Letters for Thurssday, December 21, 2006

• Hiker safety paramount

• Ruffled feathers of the season

• Windfall?

• Awestruck by concert

Hiker safety paramount

The trails should be clearly marked (as to the let people know what treacheries lie ahead before proceeding, or the trail that the hikers took that led to their deaths should be blocked permanently). Precautions like this would ensure safety to both visitors and locals alike who are not used to hiking on the many unmarked trails that lead to dangerous terrain. It would greatly help prevent accidents and the unfortunate fatalities, and most importantly would ensure that all can share in our islands beauty and magnificent splendor and return home safe so that they can return again.

Kapa‘a

Ruffled feathers of the season

It’s time to wish everyone the very finest of holiday seasons. And I ask you to pardon some of the following observations during this most sacred time of year. These observations are meant to actually ease some tensions.

Residents are now being asked to live alongside visitors in adjacent vacation rentals. And these visitors’ faces and habits change every few weeks. It’s become part of the zoning process we have learned to live with. Over the next few weeks our tempers will be tested as our neighborhoods and business climates change even more so. We will need to exercise patience and understanding as the congestion mounts. As we all start to feel like neighbors of strangers in a strange land.

I feel someone needs to educate the short term resident/vacation renter, about the differences in lifestyle, the ethics of aloha, and the humbling respect for others that we hold so dear on Kaua‘i. A Kaua‘i letter of aloha attached to the refrigerator can spell out the ways of the land, the codes of the sea, and the codes of the road. This letter can be endorsed by the Mayor and the Kauai Visitors Bureau. Afterall these folks are spending thousands of dollars a week for the privelege of living beside us, and this letter just might help to make a difference in someones awkward behavior at the right time and the right place. Maybe it should be fiberglassed to the headboards.

Secondly, we need more public parking at our beach facilities. There are more cars parked bumper to bumper from the pavilion to the pier in Hanalei than ever. These cars block driveways, park on the roadways, and make it impossible to commute. It’s a major accident just waiting to happen. And yet there are at least 2,500 additional bedroom units to be constructed on the North and Northeast shore alone within the next few years. Where are all these new bodies, along with their waste and garbage going to go? Most of it to the beach. Yet there is no room in the restrooms or on the street for parking today. And that’s just on the North Shore.

At the pavilion I suggest we take 40 feet of space makai of the pavilion and make more parking stalls stretched across the width of the beach park. This will provide room for 60 additional cars that now park on the roadways. A short term solution, but a necessary one. The Hanalei boatyard acreage at the pier is a better long term solution. This area needs to be traded or swapped to the county for more parking. We have allotted acreage for bedrooms but not for the stress on the resources that attract our visitor. I won’t even mention the state of our public restrooms, because our county workers do an amazing job while working with virtually nothing. Our county and state should address these respective needs immediately.

Otherwise our beachside neighborhoods will turn into slumzones that overflow along with low tide sewage seeping to the sea, and our communites will become neighborhoods of strangers paying an arm and leg for a glimpse of a mountain and a polluted sunset.

Mele Kalikimaka … and believe it or not I truly am immersed in the spirit of the season.

Hanalei

Windfall?

This letter is in reference to your front-page article on Friday, Dec. 15, titled “Storybook Theatre gets funding windfall.” Thank you for your timeliness and placement of the story.

There are two misnomers in the article that I believe are worth the time to clear up.

One: “Storybook Theatre … has been under renovation since 2001.” Our historical rehabilitation project gained right of entry to Hanapepe’s Sun Ke Heong/Obatake Building in 1995, which means we have actually been working to raise funds and complete the project for more than 10 years.

Two: The title of the article suggests that our Grant-In-Aide from the state of Hawai‘i’s 2006 Legislature and office of the governor was a “windfall,” that is to say, an unexpected gain, a stroke of luck, or some other serendipitous happening.

Please, for the record, these are the first government funds ever allocated for our children’s media center project in eight previous attempts. Winning the funds this year is “lucky” in the sense that all the political elements were in our favor, however, there were scores of hours of work by dedicated volunteers and mounds of paperwork that told the real story of our accomplishment.

Again, mahalo for your willingness to print our stories of success for the children and youth of Hawai‘i.

Hanapepe

Awestruck by concert

We just got back to our rental after attending the Willie Kalikimaka concert at the community college. To everyone who was involved in making this show happen, you did an incredible job. The staging was just amazing, as was the music. We thoroughly enjoyed Willie Kalikimaka’s wide-ranging musical abilities. We were very touched by the tribute he did to his father, but were awestruck at the beauty of the hula being danced to a Christmas song sung so sweetly by this very talented musician.

Thanks to all who made this memorable night happen. Your aloha spirit shines through brightly.

Empire, Mich.