• Gimme some space • Furlough Friday Fund • Condemn Coco Palms • Way to go, KHS! Gimme some space Approximately one year ago I wrote a letter to The Garden Island regarding the practice, and I do call it
• Gimme some space
• Furlough Friday Fund
• Condemn Coco Palms
• Way to go, KHS!
Gimme some space
Approximately one year ago I wrote a letter to The Garden Island regarding the practice, and I do call it a practice, of following vehicles too close. Everyday I see someone following me or someone else too close and nothing has changed just more cars and more people following too close.
The rule I have learned from driving the Los Angeles freeways for many, many years and also in the California driver’s manual is one car length for every 10 miles per hour.
Does no one read the paper or even realize that following too close is an accident waiting to happen? It’s also a lack of common sense.
Again we have another accident and another rear ender. This time the driver didn’t have time to swerve and ended up in a ditch.
Following too close is an epidemic here on Kaua‘i and certainly not addressed by law enforcement.
Following too close leaves no room to think or see possible danger ahead and no time to stop in an emergency. Someone could brake for a chicken crossing!
If one follows behind the vehicle in front at a good safe distance the driver can see well ahead and slow and/or prepare for any contingency. Maybe some signs would be in order? Or how about some plain ole common sense.
Click It or Ticket is outdated; we all know to wear seatbelts. Lets work on this problem now.
Larry Dolan, Kalaheo
Furlough Friday Fund
Here’s an idea that might put and end to Furlough Fridays: Let the citizens of Kaua‘i create a Furlough Friday Fund — a fund that will pay for the cost of opening the schools back up and employing our teachers on a full-time basis here on Kaua‘i.
How do we fund such a fund, you ask? By upholding the law!
Impose fines for the following infractions of the law that we a see or experience every day here on Kaua‘i:
1) $200 fine to all cars with illegally tinted windows. And an extra $100 for the egregious offenders who tint their windshields.
2) $200 fine to all trucks raised above the legal limits without mud flaps. (My wife, who just had her windshield cracked by a rock flung from the tires of just such a vehicle, is especially fond of this one.) And perhaps a larger fine to the Safety Inspection Stations which allow these infractions to slip through.
3) $1,000 fine to all households raising farm animals and/or roosters illegally in residentially zoned neighborhoods.
4) Seize all monies found at the site of illegal cockfights and put it in the fund.
Five hundred auto offenders alone would put over $100,000 immediately into the fund.
But such actions would place a huge burden on the Kaua‘i Police Department, you say? Why not deputize a few teachers and send them out on Furlough Fridays to Kukui Grove, Walmart, Coconut Market Place, and Safeway parking lots to ticket the auto offenders? Heck, I’d volunteer!
But how can we force the offenders to pay? By not allowing them to renew their registration and/or revoking their license without paying outstanding fines.
This is a win-win situation: uphold the law and get our children and teachers back to the classrooms.
These are desperate times, my friends, and desperate measures must be taken.
George Spelvin, Kapa’a
Condemn Coco Palms
After reading the story about the fire at the historic Coco Palms, I feel the time has come to for the Planning Commission or the Council to force the developers to demolish the remaining structure.
Coco Palms has been a historical asset to Kaua‘i, but since Hurricane Iniki it remains nothing but an eyesore to the residents and visitors to the island.
The developers know that the buildings must be torn down and can never be restored. The Planning Commission should never have granted a three-year extension of permits without forcing the developers to remove the existing buildings.
With the latest fire it becomes more of an eyesore and should be condemned and leveled before another fire occurs.
Norman Swenson, Princeville
Way to go, KHS!
Congratulations to the Red Raiders of Kaua‘i High School!
You young men can certainly hold your heads up high. You played an awesome and exciting football game and are definitely winners to those of us who were gathered at my home in Mililani cheering you on.
Although I am a Kapa‘a Warrior for life, whenever I see a team from my home island competing in any HHSAA state championship, I celebrate their accomplishment.
You young men did Kaua‘i proud.
Kendra Cummings-Olds, Mililani
