• When smoke gets in your eyes • A vote to support labeling • Noise ordinance needed • Fatal Kaua‘i wreck in 2006 • Practical reason for tinted windows When smoke gets in your eyes Only in Hawai‘i. There is
• When smoke gets in your eyes • A vote to support labeling • Noise ordinance needed • Fatal Kaua‘i wreck in 2006 • Practical reason for tinted windows
When smoke gets in your eyes
Only in Hawai‘i.
There is a certain amount of acceptable smoke blowing in and around the criminal justice system. It is necessary, because the mentality of criminals is different from that of responsible people. When the smoke starts choking those of us who are supporting, yes, paying for this service, it seems like there needs to be an emergency light to lead us to the exit.
First order: Keeping convicted criminals on the island to serve out their sentences when they aren’t from here and really want to go back to the Mainland.
Solution: Send them back. A free plane ticket is much cheaper than feeding and baby sitting them for even a week.
Second: Do we really need more police officers and/or facilities?
Solution: Either print all the arrest logs for the week or keep the two to three officers that are needed for that volume of work. The overcrowding and/or need for more facilities would be taken care of in previous.
Third: When tax money is allocated for the courts, defining the charter by which the police are governed, as deemed necessary by the police themselves …
Solution: Figure out among yourselves who the boss is. If you violate your agreement, accept the punishment, which should never include suspension with pay.
Fire people who aren’t doing their jobs. Discipline people who break the rules. Be transparent or don’t be until the smoke from the investigation has cleared.
Greg Keanu Dorst, Kapa‘a
A vote to support labeling
I am one voter that believes GMO should be labeled, and I for one will be voting for the representatives that share my concerns.
Jeffrey Vesci, Lihu‘e
Noise ordinance needed
For eight months, since a new renter moved into the neighborhood, there have been countless sleepless nights, endless mornings, days and evenings of barking dogs.
I have gone through every possible channel to courteously fix the problem. A nice note to the tenant, calls to the owner, calls to the Human Society, police and Mayor’s Office. The answer is always the same: There is nothing that can be done. There is no ordinance against barking dogs. Funny enough, all the people I spoke too seem to have the same issue I do: barking dogs disturbing their lives!
This leads me to ask the question: Why is it that residents do not have any protection against dog noise?
On our street, we are all law-abiding citizens, own our own homes and try to be productive members of our community. So how is it a new renter can move into the neighborhood and turn all of our lives upside down without recourse? And why are we left to suffer endlessly at the hands of one ignorant dog owner?
Any disregard for others — playing music too loud, a late party or disturbing neighbors in any other way — could easily be put to a stop.
Yet, I lay awake at 3 a.m., fan blasting to create white noise, earplugs in, listening to the incessant barking of dogs and wondering why? How?
It just doesn’t seem right.
So what can we do?
Jane Doe, Kapa‘a
Fatal Kaua‘i wreck in 2006
The State of Hawai‘i is to pay a $210,000 settlement for a fatal Kaua‘i wreck, according to an article published in The Garden Island on April 4. If you’ve ever wondered how your tax dollars are being spent, read, learn and be appalled.
The loss of any life is a shame, but when do individuals and communities step up to the plate and take responsibility for their own actions?
Three young adults get drunk and the inebriated driver tries to negotiate the turn onto the Hanalei Bridge but can’t, which resulted in the deaths of two youths.
Who’s responsible? Who should pay?
The State bows to the sentiment of the Hanalei community and did not update the bridge in 2003, thus “preserving the rural nature of their community.”
And finally, the insulting message to the taxpayers is it’s cheaper to settle out of court than it is to do the right thing, such as replace the historic bridge with a safer one.
Personally, I would like the State of Hawai‘i to refund my pro rata share of the state Department of Transportation’s highway fund, which was used to pay this absurd settlement.
Michael Diamant, Kalaheo
Practical reason for tinted windows
Since when did tinted windows imply you were smoking pot, texting, drinking alcohol or talking on your cell phone?
I just thought it was to keep your CD’s from melting under our near-equatorial sun.
My bad.
Joseph Lavery, Kapa‘a
