• Planning decision • Traffic woes • View of Islam Planning decision We viewed the videotape of the May 11, 2004 Planning Commission meeting considering the issue of the 45-foot setback for a vacation rental. The testimony given seems to
• Planning decision
• Traffic woes
• View of Islam
Planning decision
We viewed the videotape of the May 11, 2004 Planning Commission meeting considering the issue of the 45-foot setback for a vacation rental.
The testimony given seems to support the idea that the landowner, through possibly unethical means, has obtained a faulty opinion concerning the setback.
It would also seem that, a 45-foot setback, whether approved or not, goes against the intent of the rules and legislation that guarantee lateral beach access to the public.
A planning commission is the forum where the public’s interest can be defended and public sentiment can be expressed.
Indeed, it must follow rules, but it should be careful to support good decisions and scrupulously avoid unfairness.
It is not a gift-giving body.
And all of this for vacation rentals?
Not even a family home? Come on now!!!!
Helen Yahner
Kapa‘a
Traffic woes
I couldn’t agree more with the letter today about the tourist Jimmy Jones’s letter about our traffic situation.
Being a former Minnesotan, I am very familiar with Minnetonka Minn., a very elite suburb west of Minneapolis. Well duh, a lot of what Mr. Jones relates about the traffic problem are teen-agers, which they also have in Minnetonka, but a good share of them drive Mercedes and Jags, rather than pickup trucks.
They also have some two-lane roads around the great big lake there, and traffic there is often like it is here, way backed up.
The big difference there is that if you are waiting to go out into traffic, almost always someone will stop and let you into traffic. But I have never seen that happen in Minnesota. Drivers there are so aggressive that we sometimes hate the thought of visiting there. even though most of our children live there. Every year we come back after a month in Minnesota, swearing that we will never complain about our clogged roads through Kapa‘a and so forth, (but, of course, after a week or so we do)!
I am most upset that this person vilifies the residents of Kaua‘i who are so bad at driving, and the tourists are so law-abiding. There is not one resident of this island who has not experienced driving behind a tourist who is enjoying the sights, and hits the breaks often, down to 5 mph to look at the scenery, never occurring to them to just pull over! Just this morning I had to pass a tourist car in Hanalei that was enjoying the scenery and I was on my way to do a tour at Limahuli Garden, and I didn’t have to go very fast to pass him. Is this bad aloha? Yeah, we need our tourists, but we do not need being told we have no more aloha because we residents occasionally get frustrated with their behavior. As for Mr. Jones, stay in Minnetonka; your chances of a bad accident there are a lot worse there than it is in Kaua‘i.
Karen Clifford
Princeville
View of Islam
I am commending Fred Sarmento for expressing his opinion and feelings in a letter to the editor of May 16. He has expressed emotions that many of us share, but unfortunately few of us have the discipline to write about. His writing has motivated me to voice my view on what is happening in Iraq.
I was born in Indonesia, and was raised there for the first 30 years of my life. The Islamization of that country started in the 12th century. Today, 2004, Indonesia is the largest Muslim country in the world. It took more than 700 years, but they got there. It is a methodical, organized and patient process. It started with trade, then settlement, then moving into communities and blending in. Recruiting by inter- marriages with Christians and demanding that children be raised as Muslims. The next step is forming organizations, political parties, and demands for positions in government to influence policy. In the olden days Indonesia needed them for trading purposes. Today they are needed for their money to feed the masses and build schools. All that comes with a price; schools are built to teach Islam. To receive rations of rice and basic necessities one must belong to a Muslim organization. This by itself is a natural progression of the immigration process. Except that inherent in the Islam faith is a provision that one is allowed to kill in the name of God. It does not matter whether they kill women, children, innocent or guilty, Muslims, Christians or others; everybody may and can kill. All that is needed is for a jihad to be proclaimed. That makes it very difficult to accept the fact that it is a peaceful religion; it makes it incompatible with most other life philosophies. Back in Indonesia I have many Muslim friends and family, and there are millions of peaceful persons of that faith. But the fact remains that nothing can prevent them from doing what their religion allows them, or at times calls them, to do. This option has been abused in time immemorial.
I see the same process occurring in the world at large. Muslims are moving in our countries. They influence policies at schools and universities; they live as good citizens, but may be called upon to do God’s work.
And we allow it because we need their oil. History repeats itself, and nothing was learned.
All the killers were “good citizens” for years in one European country or another, but when called upon they responded.
My observations are just personal experiences. To the liberals of this country who have no other baseline than the freedoms they have enjoyed in this incredibly generous country (in spite of its flaws), I say: take it from me because I have been there. America (and the world), wake up and see things for what they really are; the Islamization of the world, and this time by hook or by crook, oil and killings.
As far as I am concerned our heroes in Iraq have mainly died to show the world who our real enemies are.
Let us unite and heed the warnings.
Paula Zina
Lihu‘e
