Letters for May 23, 2015

Letters for May 23, 2015

Roads much better on Big Island

I visited the Big Island last week and was amazed to see the condition of their roads — they were magnificent! The roadways were wide, newly paved, broad shoulders on both sides of the roads, with fresh paint and new reflectors. I drove for several hundred miles and never saw the narrow, poorly lit, poorly maintained roads like we see so often here on Kauai.

Why is this the case? Kauai pays its fair share of taxes into the HDOT and federal highway fund. Why are our county’s roads the worst in the state? It makes no sense because Kauai has the fewest miles of roads — so shouldn’t we at least have decent and safe roadways considering we put about as much tax money into the pot? Or put another way, why does Hawaii County, with more than six times as many miles of roadway than Kauai, have so much nicer roads than we do?

And we just learned that the state of Hawaii has over $800 million of unspent federal money earmarked for roadway construction, but has been too dysfunctional to spend it. Why? And why are Kauai citizens forced to drive on dark, narrow, dangerous, unlit, unpainted, potholed roads that look like something you’d see in the Third World, while our friends on Big Island have wide, smooth, freshly resurfaced roads everywhere they drive?

Perhaps if our council would stop debating ridiculous things like fireplace smoke, they would have time to make a plan to fix our terrible, dangerous roads.

John Patterson

Wailua

Don’t let Nawiliwili look like Pittsburg

We are frequent visitors to this beautiful paradise of Kauai and were somewhat taken aback by a comment made by a cruiser on the Star Princess at Nawiliwili. He compared what he saw to something he had seen in Pittsburgh after the riots. There has been a van parked in front of the food bank building since February. It has been vandalized and the front tires have been removed and it is now sitting on some blocking. No one seems interested in having it removed, but as this is a high volume tourist area, I feel it would be prudent to have it removed and not compare Nawiliwili to Pittsburgh.

Peter Doucet

Cochrane, Alberta

Kennedy put it just right

Robert F. Kennedy Jr. helped write a book, “Let the Science Speak” about thimerosal, which is still in flu vaccines. The connection with autism is absolute. He exposes the CDC for what it is. In a speech on April 7, he stated, “All the things that are supposed to stand between rapacious industry and our little children have been dismantled, all those checks and balances, the press, the politicians, the regulatory agencies, the courts, they are all gone. And the only thing left is the parents. And now they are trying to get rid of them.”

Ray Songtree

Hanalei

Life of an educator comes with rewards

I write to express deep gratitude to whoever decided to honor me with a most generous editorial on May 22.

It was quite unexpected. I hope it was read as a tribute not just to me but to all of us who have the privilege of being educators, in both public and private sectors.

The profession provides its own rewards, from wonderful colleagues to lively children and their families. I have been most fortunate in having had a career filled with excitement and opportunities, from teaching to administration. Whatever else, for me the classroom has been at the center.

Robert Frost said it well in his poem, Two Tramps at Mudtime: “My object in living is to unite/ My avocation and my vocation/ As my two eyes make one in sight./ Only where love and need are one,/ And the work is play for mortal stakes,/ Is the deed ever truly done/ For Heaven and the future’s sakes.”

Robert Springer

Head of School,

Island School