• Consider the alternatives • Departmental budgets • Responds to ‘Trees have memory’ • Graffiti hurts everyone Consider the alternatives Open letter to David Nelson, Koloa Marketplace developer: You are aware that there is widespread opposition to your development plan
• Consider the alternatives
• Departmental budgets
• Responds to ‘Trees have memory’
• Graffiti hurts everyone
Consider the alternatives
Open letter to David Nelson, Koloa Marketplace developer:
You are aware that there is widespread opposition to your development plan in Koloa. The county opposes it and many residents of Koloa and Kaua‘i oppose it. Your right to move forward with this project is based upon a clerical error in your favor, a legal technicality, not upon a well-considered plan with the support of the county and people of Kaua‘i. This fact is widely known and it makes the project look opportunistic and illegitimate.
You and Eric Knudsen will be demonstrating a disrespectful lack of regard for the concerns of the community by building this project as planned. You may think this merely unfortunate for some who care too much about a few trees, but think again. Most people here won’t go to a protest but they will not hesitate to state their views in other ways. A commercial project that economically depends on a good reputation needs support from the community if it is to have that good reputation.
You and Mr. Knudsen should consider that nowadays more and more tourists are sensitive to issues of local politics and economic and environmental impacts of the businesses they patronize. This also applies to the businesses you are hoping to lease commercial space to.
There are alternatives, and it would go a long way toward earning the respect and support of the community if you were to stop and consider them in the context of open dialog with the community.
Roland Barker, Kapa‘a
Departmental budgets
Mr. Antonson’s letter of Dec. 31, 2007, questioning the use of transportation funds for purposes other than transportation ignores the fact that the total federal budget comes from taxes paid plus money borrowed by the feds to pay for programs that taxes will not pay for.
Each U.S. department, transportation, VA, health and human services, homeland security, education, etc., submit budgets based on the expenses to run their department plus grants and or loan requests made to their departments. If one department’s budget would be smaller, then another department could have more money available. (Imagine if a department would have money left over from 2007, doubtful, but possible.) Then there would be more money available for another department to use, such as education, food for the poor,etc.
Some politicians have advocated the Department of Education be abolished and let the local people run it. That would free up billions. I am not advocating that but people need to look at the total federal budget, not just transportion. What money one department doesn’t use or need could be allocated to another department.
Bob Yount, Kalaheo
Responds to ‘Trees have memory’
A recent letter to this paper titled “Trees have Memory” forced me to rethink my support for the monkeypod trees owner’s right to remove the trees, just long enough to read the letter. The letter states these trees are “older and wiser than we are.” And that “Trees, like our own bodies, have memories.”
Is the author writing about the real trees in Koloa or the Ents from J. R. R. Tolkien’s fantasy world of Middle-Earth? If we could only find an Elf to teach them to talk. Then we could ask the trees to uproot themselves and find somewhere else to live. But this is the real world not a fantasy story written for children. So, talking to the trees is out of the question.
The author refers to the trees as “God’s beauty in our own back yard.” This would suggest the author believes in God and should be familiar with Genesis Chapter 1 Verse 26 describing God’s creation of man in which He states “and let him have dominion over the animals and over all of the earth.” Which means mankind is allowed, by God, to cut trees down.
I don’t think the letter’s author is referring to the Christian God. The last paragraph describes the trees being “ripped from the womb of their origin.” That would suggest the womb of the god Gaia, or as some call it today, Mother Earth. This god from Greek mythology convinced her sons to kill or castrate their father, Uranus. Uranus was her son as well as her other son’s father. Again, the author drifts into the fantasy world.
The author also cites the achievement of Julia Butterfly Hill in stopping the cutting down of a tree in Oregon by living in the tree for 738 days. Some readers of this letter might be thinking, “738 days in a tree, you must be nuts.” Well, you’re almost right. Ms. Hill suffered from brain damage resulting from a car accident a year before her tree protest that possibly influenced her decision to stay in the tree.
In the same issue of The Garden Island as the “Trees have Memory” letter is a story containing an interview with a leader of the “Save Koloa Town’s Historic Monkey Pod Trees” organization who “chose not to be identified.” It would seem this person is too ashamed of his/her association with the organization that he/she would not identify himself/herself.
I would just like a few questions answered by each of the protesters trying to save the trees. How many of you had a live Christmas tree in your living room a couple of weeks ago that is now in the trash? Where were you when those trees were ripped from the “earth’s womb?” Thirty trees in Koloa might be cut down, but how many Christmas trees were sold just on this tiny island, 5,000, 6,000, more? Do you know what hypocrisy means?
Joseph Vraratic, Lihu‘e
Graffiti hurts everyone
Graffiti vandalism hurts the whole community including real estate values. I have been a part time resident of Kaua‘i for the last eight years. When I first arrived here I was pleasantly surprised to see that there was almost no graffiti. Over time I have seen more and more tagging in various areas around the island.
I am the coordinator for a graffiti removal program in Santa Cruz, Calif. The program is run by the volunteer center and funded by a modest contract with the Santa Cruz public works department. The program recruits volunteers from local schools, businesses and other community groups. The philosophy behind the program is to remove the graffiti within 48 hours of the sighting. It has been proven time and time again once an area of graffiti is adopted by volunteers the tagging disappears.
It would be wonderful to see such a program tackle the graffiti challenge in Kaua‘i and I for one would be glad to support it.
J. Shanahan, Koloa
