• County needs to stand up to developer • Say ‘No’ to lottery • Contractual tax service needed on Kaua‘i County needs to stand up to developer In a Sept. 13, 2010, letter to the County, Stacey Wong, the representative
• County needs to stand up to developer • Say ‘No’ to lottery •
Contractual tax service needed on Kaua‘i
County needs to stand up to developer
In a Sept. 13, 2010, letter to the County, Stacey Wong, the representative of the Knudsen Trust, stated: “However, if we are unable to commence construction by January 15, 2011, we will voluntarily remove the dust screens and post supports at that time.”
Well, there is no construction and now Mr. Wong is saying that they will remove the dust screens but not the post supports.
Why should Mr. Wong be able to tell the County, in writing, that he will do something and then refuse to do it?
Allowing that to happen sends a terrible message to the rest of the people on the island who are required to follow the rules and regulations when they make a commitment.
Koloa is the gateway to Po‘ipu and those dust screens and post supports have been an eyesore to the community for over three years. It is totally unacceptable to allow the post supports to remain for an indefinite amount of time (probably years). The County now needs to make him do what he said he would do.
Mr. Wong is also quoted in the Jan. 23, 2011, Garden Island article as saying: “By taking down the dust screens, we are trying to be a good neighbor.” This is the same “good neighbor” who left the dust screens and post supports up for three years while no work was done on the property and cut down the monkey pod trees in front of the Koloa Post Office for no apparent reason. What a neighbor!
Linda Estes, Koloa
Say ‘No’ to lottery
I would predict that Hawai‘i will soon have the lottery. It will start out with the Mega nation wide lottery then soon have the scratch off and all other types of lottery. This seem like an excellent idea on the surface. It does bring much revenue to the state. I see a commercial where the lady says that 95 percent of the Hawaiian people like to gamble.
I had a convenience store in Missouri when the lottery first made its arrival. Where once the customers would buy a soda of snack if they had an extra dollar they now would buy a lottery ticket. Where once I might make a dime off the merchandise sale I would make a nickel off the lottery ticket. The state would harvest the remaining part of the dollar.
My store would sell about one thousand tickets a day and all the other stores in town would do their part in collecting money for the state. Usually it was the poorest of the poor that buy the tickets. I have seen people spend their grocery money on tickets hoping to get rich. They had a dream last night that they were going to strike it rich. If a customer ever won even a small amount they would think the next scratch off must be a big winner.
They would still leave with nothing. As the store owner I would earn about $15,000 per year and this was just a small store. I have seen families loose their farms and families over the lottery. This is a sickness and a way of making the poorest of the poor pay taxes. In Missouri they could have casino gambling only on river boats. It will be just around the corner for off shore gambling to happen in Hawai‘i. Contact your congressman and say NO.
Kenneth Smith, Waimea
Contractual tax service needed on Kaua‘i
As the Jan. 23 editorial in TGI points out, we do need an efficient bus system. There is no doubt that the elderly, those with disabilities, and those who cannot drive need alternate means of transportation.
And though the bus may be one of those options, I believe that there may be another that has never been researched here on Kaua‘i — a contractual taxi service.
A very interesting lady, Debra Kekaualua. wrote a factual letter in The Forum about this type of transportation (she was a Kaua‘i bus and taxi driver) and the important parts of it need to be repeated:
“Having recently returned from 8 months living on the Big Island, I was amazed to find Hawai‘i County provided free Hele On Bus island-wide as well as a shared riding taxi program where, in my case for as little as four $2 ticket coupons, I was able to move from Home Panoewa to employment Hilo Med Center, door to door service within urbanized Hilo or Kailua-Kona areas limited to 9 mile radius costing me $8 daily.
“Kaua‘i bus cost would be $4 and the inconvenience of either a route that doesn’t exist, inability to r/t due to similar nonexistent time schedules or a taxi fee of $60 with similar travel distance as the Big Island (Wailua Homesteads to Wilcox Hospital).
“What is wrong with this picture you might ask? Having been a Kaua‘i taxi and Kaua‘i Bus driver and considering our island size, why has this platform not been made available to our community?”
Since we are spending huge sums of tax money each year subsidizing our bus system, why, as Ms. Kekaualua asks, hasn’t this option been made available to our community?
Municipalities other than the Big Island are using this system with success and since taxis use far less fuel than a bus AND take its passenger door to door, it would be a win-win situation for the rider and the tax payers.
Thus, before we spend more money on expanding our bus system, wouldn’t it be prudent to at least check out this option, even letting Ms. Kekaualua give us her learned advice?
Glenn Mickens, Kapa‘a
