Letters for Thursday, July 5, 2012

• A wake-up call for safety on Wailua River • What happened to personal responsibility? • Dismayed by prosecutor’s foul language  •Make it an equal opportunity smoke ban

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We encourage continued use of our online comment feature as well as the Letters to the Editor in our print edition. The Garden Island values reader input and encourages thoughtful debate.

A wake-up call for safety on Wailua River

Aloha. I work as a river guide on the Wailua River, and over the past few weeks it is apparent to me that boating on the Wailua is overlooked and people are taking risks.

This past Saturday on a tour I witnessed a motor boat with about eight people in it, towing a raft with about six people on it having a good time — until the driver decided to veer toward a kayak, causing his raft to collide with a kayak, sending people, including a little girl, into the river.

I paddled over to help out, picked up the little girl in my kayak and paddled her to the boat. Everyone on the boat was drinking, including the driver.

Luckily no-one was injured, but serious negligence and impaired decision making could have led to a fatal situation. No one on the boat even thanked me for helping them out. I wanted to yell, but paddled away.

I hope people who are operating boats take it more serious, as there are hundreds of guests and residents on the Wailua daily.

I also think the state is doing a poor job of monitoring the river. I see them on the river, but have no clue what they do.

River companies pay high dollar to permit their business on the river, where does that money go?

I hope lessons are learned here!

Andrew Pavone

Wailua

What happened to personal responsibility?

Radical conservatives have been pushing the idea of “personal responsibility” for many years now.

Most often the call for personal responsibility” is directed at those who have nothing but are somehow supposed to “pull themselves up by their bootstraps.” We are talking about people who have no boots, let alone bootstraps.

One of the centers of this philosophy is Colorado Springs, the home of Focus on the Family and another 80 right-wing religious organizations including the New Life Church led by Pastor Ted Haggard. (Remember him? The guy who was cured from “the gay.”)

In 2010 Colorado Springs voted to restrict property taxes resulting in turning off 30 percent of their street lights.  They also laid off firefighters and sold helicopters.

Sadly this decision was short-sighted and could have had a dramatic effect on the Waldo Canyon Fire where about 300 houses were burned to the ground. I surely wish that fire had not started. I surely wish that Colorado Springs had had the resources to stop the fire before it spread so quickly. It was their choice. Isn’t it now their responsibility?

Now, Colorado Springs is about to receive federal funds from FEMA to help it rebuild the McMansions in Waldo Canyon. The same people who called on President Bush to NOT spend FEMA funds in New Orleans after Katrina.

While I surely empathize with those who lost their homes, I have to ask, “Where is the personal responsibility?” Who is it that is asking for “free stuff” now? Why should Colorado Springs receive my tax money when they would deny their assistance to me (as a Kaua‘i resident)?

I hope the reader recognizes hyperbole and sarcasm. Sadly, it has been my experience that most right-wingers are sociopaths who are only concerned with themselves. So the chances of many readers recognizing themselves in this letter is quite limited.

John Zwiebel

Kalaheo

Dismayed by prosecutor’s foul language

After reading the story regarding the ethics investigation of OPA and Shaylene Iseri-Carvalho, I am struck by her foul mouth.

In just a few quotes she managed to use two expletives that needed to be deleted. She’s an attorney, yes? Because she sounds like a poorly educated high school student.

There’s a level of sophistication that is required when one is an elected official — and that includes not swearing when one is being interviewed for a newspaper. Since she doesn’t seem to realize this, I wonder just how good of an attorney she really is.

To criticize another elected official thus: Councilwoman JoAnn Yukimura “has got to be so full of (expletive deleted)” is truly low class! Sounds like something a teenager would say — not someone we trust to prosecute crime here on Kaua‘i.

To earn respect, first one must demonstrate intelligence and good judgment; I see neither of these in our current OPA leader. Time for her to go.

James Morrison

Kapa‘a

Make it an equal opportunity smoke ban

I don’t smoke. But if there should be a ban on smoking at parks and public places, isn’t a golf course a public area? All is fair, ban smoking there, too.

Howard Tolbe

‘Ele‘ele