Morita, Cummings give their views on drug crime, traffic

LIHU‘E — Traffic and drugs are top issues on the North Shore, and opposing candidates for the state House of Representatives seat covering Wailua River to Ha‘ena have solutions in mind.

Mamo Cummings, Republican challenger to state Rep. Mina Morita, a Democrat, said empowering law-enforcement officials with “walk-and-talk” and “knock-and-talk” powers is a crucial weapon in the war on drugs.

“They are critical in getting drugs out of the hands of our keiki,” said Cummings. Walk-and-talk powers would allow police to approach suspected drug dealers and question them, and knock-and-talk powers would allow police to knock on doors of homes where residents are suspected of dealing or manufacturing drugs.

Some 80 percent of Crime Stoppers rewards for information leading to arrest and conviction of drug dealers during Cummings’ time as president of the Kaua‘i Chamber of Commerce went to children in middle-school grades who provided information, she said. That tells her the drug problem is impacting the island’s youngest residents, she said.

At Lihu‘e Airport several years ago, Cummings was approached by a law-enforcement official, told she met the profile of a potential drug courier, and was asked if she would submit to being searched. After checking for proper identification, she allowed the search, telling the officer she was happy he was doing his job.

The state Legislature has funded some projects which might provide immediate traffic relief along clogged Kuhio Highway especially in Kapa‘a and Waipouli, including a new road linking Kuhio Highway with the Kapa‘a bypass road by Waipouli Town Center, synchronization of traffic lights, construction of left-turn holding lanes, and other items, Morita said. The holdup is getting state Department of Transportation Highways Division employees to move quickly, she said.

“It’s up to the department to act,” said Morita, adding that there has been no real long-range planning done either at the county or state levels in the last 10 years or so, in terms of mass transit, housing, transportation, and other issues. County and state officials must work together to plan the island’s future, she said.

Cummings said the biggest problem facing the House district is care for the roads, though she has been “impressed” with progress made in this area. Another problem is that certain Democratic lawmakers continue to raid the highway fund, and projects like the emergency work to replace an aging, wooden bridge on Kuhio Highway in Wainiha will cause delays for other, planned, traffic-easing projects, Cummings said. The district needs a representative who will work to preserve the highway fund, she added.

Morita countered that the state highway fund is always “over-funded,” so there is money for scheduled as well as emergency improvements and projects.

In the question-and-answer format of the forum, Morita was asked about hurdles which had to be overcome in order for the plan to blend ethanol with gasoline to become law. Administrative rules for the plan were recently approved by Gov. Linda Lingle.

The main hurdle was opposition from representatives of oil companies, Morita said. “It is a reduction in their profits,” so they opposed the plan, she said. “But we can’t afford the loss of Gay & Robinson on Kaua‘i,” Morita said of the island’s last sugar company.

“So, it was reinventing the sugar industry on Kaua‘i,” a way of keeping agricultural lands in agriculture, a way of increasing island energy self-sufficiency, and getting out from under federal and international sugar policies that local lawmakers and leaders of sugar companies can’t really do anything about but which impact the price of sugar on the open market, she said of beneficial impacts of the ethanol law.

Paul C. Curtis, associate editor, may be reached at 245-3681 (ext. 224) or mailto:pcurtis@pulitzer.net.