• Shrimp bailing-out • Picking our pockets • Direction our country headed not funny Shrimp bailing-out The County Council of Kaua‘i has provided operating expenses from taxpayer money to prop up a private enterprise, Sunrise Capital shrimp farm. This goes
• Shrimp bailing-out • Picking our
pockets • Direction our country headed not
funny
Shrimp bailing-out
The County Council of Kaua‘i has provided operating expenses from taxpayer money to prop up a private enterprise, Sunrise Capital shrimp farm.
This goes against the constitution as we learned from the Superferry fiasco and the Kaua‘i County Council, being a political subdivision of the State of Hawai‘i, had no right to indiscriminately authorize a $250,000 settlement for the reasons stated in Leo Azambuja’s March 22 article.
It kind of goes to what a reasonable person should have known regarding awareness of consequences from the landfill; which was already in existence long before the shrimp farms.
Maybe the purchase of nets presented a financial difficulty so they threatened the county like all the other ungrateful developers do here and the county caved. This decision discriminates against everyone and especially those not provided bailout money by the government to keep their businesses afloat.
The shrimp farm, with the assistance of the rubber-stamping DOH, is criminally polluting and negatively impacting Kaua‘i’s natural resources and revenue attracting assets.
What happens when the polluted ocean is no longer suitable for swimming or starts attracting sharks and lawsuits which the county can be liable because they were knowledgeable of the situation?
I’d like to see the financial statements of Sunrise Capital examined to see if they were hurting while they concocted this scheme and the county to invalidate the agreement.
Elaine Dunbar, Lihu‘e
Picking our pockets
First, this whole scenario regarding the shrimp farm settlement wouldn’t have happened if our county government wasn’t so good at postponing decisions.
How many years and administrations have put off the landfill decision? Now, Sunrise Capital blackmails this administration with plans to stop another expansion of Kekaha landfill with threats that would cost taxpayers millions while fighting a lawsuit.
What’s really amazing is the fact that Sunrise built the shrimp farm next to the landfill, and now we, the taxpayers, have to pay blood money because seabirds contaminated their shrimp! (Is this the equivalent of buying a home near an airport and then complaining about the noise?)
Mr. Chamberlain, did you really spin the story, with a straight face, about seabirds barfing up contaminated shrimp into your ponds? Let me ask you a question: if you went to an “all you can eat buffet” and over-indulged to the point of barfing (as you say those birds did), would you leave that buffet and go next door to another buffet to barf up the first one?
This sounds like an ingenious fairy tale conceived by Mr. Chamberlain to get the taxpayers to pay for netting all of his ponds to keep seabirds from the shrimp buffet.
Gee, maybe the county should pay for a another “private study” to see if the mesh on these new nets we’re paying for will be fine enough to filter out all bird barf, so as to eliminate future lawsuits.
How easily our county government throws around our money — does $250K sound like a lot to anybody else but me?
As a footnote to this whole sham, how are we to accomplish preventing the dumping of shrimp into the landfill (which is one of the points expressed by the county in the newspaper)?
Let the County Council and all who pay taxes on Kaua‘i remember Sunrise Capital and the tactics they have chosen to use in order to pick our pockets.
Kris Van Dahm, Kapa‘a
Direction our country headed not funny
It seems the mere questioning of the president’s birth certificate makes liberals go wacko, and play the “race card” (“In the spirit of adult discussion,” Letters, March 22).
I want to make sure that my president (any president) complies with our Constitution. I would also question why President Obama is fighting these lawsuits instead of just releasing it, and it would be over as an issue. Thomas Jefferson said, “question with boldness,” and for that Mr. Mann calls me seditious.
When Obama was running for president, I said I wouldn’t vote for him because he had no experience. I was called a racist. My reply was that I would vote for General Colin Powell in a minute; he has an impressive resume, and has earned the right to run for president. Isn’t Mr. Powell the same race as Obama?
Mr. Mann then goes into a long diatribe, like saying that I would use the president’s middle name all the time, and talk about madrasas over and over, or take things into my own hands, and do anything necessary. I never said anything of the kind, and never thought these things. He just made it all up.
The adult issues that Mr. Mann seems to have missed in my letter are: The unemployment rate remains high because the president has no policies to create jobs in the private sector. He is amassing even greater debt that will fall on the back of our grand children.
I don’t want that, do you Mr. Mann? Our health care bill that was rammed through, Speaker Pelosi arrogantly said, “we have to pass the bill to find out what is in it.” Those are the issues that I mentioned.
The only reason I brought up Sarah Palin is because Kimo Rosen is fixated on her and attributed the “I can see Russia from my house” line to her more than once. Again, if you go to youtube.com, and punch in Tina Fey/Sarah Palin, you will see the comedy skit, it is very funny. The direction our country is going in is not funny.
Michael Lyman, Lihu‘e
