Letters for Monday, January 14, 2008

• More wrong with project than trees

• Simple solution

• Costly tree removal

• Reporting on a grudge

• Obama comment, low

More wrong with project than trees

I have seen several letters recently that are critical of those trying to save the monkeypod trees in Koloa. For me, the issue is far more than the trees. It’s about right and wrong, and community justice.

In 2006, the Planning Department completely rejected the proposed shopping center. They said the project was so flawed that it should not be built at all.

But the developer claimed that the department was late in denying the project, and county law says that any project not rejected within 60 days is automatically approved. So he threatened to sue the county for $6,500,000 and the county gave in without a fight.

But when you look at the dates of the reports, you find that planning’s rejection of the project was timely. The developer used a different timeline than the Planning Department, and according to the developer’s timeline, planning was late in filing its report. But according to the Planning Department timeline, it was not.

But the County Attorney simply accepted the developer’s claims and timeline, threw his hands up, and awarded him permits to build a project that the most qualified people in the county said should never be built.

So now we have a project forced onto Koloa that was rejected by the county, has widespread community opposition, and yet was approved not just on a technicality, but on a technicality based on a false premise.

This is wrong, and I will do all I can, not just to protect the trees, but to protect our community and our island against this injustice.

John Patt

Koloa

Simple solution

My wife and I recently visited the Po‘ipu area for the third time. We love Koloa and were shocked to learn that many of the town’s historic monkeypod trees may be cut down for a shopping center development.

In addition to the aesthetic and historic reasons for saving the trees, there are some very practical business reasons. First, the visual appeal of a development can be a major factor in its success.

Kiahuna Plantation is an excellent example of designing around the existing trees and thereby adding significant value to the property.

Secondly, a quick walk around the Poipu Beach Shopping Center with its many empty stores shows that any new center will need some advantages in order to survive.

Shaded parking is a big plus for any development in a warm sunny climate. The trees would be a major attraction for their shade alone.

Thirdly, a shopping center opposed by the community will not be used by the community. Merchants succeed in part by being good citizens and being sensitive to community needs.

The solution is simple … design around the trees and everyone wins.

Allan Boyce

Seattle, Wash.

Costly tree removal

As a visitor to Koloa, I find the destruction of its famous monkeypod trees for a new shopping center to be distressing. These glorious trees provide an aura of “Garden Island” tranquility to those shopping in old Koloa town. The juxtaposition of the shops to the soothing background of the monkeypod trees is unique and makes me want to linger longer in Koloa. Once the trees are removed, the integral charm of the shopping district will be greatly diminished, the green heart of its uniqueness ripped out.

I am a professional botanist, and I seriously question any assertion that this grove of trees can be replaced with “a more appealing landscape.” Even if some of the trees are only 40 years old, they are still mature specimens and it is impossible to replicate the landscape value of mature trees. Not until they are mature do trees display all of the pleasing bark, trunk, and canopy qualities that are characteristic of their species. Mature trees blossom and attract birds and provide shade. These days, one doesn’t find a large grove of mature monkeypod trees just anywhere, much less in a flood zone adjacent to a historic shopping district and tourist destination.

Tourists come to Kaua‘i exactly because of its lovely features like the old Koloa town monkeypod grove. If I want to visit shopping centers landscaped with palm trees and pretty flowers, then me and my money will stay in south Texas.

Joseph Patt

Weslaco, Texas

Reporting on a grudge

Prior to publication in The Garden Island of his allegations of FCC violations against KKCR (“Resident seeks probe into KKCR,” A1, Jan. 8), Patrick Michaels had published on the Internet writings, still available for viewing, that expressed a personal grudge against the station and a hope that it would lose its license, because, he said, he had been shunned by station personnel in the past and had been passed over for a volunteer position several times.

That TGI would fail to disclose such a conflict of interest — that the main source for a front-page story harbors a personal vendetta against the station unrelated to the story’s subject matter — would seem to be a serious violation of journalistic ethical standards.

Worse still, writer Andy Parks has since publicly revealed (also on the Internet, and also still available for viewing) that he and another local writer, both outspoken critics of KKCR management in the current dispute with some of its employees, and both outspoken supporters of the aggrieved employees, served as sources supplying factual information for the story and also did background checking for the story.

Here is a double-barrel conflict of interest violation. First, parties with express direct interest in the subject matter of the story were not disclosed to have been sources for the story. Second, those same interested parties actually served as fact checkers of at least some of the claims made in the story.

KKCR management has every call to be furious over this arrangement, while the aggrieved employees and their supporters, one supposes, would be euphoric. As for TGI’s readers, we would seem to have every reason to wonder what interests might lurk undisclosed behind the publication of any story we read in the paper.

Charley Foster

Lihu‘e

Editor’s note: What the letter writer fails to mention is both KKCR Program Director Donna Lewis and Station Manager Gwen Palagi are quoted extensively in the article giving the station’s side of the story. The claim that anyone other than TGI staff did fact checking for the article is simply not true.

Obama comment, low

William Rusher’s claim (“A black president?” Media Voices, Jan. 10) that Barack Obama’s “major asset” is “the fact that he is black” was beneath publication. As for Rusher’s claims of Senator Obama’s lack of qualifications, we’re very lucky Rusher wasn’t in Philadelphia in 1776 to intercede on our behalf or we would not be able to “hold these truths to be self-evident.” Jefferson was then 33.

Greg Estes

Princeville