• Against council statement on Superferry Against council statement on Superferry By Hans Hellriegel The article and resolution written by Council member Yukimura was truly written like a lawyer. The trouble in Hawai‘i is the general population has no memory
• Against council statement on Superferry
Against council statement on Superferry
By Hans Hellriegel
The article and resolution written by Council member Yukimura was truly written like a lawyer. The trouble in Hawai‘i is the general population has no memory because people come and people go, but some of us have been here a long time and have a good memory and are not stupid. When Councilmember Yukimura was mayor, it took forever till she let the National Guard come onto the island after ‘Iniki hit. She didn’t want to be taken over by the Army. She had a lot of studies and lost the battle with the tour boats. She didn’t demand EIS when it was announced that 30-plus huge ships per year would be calling on our island in our little harbor. The roads are plugged up because the administration then and today’s mayor and Council will not widen the roads. They can’t even build a replacement bridge in less than 90 days with the prestressed concrete beams with prestressed concrete decking. Now that would be progress. This is the 21st century, isn’t it?
Yukimura and fellow council members then and the administration today let hotel condo/complexes be built without any traffic consideration to widen or build new bypass roads in a timely manner. That’s why we have a traffic problem on our little island. With 140,00 people living, working, going to school every month of the year. That’s a traffic jam.
Councilmember Yukimura, you spent years in school in Washington State. There are 19 ferries running between the islands in Washington. They are part of the Washington State highway system and they work great. This new Hawaiian ferry is part of the Hawaiian Highway System and is a great idea and won’t go away. It will lower travel prices to all people who can’t afford to leave this rock and have never been on the other islands. Every Hawaiian should see their state in their life time. You can slow the ferries down with a lot of legal blocking which will cost the people of Kaua‘i a ton of money in legal fees and we will be the last island in the state of Hawaii to have a ferry landing but it will be here. So I suggest you start steering the council in the direction of planning on 200 cars boarding the ferries and 200 cars unloading. There will be searches for explosives, good people and some bad will be coming in like they do on the planes every day. The coqui frog is already here. The shippers bring in containers from the orient and other places every day on barges with more hostile organisms to our environment. The ferries are not going to change that. Don’t scare us with all these thieves, drugs, frogs, people that will be coming on a ferry and crowding our beaches, they are already here. The council members and you are way to concerned about this ferry business.
The council should be concerned in opening up lands for low income housing for first time buyers. We definitely have a great big need for that. Remember the ferry operates under federal and state laws not the county laws. You don’t want the new ferry and that’s plain to see.
I guess we need more studies and research like in the good old days. You will hurt only the people that elected you and your fellow council members by adding legal stumbling blocks requiring the Hawaiian ferry to come up with an EIS and not requiring the same of the cruise ships is arbitrary and capricious to say the least The council is thinking 1900’s not 2000’s. Plan better and let’s grow with good planning you will not stop progress if you want to live off the tourist dollars as this island does every day.
Let’s improve some of the cane roads and open up some better bypasses so we are not all backed up in Kapa‘a and Puhi. Every day backed up! Every Day! Every Day! All Day!
- Hans Hellriegel is a resident of Kapa‘a
