturing cattle next to the fragile and culturally sensitive coastline at Larsen’s is an assault on Hawaiian cultural practices and the resources that sustain the culture.
The trail is especially important to many elders in the community who are experienced in the tradition of limu gathering along Ka‘aka‘aniu Reef from Moloa‘a to Pila‘a. Without lateral trail access, kupuna and keiki cannot get to the beach — the county trail is too steep.
Ask Waioli, the rancher, the county, Ron Agor and the State DLNR not to ignore the historic evidence of Native Hawaiian sites and practices and current day cultural practices. Move the fence or deny the permits.
With respects to Auntie Loke, who loved to traverse the Lepeuli path; let us please malama ‘aina with respects to the kupuna and culture of Hawai‘i nei.
Pua La‘a Norwood, Hanalei
A coward’s choice
In his letter, Mr. O’Flaherty says, “The reason the House decided not to vote on this was the overwhelming majority in the state disagrees with it and voted it down in 1998.” (“Going by State Law,” Feb. 26)
The United States is not a democracy. It is a Constitutional Republic. The Constitution is in place to protect the rights of all — including the minorities — from the oppression of the majority.
Our representatives in government fail in their responsibility to the people when they allow the majority to dictate who will enjoy freedom and who will be deprived of freedom.
If government only required a counting of votes to determine the outcome of issues, then anybody with basic arithmetic skills could do the job. Instead, our elected representatives are supposed to be protecting the rights of all of their constituents, not just the majority.
Mr. O’Flaherty says our lawmakers “made the smart choice” by siding with the majority against HB 444. I disagree. I believe it is a shameful choice, a coward’s choice.
If our representatives in government are unwilling or unable to do the job of representing all of their constituents, then they should step down. Hopefully, the next election will bring in people who have the courage and integrity to do the job correctly.
Brian Christensen, Lihu‘e
Experience vs. popularity
If it is good for a judge to be single-minded, Alfred Laureta must have been a very good judge. His Forum letter (“Not everyone will always agree with you,” Feb. 10) displays his persistent theme regarding county manager is that the cure-all is electing better people, not changing the system.
Sadly, Mr. Laureta seems incapable of understanding that while the present system with better people would be an improvement, a better system with better people would be even better.
As has been noted earlier a favorable feature of the manager system is that managers are selected because of their education and experience while mayors are chosen because of their popularity. A qualified manager will have a collegiate education in municipal government affairs and several years of experience in that field. And a mayor?
Mr. Laureta chooses to fail to appreciate that a manager’s training can be both preparatory education and in the field experience, confusedly asserting that training is in place of experience, and apparently that he considers the International City/County Managers Association is the sole source of such training.
While he may want to find a culprit for his piece, the facts are that a variety of universities and colleges across our country offer municipal government courses and post collegiate experience is obtained working in one or more of the numerous local governments which have the manager system.
ICMA is essentially a trade association for those engaged in serving a government in a manager system.
Mr. Laureta winds up his letter by asking rhetorically if Kaua‘i is lacking in competent, well trained chief executives for our government and claims that there are many. It would be very kind of him to let us know who they are.
Glenn Mickens, Kapa‘a
