• Cancer volunteer • Binding arbitration • Kapahi community • Schools and voters Cancer volunteer I am a volunteer with the American Cancer Society, currently planning the survivors’ celebration and candle-lighting ceremony for Relay For Life on May 22. At
• Cancer volunteer
• Binding arbitration
• Kapahi community
• Schools and voters
Cancer volunteer
I am a volunteer with the American Cancer Society, currently planning the survivors’ celebration and candle-lighting ceremony for Relay For Life on May 22. At times, my experience as a volunteer is humbling; at times, heartwarming and uplifting. Regardless, I feel like my time is well spent and needed. I volunteer with the hope and resolve that one day we will not have to deal with this disease as a major health problem.
The week of April 18-24, 2004, as we recognize the 30th Annual National Volunteer Week, I want to urge everyone to find a good cause or organization – whatever it may be — that could benefit from your time, passion and commitment. Volunteering really makes a difference to people you care about in your community.
Cristin Schump
American Cancer Society volunteer
Kapa‘a
Binding arbitration
A front page article in the April 15th TGI offered the HGEA statement that Mayor Baptiste was responsible for the recent binding arbitration award because he failed to negotiate with the union. It is possible that this failure occurred because the Mayor was too busy solving the County’s solid waste disposal problems. It is possible that the Mayor failed to negotiate because his educational and experience background had not prepared him to engage in collective bargaining negotiations and he doubted his ability to achieve an agreement that would be favorable for the County. It is possible that his non-participation in the negotiations can be ascribed to the political considerations given in the interesting article in the TGI April 14th Forum by Eduardo Valenciana.
It is likely, though, that the real culprit that is involved is the state law that mandates compulsory arbitration in the event the collective bargaining process does not result in an agreement. The dilemma that the Mayor faces in the negotiations is that as elected leader of the County government he is duty bound to avoid a result that mistreats taxpayers and also as employer of the County workforce to avoid one that mistreats County workers. Mayor Baptiste obviously does not believe the Harry Truman dicta that “the buck stops here” and instead was able to pass the decision along to the award by the arbitrator.
It is a matter of regret for our County, first, that we do not have a leader who is willing to exert his best efforts to achieve a responsible resolution of the County’s duties to its taxpayers and employees and second, that the coerced settlement is mandated that eliminates the need for responsibility. Arbitration is often a good choice, but it should occur by reason of agreement between the parties and it should not be imposed on them.
Walter Lewis
Princeville
Kapahi community
The Honorable members of the Planning Commission, the Planning Director and staff, the Honorable Mayor Bryan Baptiste, Drug Coordinator Roy Nishida, Lester Chang from the Garden Island newspaper, last but not the least, the hardworking residents of the Kapahi Community. A sincere Mahalo for all that each and everyone of you have in your own way contributed towards the decision rendered against the approval for the establishment of the Hana Mana treatment center.
The residents of Kapahi, have spent many endless hours of research, attending public hearings, presenting testimony and petitioning for signatures, not to mention the severe disruption in work schedules that became almost a day to day anxiety, for 6 months.
Initially the Kapahi Homesteads Community Association was formed by concerned residents within close proximaty from the entrance of the old Wong Care Home facility. I apologize for any oversight, however we have all intentions of petitioning for community membership in the upper Kapahi area.
On behalf of the Kapahi Homesteads Community Association, many a Thank you for all of the unselfish donation of time and effort by all who participated in this process.
Jesse Fukushima
President (K.H.C.A.)
Schools and voters
It is disheartening to me to read the headline in today’s (April 14) Garden Island stating the Ungle proposal for voters to decide whether to create local school boards has again been thwarted by incumbent Democrats. It is also infuriating to realize that these people seem intent on preventing any hope of change to a system that is: a) the only one of its kind in our country and b) obviously not working. Our children, our future, consistently rank at the bottom of the states on standardized tests. What is the point of all this testing, testing, testing which usurps the time and energy the teachers need to teach, and the children need for learning, when nothing is done to bring about improvement in these dismal rankings?
I believe education is the only major governmental function which is controlled at the state, not the county, level.
Why are the Democrats afraid to let the people determine this issue?
Judy Brennan
Princeville
