• Super-lolo • Response to ‘Attack on open space’ letter • When will the witchhunt end? Super-lolo I read letters in the Forum daily and respect all for their opinions, but “All hail the Supper-ferry” (Letters, Oct. 16) demands a
• Super-lolo
• Response to ‘Attack on open space’ letter
• When will the witchhunt end?
Super-lolo
I read letters in the Forum daily and respect all for their opinions, but “All hail the Supper-ferry” (Letters, Oct. 16) demands a response. It went like this: “If the island stops all building, the number of jobs available will diminish.”
No kidding … we already have full employment and more development only necessitates the need for more bodies on the island, “servants and cooks, chefs and gardeners,” a “rewarding way to make a living,” as you state. Many of us think carrying capacity for Kaua‘i has already been exceeded with infrastructure lagging far behind what our “planners” have already allowed to be built. Stop this fallacious smokescreen of continually whining about the need for more jobs. Only allowing more development makes necessary the need for more jobs. High rise condos or apartments will only be a symbol of defeat for our island lifestyle, what is left of it, with mauka and makai lands already being fenced off for the privileged. Supper-ferry… ha, ha … Super-lolo.
Kapa’a
Response to ‘Attack on open space’ letter
If ever you need a shining example of hypocritical elitist snobbery look no further than the recent rant in a letter over the Ako affair. (The Garden Island, Letters Oct. 12, “Attack on open space”). In all his self-righteous puffery the author tells us in essence that he and his Sierra Club pals, along with a host of hangers on, despise property rights, individual liberty, making a profit and the notion of live and let live. How naïve we all must be to think that we are able to use our lives, labor and property without the great wisdom and vision of the anointed ones to guide us — all courtesy of government force, of course.
For example, the author thinks that the Ako family should be happy with his idea of how to use their land — you know, they should shut up and be happy with a homestead, horse corral and kiawe trees — oh yeah, and some birds and insects. Moreover, in the author’s world the Ako’s open space property is really “ours” and “we” just can’t afford to lose it; just how arrogant can one get? You’d think that his name was on the deed the way he writes. The author (and all others like him) loves nothing more than putting other people’s money where his mouth is.
If he and his cronies are so committed to open space then they should be willing to pay for it themselves and leave others to their own ends and happiness. Don’t hold your breath waiting for this to happen.
Finally, in a last hypocritical stab, the author is all too happy to point out that the Ako family is incorporated on O‘ahu — some of them live on O‘ahu?
Well, that must be a strike against them. The author casts out this “red herring” in hopes of discrediting a family which is deeply rooted in Waimea. Just think: all this from a Mainland transplant who once here thinks the island his to rule.
Kapa‘a
When will the witchhunt end?
I wish The Garden Island had been right when it reported that Carol Furtado is a candidate for Kaua‘i County Council. (Editor’s note: An editing error allowed a paragraph into a Friday article that indicated Furtado was running for County Council. She is not and a correction ran the next day.) Throughout the witch hunt, as she correctly named it, she has demonstrated integrity, dignity, and fortitude that stands in stark contrast to the secretive manipulations of the powers arrayed against her.
My first impulse upon hearing about their latest ruse was to remind people about the facts in the larger process that is, in my view, one of the worst ever miscarriages of justice by county officials — the use of fabricated ethics charges against police commissioners and the misuse of the hearing officer’s report for the ulterior purpose of removing former police chief K. C. Lum. But my disgust overrides reasoned argument at this point.
Officials no longer needed to proceed against Ms. Furtado after the actions against Mike Ching led to his resignation and the chief’s retirement. But she tossed a monkey wrench in the secretive process when she asked for an open hearing and personally defended herself against the bogus charge of breaching her fiduciary duty. Now she apparently has reason to believe that the hearings officer has refused to uphold the charge against her just as he refused to uphold the same charge against Mike Ching. Yet she has been told that she must await official word until mid-November.
Leaving Carol in limbo for another month in order to avoid endangering the seemingly safe seats of council members is a minor dereliction in the larger picture, but this legalistic ploy of pretending that a vote by the ethics board is not really a vote and not subject to public disclosure until after the election serves well as a punctuation mark on the whole misguided process and a sign of the quality of governance we may expect when the incumbents are reelected.
The ethics board occupies the pivotal position in the process, but we can safely assume that they dutifully submit to the control, disguised as “advice,” of the county attorney and the Honolulu lawyers paid for by the taxpayers. One wonders where the legal advisers were when the board violated the charter with respect to the chairperson’s term or when they asked the charter commission to propose an amendment that would have violated state law by transferring the power to appoint the police chief from the police commission to mayor and council.
The council, which made the key decision to carry out punitive actions against Mike Ching and K.C. Lum without a dissenting voice and without a credible examination of the evidence, would have us believe that all county officials taking part in the proceedings acted according to the highest standards. The facts tell a different story. However, in the final analysis it is the eligible voters, not elected and appointed officials, who will be on trial in the general election.
Kapa‘a
