• Mayor’s hogwash wasteful • How can we live like this? Mayor’s hogwash wasteful Mayor Bryan Baptiste’s words and thoughts in his Guest Viewpoint (“Gathering community input important government task,” Forum, April 10) are far out of touch with reality.
• Mayor’s hogwash wasteful
• How can we live like this?
Mayor’s hogwash wasteful
Mayor Bryan Baptiste’s words and thoughts in his Guest Viewpoint (“Gathering community input important government task,” Forum, April 10) are far out of touch with reality. No matter how hard he has tried to make his case that the Ka Leo program is a success, it is a failure.
By estimates of some of our County Council members, this “social get together” program is costing the tax payers $150,000 or more each year. Three moderators or more, county officials mandated to be there, staff time to call the public to attend, advertising and more accounts for this wasted money.
In their wisdom, a majority of the council voted against funding this program in the budget as their investigations and participation found that it just wasn’t worth the money being spent.
In the mayor’s mistaken opinion he doesn’t think it matters if this program is funded by “25 percent of a single position, 100 percent of three positions or any other scenario.” Thus he has gone to funding “his” program by back door methods and, in essence, is overruling the power delegated to the council of funding projects.
Before the Olohena Bridge was built, I and a number of other members from the public participated in numerous Ka Leo programs. We were trying to get our moderator (who was the conduit to the mayor) to convince the mayor to use alternate forms of bridges at the Olohena site which were far cheaper and far faster to install than the $4.8 million that was spent. Our moderator came back week after week with no response and our efforts were proven futile.
Another time I attended a Ka Leo program in Kapa‘a and only the moderator, the mayor, and one other member from the public came. I attempted to bring up a community concern but the mayor refused to let me speak as he said I was in the wrong district and he wanted to hear from the “other” person.
Let us look at what the mayor considers worthwhile projects to spend thousands of dollars on: more participation in the Adopt-A-Park program. Our parks and recreation areas are in dire need of maintenance. The mayor’s solution is getting more volunteers to look after them. We now have over $17 million in our unappropriated surplus (or general fund) so why should we be begging the public to do a job our tax dollars should be paying for? Are volunteers the answer to any project? Absolutely not.
Volunteers are a supplement to any job and I applaud all of them for the work they do. If volunteers were the answer, then every hotel and restaurant would find volunteers and save a lot of money in their payrolls.
Look at the Gateway project: the corridor going to the airport. Six months after KNL finished landscaping it, volunteers were asked to come in and take care of it. Except for a few patches taken care of by dedicated people, the area was mainly a dirt and weed patch. Today we are paying a private contractor about $500,000 to maintain it and it is beautiful.
Island-wide Graffiti Busters Program certainly needs no moderators to solve this problem. Again, a job for public works and if they need more help then ask the council for a money bill to add more positions.
Let this mayor cite one major problem that has been addressed and solved in the five years of this program. We are drowning in our traffic with no alternate roads being built to alleviate this mess; low income housing; our homeless people screaming for help; over development. These and many more are the major problems that need solving and our tax dollars shouldn’t be funding social get-together programs that accomplish nothing. I have no problem with anyone who wants to form a group and discuss whatever they want to.
But I don’t want to use my tax money for that use.
Glenn Mickens
Kapa‘a
How can we live like this?
I find the recent articles about the sexual assaults on underage girls very disturbing. It is offensive that we live in a community where grown men can rape 5-year-old children and only get up to one year of prison time because of some legal hopscotch and posturing to “save the poor victim from having to testify.”
A grown man has already raped the poor kid multiple times, what could be worse than that? Except maybe growing up and knowing what he stole from her was only worth one year of prison time in our society, if any. These child victims are devalued every time the consequences for their perpetrators are minimized.
Sexual predators who prefer the power trip of a sexual relationship with a child — rather than someone their own age — are much worse than dirty old men. Regarding 19-year-old Clifton Leon Cabinatan who sought out a 13-year-old on My Space for a sexual relationship, they start off as young men.
Young pubescent teens are not adults in any shape or form. Because they are sexually active, or want to be, does not make them adults. I think we should start sentencing men over the age of 18 to long meaningful sentences. There should be heavy consequences to taking advantage of a child sexually, no matter how willing they may have been. A willing 13-year-old, should not minimize the fact that it is simply morally and legally wrong for a 19-year-old male to seek out a 13-year-old child and have sex with her or him. Why don’t we sentence predators young and old to long meaningful sentences? There should be heavy consequences to taking advantage of a child sexually. Where is the moral code in these men that says just because it is there, they (being more powerful) can take it, regardless of the damage emotionally to a young teen, or child who is still maturing and growing? The statement about these “young people” in Sunday’s paper (referring to predators) facing 20 years in prison and how “tough” that would be is unnerving (“19-year-old sentenced in statutory rape case,” A1, April 6). It should be tough.
Without a consequence there is no change, and most of these guys are so pathological in their pursuit of younger victims they don’t change ever, and 20 years is too short a time. My question, where is the article stating concern for the young girl and her future? What is going to happen to her — when it appears to her it is sort of OK in our society for older guys to take advantage of her? What kind of message is that for parents who are trying to protect their children? Even if these perpetrators get caught, they can be back out trolling for their next victim in less than a year and a laughable fine.
Whom are we really trying to protect here?
Shari Pilaria
Koloa
