• My backyard is just fine • Curious on Kaua‘i My backyard is just fine My thanks to Chief Perry for his recent observations regarding a site for our adolescent treatment facility. I would name the facility Peter’s Home —
• My backyard is just fine • Curious on
Kaua‘i
My backyard is just fine
My thanks to Chief Perry for his recent observations regarding a site for our adolescent treatment facility. I would name the facility Peter’s Home — not after Saint Peter, but after Peter of the “Peter Principle” fame. If these kids are such a great threat to Kaua‘i, why don’t we offer the funding to O‘ahu or Maui — (who would gladly accept it and would locate and open the facility in less time than Kaua‘i spends on a site location) — and let O‘ahu or Maui protect us from our own children?
It is a pity that the Mayor has obviously failed to believe the Chief regarding crime issues. This facility is not a jail, nor a prison, but a home where young adults learn how to re-join and become a benefit to society. Unlike the Mayor, I would love to have this group of young men and women in my neighborhood. I have faith that a highly structured 24 hour a day supervised facility using the “best practices” developed over the last two decades can succeed here, despite, or in spite of, the Mayor’s gross failure to address the expressed public doubts.
Job Corps on O‘ahu is located in an affluent Koko Head neighborhood, Kaiser is in central Kailua, as are the treatment facilities on Maui centrally located, and all are locally viewed as blessings, not as toxic waste dumps filled with criminal kids waiting to contaminate “your” neighborhood. Fortunately for the children of Kaua‘i, the other Islands are not so provincial or ignorant regarding the facts, and they gladly accept Kaua‘i’s children who now live in Maui and O‘ahu neighborhoods, where Kaua‘i’s children learn how to be pono, how to be healthy again.
In regards to Freedom of Speech, the NIMBY opponents can write and say whatever they want, but they do not supply a single National or State fact or statistic to support their claims that any crimes, including Kaua‘i’s adolescent clients living on the outer islands, will result from the clients living in any neighborhood here or off island. Without any supporting facts, the opponent’s claims, supported by the Mayor, are at best gossip, and at worst slander and libel of the facility, clients, and staff. Who put the notion in their minds, and the Mayor’s mind, that crime was associated with any adolescent treatment facility anywhere in Hawai‘i?
What single fact supports that claim? To which County Officials did the Shimokawa’s and other Lihu‘e residents address their concerns, which they say went unanswered? Council Members? The Planning Commission? Given our Mayor’s apparent ignorance of “Best Practices” or his often stated opinion that no good thing could come from Maui, it’s easy to understand why our Mayor doesn’t accept our Police Chief’s observations to be factual. Has our Mayor thought to consult with the Governor or State AG, or the other three Mayors and their Chiefs regarding “crime waves” at their teen treatment centers? Or would that ruin the mantra of “We don’t want to be like Maui or O‘ahu”? That Kaua‘i can’t find a “suitable” site is sheer political nonsense resulting from the Mayor’s egregious failures to lead.
Keep Kaua‘i Kaua‘i? No, I think it’s time for change, for the Mayor to show some actual leadership after years of false campaign promises and worthless “good intentions”. It’s time to quit letting the kids suffer while the “adults” dither, playing NIMBY over baseless fears. Why doesn’t our Mayor publicly ask the Mayors and Police Chiefs of O‘ahu and Maui, who have many decades of youth facility experience, about the real liabilities and the real benefits of an adolescent facility?
Do we want teen treatment facilities like Maui and O‘ahu have, or is “We don’t want to be like O‘ahu and Maui” still the Mayor’s mantra to the detriment of Kaua‘i’s suffering kids? If the public here wants to know the truth, I challenge the concerned citizens of Kaua‘i to address the citizens and Mayors of O‘ahu and Maui directly over our Mayor’s endorsement of the argument that this facility will lead to criminal activity by the clients, thus creating his political difficulty in locating an “appropriate” site.
Lonnie Sykos, Kapa’a
Curious on Kaua‘i
I am wondering if anyone else has noticed that the Environmental Protection Agency Radnet website is not showing us just how much Beta radiation we might be getting from Japan. The data page for Honolulu seems to be perpetually unavailable due to mechanical issues. It says however:
“To-date, levels recorded at this monitor have been thousands of times below any conservative level of concern.”
Yet for some reason the Gross beta data is unavailable which would make one wonder how they know the levels are thousands of times below conservative levels of concern. As they say on the next line below the quote above:
“Gross beta counts are temporarily unavailable due to mechanical issues. See gamma counts below.”
At this point one would wonder if you could even believe the data if they showed it.
Where is our government? The one that is supposed to protect its citizens!
Oh ya, our leader has his head stuck up Mr. Gaddafi’s bizness.
Danny Shook, Kilauea
