• Timeshares help economy • Sharing the aloha • Kikiaola is costly for the few • Totem stolen Timeshares help economy In regards to Harvey Schwartz’ letter “Timeshares the problem?” I have to take exception with him. My husband and
• Timeshares help economy
• Sharing the aloha
• Kikiaola is costly for the few
• Totem stolen
Timeshares help economy
In regards to Harvey Schwartz’ letter “Timeshares the problem?” I have to take exception with him. My husband and I own at Lawai Beach Resort, and have come to the island every year since 1989 except for the year of ‘Iniki. There is a group of us from all over the United States that come the same time every year in February. My husband and I personally spend anywhere from $5,000 to $8,000 the weeks we are there. This is cash money going into the local economy of Kaua‘i. Our friends also put that kind of money into the local economy. I don’t understand how Mr. Schwartz can say timeshares are the problem. I would ask if he were born and raised on the island or is he a transplant from New York that moved over there when land was cheap and was less congested. He has his piece of paradise and the rest of us can stay home. I do agree that the island is growing too fast and am concerned about the traffic but not for me, for the people who are lucky enough to live there. We look forward to our time on your wonderful island and shop at the local stores and shops trying to help the locals. We love the people at Lawai Beach Resort and look forward to coming over again to see all our friends.
Get a grip, Harvey.
- Polly S. Stroud
Waxhaw, N.C.
Sharing the aloha
My husband and I would like to share an experience we had recently in Waimea. We were taking an anniversary vacation in Kaua‘i, when we received a call on our cell phone from Russia informing us that we needed to be there in one week. We could finally meet our 2-year-old soon-to-be adopted daughter.
We had to make arrangements to get our visas and make flight and hotel reservations with no computer or fax. Frantically, we walked into an art gallery/coffee shop in Waimea that had “Internet Service” displayed in the store window. We explained our predicament to the shop owner, named Candy Baar. She calmed us saying, “Hang loose, I’ll turn on some music and do the hula for you. Everything will be O.K. – you can use my personal desk, computer, and fax for as long as you like.” We spent the afternoon making our arrangements in the office of this lovely woman, who is as sweet as her name.
In part, as a result of this store owner’s hospitality, we were able to meet our daughter. We will bring her home soon and one day tell her about Candy Baar and her aloha spirit.
- Walt & Louann Gaub
Columbus, Ohio
Kikiaola is costly for the few
The Westside Kikiaola Boat Harbor is an artificial structure built on a beach that is subject to high energy wave action.
Any time a boat harbor is built on a beach instead of in a natural bay, it will fill up with sand. Dredging an artificial harbor every few years that you know will fill up again is like burning money. The federal government is dead broke. Since 80 percent of the money to dredge the harbor will come primarily from Mainland taxpayers, the cost-effective solution for federal taxpayers is to let this jetty structure fill with sand and turn it into a keiki beach.
With all due respect to the handful of boat owners who use the structure, if they want to pay the millions of dollars to dredge the harbor, they should pass the hat among themselves.
Hooser was right… sort of
As state Sen. Gary Hooser, D-Kaua‘i-Ni‘ihau, affirmed in these pages recently, “We need to subsidize in order to get the kind of service we deserve.”
Although the Senator was talking about the air-ambulance service, perhaps he could be persuaded to help us in other ways to get what we deserve?
Don’t we also deserve low gas prices, low rents, low-cost houses, smooth roads, free medical care, adequate pensions, and competent politicians?
How about low taxes? Don’t we deserve those, too?
Yes. Of course we do. And Hooser looks to be just the man for getting us all the good things we deserve. We just have to be patient, as for example, regarding relief from the traffic problem. The Senator has been living on Kaua‘i for 25 years and has apparently only recently noticed the congestion here and so he is hailing the state representatives as doing “a bang-up job” “in getting Kaua‘i projects funded.” Millions of dollars are about to flow to Kaua‘i because of all the astute politicians who recently discovered the congestion problem. Sure, it would have been better to have had some funds for road improvement five or 10 years ago, but let us rejoice in our good fortune for being so deserving.
Let us all make a list of the things we deserve and publish them here in the Letters. Here’s my list:
1. Constitutional government.
2. More Libertarians and fewer Republicans and Democrats in office in order to regain number one in this list.
3. To know what happened to all the gas taxes that Kauaians and millions of visitors have paid to the state over the years. It doesn’t appear that the money went to upkeep and improvement when you look at how things are. The road from Kapa‘a to Princeville, for example, is like riding in a round-bottomed boat in Hanalei Bay during a high surf: pitch and roll, heave and bang, shudder and settle.
4. to know how much higher taxes are going to get before Sen. Hooser understands that tax dollars do not manifest on trees and every little additional thing the good citizens of Kaua‘i deserve and get increases taxes.
5. To know why politicians view tax dollars as their money for the purpose of gaining their re-election by pandering to voters who vote their wallets and could care less about good government. I may have just answered that one myself.
Totem stolen
Quite recently, the last of three antique statues guarding the grounds of Mahelona Hospital went missing. Ever watchful, the totem, about 30 feet high and 12 feet in diameter, stood under the bonsai ironwood, between the kitchen and the maintenance shop. Carved in stone, the face of a kahuna/warrior-type character, was stoic and obviously crafted with skilled and loving hands.
Said one state employee “Whoever took it should have his arms go crooked.”
Just as strewing grafitti in beach park facilities, acts of vandalism need to stop. If anyone knows about, or has recently seen a totem appear, please do what you can to return this historic artifact to its rightful place.
