• Stand up • No spray, or sue • Amazed Stand up It is about time someone had the courage to stand up and tell the truth about this war. It seems that everyone is as afraid of telling the
• Stand up
• No spray, or sue
• Amazed
Stand up
It is about time someone had the courage to stand up and tell the truth about this war. It seems that everyone is as afraid of telling the truth about our own government as they are of terrorists.
No spray, or sue
It looks like the tail is once again wagging the dog.
There are more than 50,000 taxpayers here on Kaua‘i — and most of us want to keep our tax bills as low as possible. At the same time we want safe roadways. It is very dangerous when our roads, narrow to begin with, become even narrower due to encroaching vegetation. With all the miles of roadway on our island, it would be prohibitively expensive to hire enough people to keep the jungle at bay via mechanical means. We can achieve both goals — relatively low cost while taming the encroaching vegetation through the use of herbicides such as Roundup. The product has been declared safe for use in most areas, with manual defoliation reserved for areas where the chemical might get into the ocean.
There are five hyper-sensitive women living on Kaua‘i who claim to be allergic to the herbicide chemicals. This is 0.01-percent the population. Yet these people are demanding that the other 49,995 of us cater to their needs and stop spraying — and if they don’t get their way they will sue the county (that’s us folks) and extort money from us. In response to these few complainers, the county has already starting posting signage advising motorists that spraying is taking place. It certainly seems logical to me that the five complainers don respirators when they see the signs rather than trying to force the entire world to cater to them.
I certainly do empathize with people who have unusual sensitivities, but the onus should be on the sufferer to avoid things that cause them problems rather than force everyone else to stop using them. The same thing has happened on airplanes — they have stopped serving peanuts to everyone under pressure from the small minority of flyers who are allergic to them. Soon, kids will not be allowed to bring PBJ sandwiches for school lunch if these people keep getting their way.
This is all political correctness run amok. Where will it stop?
Amazed
I was dumbstruck when watching the most recent County Council meeting and Planning Commission meetings. For years, I have been only one small voice among many, many Kaua‘‘i residents who have complained to both bodies about the problems of overdevelopment and poor planning on this island.
Every time I gave public testimony or watched others do so, I felt our county leaders basically “tuned out,” no matter how valid and heartfelt our complaints. I even stopped attending the meetings for awhile, because I realized “They just don’t get it, and they don’t really care.”
Now, out of the blue, as if they suddenly came up with this idea themselves, some of our leaders seemed to have had a “Eureka!” moment. Here are some of the statements they made at last week’s meetings: “What is happening to our island?” “We’re out of control.” “We need a temporary moratorium on resort development.” “We need to look at the big picture.” “We need to do something about our growth; we’re really late already.” “The Planning Department needs to go from being just a permitting department to an actual planning department.” “We don’t want to go the course of Maui or Waikiki.” “Land is a premium here on Kaua‘i.” “How many toilets can be flushed into our sewers?” “The traffic is going to get much worse with all the new developments.” “How will our infrastructure be able to support it all?”
