• Lifeguards, furloughs, and paycuts • Undergrounding utility lines • Don’t label people Lifeguards, furloughs, and paycuts So, how did the matter of furloughs shake out with our Lifeguards? Before I answer this, a quick aside: Lifeguards are officially called
• Lifeguards, furloughs, and paycuts • Undergrounding utility lines • Don’t label people
Lifeguards, furloughs, and paycuts
So, how did the matter of furloughs shake out with our Lifeguards? Before I answer this, a quick aside: Lifeguards are officially called Water Safety Officers in government and union dealings, and I will refer to them in this way.
What ended up happening, to my best understanding, is as follows: After intense government/union negotiations, WSOs were called in by their union (HGEA Bargaining Unit #3) and they were required to cast a vote for one of two options: A) Accept a 5 percent pay cut; or B) Be furloughed 2 days a month. Plan B would amount to an approximately 9 percent loss of income, and of course would also allow for the “enjoyment” of more days off. Plan B would also have amounted to less beach coverage and occasional Tower closures.
Since my advocacy is for ocean safety, I am very happy and proud to report that our WSOs overwhelmingly voted for Plan A. Our Towers will remain open, our beaches will remain guarded. We all — residents and visitors — need to be very grateful and respectful to our WSOs for this vote, and I hereby say … Thank you gentlemen, and a couple of ladies. Thank you!
Now, if you’ve read my opinion pieces before you know that I usually am a bit longer-winded than this, and I do in fact have a bit more to say about this matter. I’m not only an ocean safety advocate, I’m also a huge WSO fan. I believe that they play as critical a life-and-death role for our island community as do our Firefighters, Police, and, ahem, maybe even our ER doctors. I’m therefore very sad that they have to accept a pay cut, and I long for the day when they will be treated with the same respect as Fire and Police and ER doctors and will have to accept neither a pay cut nor a furlough.
A statewide momentum is building towards a day when WSOs will have their own bargaining unit. (Currently the State’s 320 WSOs are “buried” in HGEA Unit 13 along with approximately 25,000 clerical workers, an unlikely and awkward marriage that took place in the late 1970’s when conditions were very different from today). When that day comes, then I will be at peace with the fact that our WSOs have a full chance at being awarded the respect that they deserve.
To deserve respect they have to earn it, and to that end let me briefly describe what happened on Anahola beach this last weekend: A person collapsed while playing in the surf and was pulled to shore by friends. The WSOs, whose Tower is a good 150 yards away, immediately spotted this disturbance and they scrambled to the scene in their ATV, stocked with all of their resuscitation equipment. They found the person to be lifeless, not breathing and no pulse. As they were hooking up their AED they began CPR in the midst of very hectic and crowded circumstances. The AED indicated that “a shockable rhythm” was present. They accordingly administered defibrillating shocks, 3 different times — and got a pulse back! The person was then transported to the ER under ambulance lights and sirens. The person was in a coma for a period of time but after continuing to receive advanced hospital care, the person is now awake and talking and enjoying friends and family members. How about that! This happy result required perfect and professional adherence to protocols even in the midst of utter chaos, and our WSOs were up to the task, big time.
With that account I have my second opportunity in this piece to say to our WSOs … Thank you!
Dr. Monty Downs, President Kaua‘i Lifeguard Association
Undergrounding utility lines
In response to Mr. Diamont’s question in Sunday’s Letters to the Editor section:
As reported in KIUC Currents magazine’s February’s edition, the State of Hawai‘i Department of Transportation will be widening Kuhio Highway fronting Coco Palms, and as part of the project, electric utility lines and communications facilities will be placed underground.
This includes electric utilities from Lydgate Substation, along Kuhio Highway to the Kapa‘a Bypass Road.
Running power lines underground is 5 to 10 times more expensive than putting them on poles, but fortunately Sen. Inouye’s office was instrumental in securing federal funds for this DOT project, including most of the extra cost to bury power lines. There are currently no plans to underground the utilities along the widened Kaumuali‘i Highway in Lihu’e.
A detailed article on the pros and cons of undergrounding will be featured in the August edition of KIUC Currents.
David Bissell, CFO, KIUC
Don’t label people
In his June 28 letter, “Cars are here to stay,” Glenn Mickens writes, “Some municipalities have contracts with cab companies that pick up seniors and ADA people…”
There are people with disabilities. There is the “Americans With Disabilities Act,” which is a federal Law. There is no such thing as “ADA people.”
Let’s not confuse a federal law with labeling people.
Larry Littleton, Lihu‘e
