• Where is the Charter Commission? • Giving ‘Uncle Warren’ credit • Let bicyclists use emergency bypass road • Simple solution? • Comment from China Where is the Charter Commission? The Charter Commission started work in February and has met
• Where is the Charter Commission?
• Giving ‘Uncle Warren’ credit
• Let bicyclists use emergency bypass road
• Simple solution?
• Comment from China
Where is the Charter Commission?
The Charter Commission started work in February and has met twice a month since. Ho’ike televised two of itsmeetings in June (four months ago). Wonder what they have been doing since then? They have continued to meet and to do their mandated job. However, unless you have been attending those meetings you will not know what has occurred.
It is no accident that you have not seen the Commission on Ho’ike since June. Taping was stopped while a contract was negotiated. The Administration said production would resume in July. Three months later there has been no resumption of production even though the 2005-2006 Budget Ordinance authorizes taping more than 20 Commission meetings.
The Administration has procrastinated in a variety of ways to keep them off the air. The most outrageous was placing on the Commission the responsibility of writing a production contract.
If you would like to see your Charter Commission grapple with the issues of County government affecting you, contact the Mayor’s office and the Finance Director’s office and make your wishes known. The charter is the people’s document and the people are being deprived of an opportunity to respond to democracy at work.
Giving ‘Uncle Warren’ credit
On Monday, Oct. 17, Warren Dastrup, Director of All Saints Pre-School in Kapa`a, appeared on the front page of your newspaper with his guitar and the preschool’s students oustide the Kauai Children’s Discovery Museum. The article did not identify him as the director of the school and the children as All Saints Pre-School students.
I also wanted to add that “Uncle Warren,” as he is known to the children, sings regularly with them at school and many of his songs are written with the preschool’s students. The songs he writes with the children are always educational and often humorous.
The photo that appeared in your newspaper explained that the children were singing a song about bees: Uncle Warren’s “Worker Bee” song. “Buzz, buzz, buzz, this is what I have to tell — it seems I’m always working in this hexagon cell!”
- Tracy Murakami
Former and future parent of All Saints Pre-School students
Let bicyclists use emergency bypass road
The following letter has been sent to Mayor Baptiste, Senator Hooser and Representative Morita.
I am writing the three of you regarding the recent death of a cyclist here on the island of Kaua’i. One way this death could have been prevented would have been allowing bicyclists to use the emergency bypass road that exists between Wailua and Hanama’ulu. I have spoken with many friends who ride and would use this route if they were not being harassed and threatened by the owners/lessees along the route. I would assume that some state and or county money was used to pave this road so it should be available for some restricted use. We are not asking for the gates to be opened. All we are asking is to be able to ride the road, lifting our bikes either over or around the gates. This is a minor inconvenience to avoiding the hazards along Kuhio Highway.
I have written the Mayor, the state and county highway departments complaining about the total lack of shoulder maintenance along our roadways. I am told there is no money in the budget or “we don’t have the manpower to do it”. Something is wrong with the budget process if that is the case. In some areas (Wailua — Kapa’a) the pavement has been overgrown by more then a foot forcing the rider out into the traffic lane. Tree branches and shrubbery overhanging shoulders is another hazard. Not to mention glass that is never swept up. An example of this is the glass from an accident at the intersection of Haleilio Road and Kuhio that has been there for over three months. This is glass that the Mayor must look at at least twice a day. Why has this not been cleaned up? Is it not part of an accident investigation to remove all road hazards after an accident? Are our police officers not required to report these obvious hazards to the appropriate agency for action? It is certainly not being done on this island. With the everincreasing fuel costs, more and more people will be riding the roadways. Now is the time to solve these problems before someone else is killed.
Simple solution?
Your front page article Sunday on KIUC was very revealing. Obviously the management at KIUC doesn’t want the members to know what is happening. Not disclosing is a sure sign they are hiding things they know the public and members would not approve of. There is a simple solution. Vote out every member of the board so we can know what is going on. KIUC is treating this situation as if it were a private corporation. Not so, we own it, but they don’t like that and will continue to hide as long as we let them get away with it. Every person who works there should have their salary made public. If employees are being paid well above the going rate, we should know. Their statements of how much they are refunding is not impressive. You should have a long memory when directors are voted for.
Comment from China
Why would The Garden Island allow an obviously confused person to print her personal internet web site? What are you thinking? If Ms. Dux would like the world to become atheists she should use her own resources to espouse her lose-lose philosophy.
I am sitting in a hotel in Wu Han, China, right now in the heart of communist atheism. Last night I spoke to 35 Chinese citizens who during a question-and-answer period asked me what religion I was. They said they wanted to know because they can’t trust atheists to care for them. An interesting comment from people raised and surrounded by the likes of Ms. Dux.
Sticks to his arguments
One of Thursday’s writers attributed a “straw man” argument to my name that he believed could be easily torn apart. That is because he cannot refute the actual claim that his group’s charter amendment, as written, gives the most to the wealthiest, largest land owners who are the least in need. Political science literature reveals that California’s Proposition 13 was a conservative political initiative, disguised as a populist campaign, in a state that was more progressive than conservative.
Some conservative authors name Prop 13 as the conservative movement’s first real victory; predating Ronald Reagan’s election. I have been asked to believe that the group Ohana Kauai, 7 of 9 founding members who write conservative rhetoric in the TGI Forum, who are politically outnumbered 7 to 1 on Kaua’i, who say they are looking for more initiatives and alternative Council candidates, are something other than a conservative political special interest group.
I don’t think so. Bush’s Tax Break, Prop 13, and the Charter Amendment are part of a conservative agenda to reward the (deserving) wealthy and, in the long term, punish the (undeserving) needy.
