Rhoda Libre last week urged voters to elect her to the Kaua‘i County Council if they want someone who will champion sustainability issues and who has dedicated her life to malama ‘aina. She also underscored her experience with development, law,
Rhoda Libre last week urged voters to elect her to the Kaua‘i County Council if they want someone who will champion sustainability issues and who has dedicated her life to malama ‘aina.
She also underscored her experience with development, law, social and watershed concerns from mauka to makai.
The top 14 vote-getters of the 22 council candidates on the primary ballot today will advance to the general election on Nov. 4.
“Everyone else will be promising you that they will do ‘this and that’ and each is being as sincere as I am,” Libre said in a statement. “But pretty soon, we will all begin to sound alike. So, I want to keep it simple. I want to be as sincere and straight from the heart as I can possibly be.
“I have done my homework. I have paid my dues. I have been to those meetings that talk a lot with not much walk,” she said.
Libre said she comes from “humble stock” and has been a voice for the fishermen, the limu pickers and the hunters and gatherers.
Her wisdom, she said, comes from education and consults with kupuna.
“I don’t have the big bucks to finance my campaign,” she said, noting she earns her living as an entertainer and hostess to visitors. “So this is my way of reaching out to you — straight from the heart. It’s the best way I know how.”
Libre said the county needs to fix the sewage at Salt Pond and never make development based on failing templates. Other issues the council must tackle include: empowering the community toward self-sustainability, stop and remedy illegal dumping, repair dams and return water integrity, stop crime and drug activities, better senior and youth health care and affordable homes, and higher education activities and opportunities, fix and upgrade the neighborhood centers and fix the taxes and traffic.
She said those are some of the concerns that come from residents at community meetings during the creation of the Kaua‘i Westside Watershed Community Development Master plan.
“Listening and doing are always the best ways to be part of an island community,” Libre said, noting she started as a child in church visiting Mahelona and Wilcox hospitals to help.
She attended Kaumakani Elementary, Waimea intermediate and high school, Kaua‘i Community College, University of Las Vegas Nevada, University of Phoenix, University of Hawaii and numerous conferences and workshops.
“Balance is important in all aspects of life thus to balance our council can only lead us closer to solving our problems,” Libre said. “We need to open our windows and let the sunshine in that will enhance and restore our quality of island life on Kaua‘i.”
She served for many years on the several boards and committees, including the board of directors for Garden Island Resources.
Multi-faceted, a person of action and approachable, Libre said she remains the modest former Miss Kaua‘i Filipina 1981 that captured the Miss Hawai‘i Filipina “Most Talented.”
Libre described herself as “hard-working, pro-development, on the frontlines, determined and all heart.”
Her roots are deep from Kaua‘i and her experiences rich in aloha, kokua and akamai, she said.
For more information, contact Libre at 645-1210 or rhoda@hawaiilink.net
