• Slow it down • Is burning ‘green’? • KIUC should help customers access alternative energy • Fix old parks before building new • Build Coco Palms park for kama‘aina Slow it down Senseless taking of a life is a
• Slow it down
• Is burning ‘green’?
• KIUC should help customers access alternative energy
• Fix old parks before building new
• Build Coco Palms park for kama‘aina
Slow it down
Senseless taking of a life is a crime. Hitting a pedestrian who crosses the street at the marked crosswalk is a crime. It is equal to taking a firearm and pulling the trigger, killing the victim.
What does anyone tell the family of the incident? “I am sorry” will not do. It is unbelieveable, it is demeaning to the family, and it is empty words of an attempt to express yourself to the family. You have caused the family to lose their dad, their grandfather, and sadly, the wife of that person, is now left alone.
What solutions do we have? I truly believe that people and their change of attitude and driving habits could be the solution.
Does this sound like you? Passing a red light on intersections; not stopping in an intersection that has stop signs posted; merging into traffic’s main thoroughfare from a merging lane when it is unsafe and not clear for you to merge; or how many times have you driven your vehicle while using your cell phone? I believe that we are all guilty of the above, including myself.
So my point is this: Drivers, please pay attention to your driving, and if you are in such a hurry, don’t drive. Make someone else drive for you. Your hurrying would cause you to not properly think of how you are driving.
Kaua‘i is an island community, not a huge city like on the Mainland.
Safe driving to all and, hopefully, we will save the life of someone crossing the street improperly where no crosswalk exists.
Cayetano Gerardo
Lihu‘e
Is burning ‘green’?
There is a plan to burn invasive trees and turn them into electricity. The developers are calling this “green energy.” If we measured the pollution and carbon dioxide generated from jets and shipping alone, we don’t have enough space to plant enough native Hawaiian trees to mitigate the never-ending source of air poisons.
Burning forests for electricity feels like one of those “it was a good idea at the time” environmental mistakes for future generations to fix. The story is an old one: Abuse trees and all the wildlife dies. The earth is suffering, many species harmed and some extinct because of the loss of earth’s trees and growing human sprawl. Hawai‘i has more endangered birds than any other state. Americans are only 5 percent of the world’s population, yet we use 25 percent of the world’s energy. Some say we need more sources of energy instead of using less? What type of tree should be used is the wrong question.
Do we, who have so much compared to all earth’s people need more? When do we start cutting back and giving back? Let the sun give the energy that is needed, it’s shining everyday anyway.
Diana LaBedz
Waimea
KIUC should help customers access alternative energy
Here we sit 2,500 miles in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, burning 90,000 gallons of diesel fuel to make the power we need and spending hundreds of millions of dollars a year to do so. Our electricity rates are near the very top of chart nationwide.
And when a few of us want to switch to some type of renewable source of energy such as wind or hydro or solar, we face a wall of bureaucracy. Why?
Why doesn’t KIUC take a leadership role and create an office to streamline the process of obtaining alternative power sources and help the co-op members hook up the system to the grid? I’ve gone the KUIC receptionist three times and still she never has even the most basic information about solar water heating rebate, grid tie-in, etc.
Why not create a small office at Kukui Grove Shopping Center showcasing photovoltaic, wind, solar water, and hire two to three people to oversee this project? This would cost less than they spend in three days’ fuel.
With our rates as high as they are, Kauaians are some of the best candidates to become the early adopters of these technologies, so KIUC needs to step up and embrace them, and help educate the public rather than continue the status quo of over-regulation and needless bureaucracy.
John Patterson
Kapa‘a
Fix old parks before building new
In response to the letters from Sherwood Conant and Michael Smith suggesting that the Coco Palms property be made into a public park: In my experience, the best recreational facilities such as the Yacht Club and the canoe club are privately financed and the members contribute a considerable amount of volunteer work to help maintain the public facilities that they use. The same can be said for the public boat launching ramps, for the use of which we fishermen gladly pay a reasonable annual fee.
Let’s get Lydgate park up to snuff before we build another large public recreational facility.
Harry Boranian
Lihu‘e
Build Coco Palms park for kama‘aina
A thought on Coco Palms as a park: It could be designed with kama‘ainas in mind. The building on the mauka side of the ponds could be renovated into spaces that would accommodate family and class reunions. The existing infrastructure and tourist facilities in Wailua and Kapa‘a could support and benefit from the influx of residents from around the state. There is room behind the existing buildings for camping and recreation.
The buildings on the makai side of the ponds could be removed opening up the property to the tradewinds and ocean views. It would also provide the state with room to improve Kuhio Highway without building a new bridge and highway behind Coco Palms.
Jim Powell
Lihu‘e
