• Proud parent • Common sense? • Where’s FEMA? • Bad timing • Our future is in our hands Proud parent I am a parent at King Kaumuali‘i Elementary School. I wanted to inform the public that this school’s staff
• Proud parent • Common sense? • Where’s FEMA? • Bad timing • Our future is in our hands
Proud parent
I am a parent at King Kaumuali‘i Elementary School. I wanted to inform the public that this school’s staff is outstanding.
The teachers have tried to give back to the students all that they can. Once the furlough Fridays were implemented, the teachers voted to give back all waiver days and turn them back to instructional days and canceled parent teacher conferences (these are half days of school with conferences in the afternoon) and had full instructional days.
The teachers and staff there should be commended for their initiative. They truly care about my children’s education. I haven’t heard that any other school on this island has done this. I am proud that my children go to King K.
Marnie Crawford, Wailua
Common sense?
In the ongoing dialogue between Judge Alfred Laureta and Glenn Mickens concerning placing the county manager issue on the upcoming ballot: Laureta first demanded examples of “flaws, inequities and inefficiencies” in our present system and is now suggesting that a mayor would have more “common sense” than a manager.
I say, let’s take a look at some of the judge’s “local style common sense” and “flaws”:
— In 2008-09 this author brought to Kaua‘i an investment group willing to invest $100 million into Kaua‘i’s solid waste/high electric cost dilemmas which would have cost taxpayers not one red cent other than a portion of tipping fees. Our County Council, Administration and KIUC all ignored this offer. Receiving no response, much less positive feed back, the investors invested the revenues elsewhere.
Inequities:
— “Inequities: 1: injustice, unfairness 2: an instance of injustice or unfairness” (Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary)
In 2004 the voters adopted by a two-to-one vote a measure protecting resident property tax obligation. The administration ignored the will of the people and sued to block the law.
Inefficiencies:
— After having to wade through four mayors, eight councils and an unknown number of council members, committees, expensive studies, millions of dollars, and 16 years Kaua‘i finally decided upon a new site for a new landfill. It took 16 years to decide upon building a toxic waste landfill in the middle of perhaps Kaua‘i’s largest working, productive, mature coffee farm in Kalaheo. Requiring, I might add, the purchase of hundreds of surrounding acres in order to provide a barrier around the productive coffee bearing trees in order to prevent contamination of the crops. Would you buy coffee raised on a farm that was also a dump?
Three recent examples of “local style common sense”! Is this the leadership we want shaping our children’s and grandchildren’s futures? The future of Kaua‘i? Place the issue on the ballot so “We the People” can decide. What is the judge afraid of? “We the People,” justice and fairness? Wake up and demand a vote on this issue!
John Hoff, Lawa‘i
Where’s FEMA?
It appears to me that the BP disaster that is taking place right now in the Gulf of Mexico is an Emergency. Where is the Federal Emergency Management Agency?
Did Michael Brown, under the Bush Administration, destroy it so completely that it can no longer take charge? If Clinton were still president, the hole would have been closed already. FEMA worked under Clinton.
John Zwiebel, Kalaheo
Bad timing
The complaints of the temporary closure of Kuhio Highway in Hanalei were more about parents not being able to pick up their children after school.
It looks like a case of bad timing.
Otherwise, most locals and visitors enjoyed the event. Movie star watching is still big on Kaua‘i.
Earl Scott, Princeville
Our future is in our hands
In reply to Joe Stoddard who asks “Where are Kaua‘i’s plantations today?” I would like to point out that America’s freedom is a double-edged sword.
Workers are free to organize in order to negotiate for wages, hours and other conditions of employment.
Employers are free to seek cheaper labor by moving their base of operations to the Philippines and other countries where the cost of labor is lower. This also enables them to dodge taxes. A good example of this is American shipping companies registering their vessels in the Marshall Islands in order to circumvent the Jones Act, which protects the rights of American seamen.
In our great country, the children of working class parents can aspire to any future they choose if they are willing to take advantage of the educational opportunities that are available to anybody willing to pursue them. There are still many countries where class distinction is so strong that children cannot hope to rise above the class of their parents. Once a serf, always a serf.
In answer to Stoddard’s question, it would be more to the point to ask, where are the children and grand children of Hawai‘i’s former plantation workers. They are all around us, pursuing the best in life that our great country offers to all of us regardless of ethnicity.
Think about it , Joe Stoddard. The plantations were just a phase in the development of the Hawai‘i that we enjoy today, and that development is still going on. The future of Hawai‘i is in our hands and those of our progeny. What it becomes is what we make of it.
Harry Boranian, Lihu‘e
