• Excited for amphitheater • Bring all parties together • Losing their marbles • Foolishness costs us • Others will follow • What does that tells us? • The world we want
Excited for amphitheater
Yahoo! I am so happy to hear of plans to build an outdoor amphitheater in Kilauea.
It is just what we need. I would love to be able to go out in the evening to hear music, watch a play, (Shakespeare in the park?), or gather with others under the stars without having to travel 70 or so miles.
For decades so many on the north shore, that I have spoken with, have expressed a desire to be able to see a movie in their own neighborhood; to have a simple “dinner and a movie” experience without risking their lives on “death alley,” and having to stay out so late driving.
We have gotten our hopes up before, hopefully this time something will be built.
Claudia Cowden, Hanalei
Bring all parties together
Hawai‘i deserves a governor who can demonstrate the necessary leadership to bring diverse parties together, not keep them apart by creating an adversarial environment — as has occurred over the state’s Furlough Fridays stalemate.
The students should not be used as pawns and the media is not the place to negotiate labor disputes. It’s true that all state employees must contribute to reducing the state’s fiscal crisis. Teachers, administrators and support staff are willing to bear their share of reductions, but eliminating instructional days via Furlough Fridays is simply not an unacceptable approach.
In fact, the state DOE and Board of Education should be ensuring that our children receive at least a minimum number of daily instructional hours. Because the BOE failed to act, I introduced legislation at the beginning of this current legislative session requiring a minimum number of instructional hours and HB 2486 is currently in conference committee.
In the meantime, the governor could bring all parties together to work out a child-centered solution to replace Furlough Fridays while still reducing DOE expenditures. The unconscionable arrest of parents and students in the governor’s office certainly demonstrates that Hawai‘i needs leadership that will unite our creative-thinking adults to develop and implement cost saving options without sacrificing our children’s very future.
Rep. Lyla Berg, Vice chair, House Education Committee
Candidate, Lieutenant Governor
Losing their marbles
I seem to recall the original intention of the bike path was to alleviate traffic by providing people with an opportunity to use an alternate mode of transportation by paving a bike path to encourage bike riding.
I now see people addressing the County Council with claims of “our neighborhood is unsafe so we need to walk our dogs on the path.” Huh?
If the neighborhood is so unsafe, why is the priority of safety given to the dog? Maybe we need a child path so the children in these afflicted neighborhoods have a safe place to play marbles because it sounds like the adults have lost theirs.
Roger Olsen, Wailua
Foolishness costs us
Regarding “Dismissal delays Hawaiian challenge of highway widening”:
This is an outrageous (and embarrassing) misuse of the courts to obstruct public well-being and degrade the credibility of the court system.
The plaintiff’s case is clearly ill-conceived and insupportable and should be processed swiftly as such before it costs the public sorely needed transportation infrastructure.
Worse, the courts are being manipulated by the process and the reputation of the Native Hawaiian interests are being degraded. This is foolishness and everyone knows it.
Joleen Makawa, Anahola
Others will follow
The wrong government workers are being furloughed and schools never should had been furloughed.
The government workers who need to be furloughed are the majority of our politicians. Furlough county council members, senators, mayors and the governor. Nobody will even know these people are not working. All they do is try to get re-elected anyway.
Why furlough the bread and butter, the people who are needed; furlough the pork, the politicians. Start at the top with the people who do the least.
If our politicians gave a rat’s behind on the state of the economy they would all take a voluntary pay cut. In fact, if any politician comes out openly and takes a pay cut during this recession, they are 99 percent guaranteed of re-election.
Please, someone in politics, step forward, others will follow.
James “Kimo” Rosen, Kapa‘a
What does that tells us?
I have never attended a tea party but I must confess that I looked at the pictures of tea party attendees which were printed in The Garden Island and The Honolulu Advertiser.
From the pictures, it appears that the overwhelming majority of tea party protesters were white. That is very puzzling since the majority of people on this island and in the state are not white. What does that tell us about the tea party people?
Linda Estes, Koloa
The world we want
Anyone who questions the need for the plastic bag ban just needs to drive along Kuhio Highway as the county workers mow along the shoulder of the road.
In some spots it looks as if the grass has been replaced with a carpet of multi-colored plastic. What a sad commentary on modern society’s lack of respect for the environment. Is this really the world we want to leave to the next generation of keiki?
Candace Bishop, Princeville
