• Let the people decide • ‘We can’t afford to waste’ • NRA and their gun laws • Slow down, share road Let the people decide Yes, Ms Bator, as your article in TGI 4/23 states, we “Taxpayers do need
• Let the people decide • ‘We can’t afford to waste’ • NRA and their gun laws • Slow down, share road
Let the people decide
Yes, Ms Bator, as your article in TGI 4/23 states, we “Taxpayers do need a break.”
We continually hire outside consultants and outside legal counsel that has cost millions of dollars and either their advice is ignored or is too cost prohibitive to implement and was just more waste of our tax dollars.
As you so wisely said, “We’ve got furloughs, pay cuts, sequestration. Still the county of Kaua‘i continues milking the teats of the taxpayer.”
You also factually state, “Taxpayers sit in bumper to bumper traffic in the Kapa‘a Crawl or the highway congestion going to the West side as they go work at least two jobs to provide the unlimited cash flow to the county. Is something wrong with this picture?”
Not even the strongest proponents of our county operation can take exception with what you say.
So, isn’t it way past time that, as Mr. Diamant said in his article that proceeded yours, “perhaps it’s time to change the way our county government is managed and consider a city (county) manager.”
Pressure the Council and the Charter Review Commission to put this measure on the ballot and let the people decide if this is the change that they want and need.
Ken Taylor
Kapa‘a
‘We can’t afford to waste’
Bravo, Mr Diamant, for your outstanding article, “A $2.1 million cleanup is unnecessary” TGI 4/23.
I am sure that many people on Kaua‘i read The Garden Island story “County begins paying for $2.1 million cleanup of Puhi Metals Site” and were as outraged as you.
But, yes, these people including this writer are so use to such “blunders” and seeing our tax money wasted — bridges, roads, multi use path, golf course and so many more — that instead of outrage they presume it is just the only way our government is going to operate.
Your question, “Exactly what is the county doing to assure Kaua‘i taxpayers that someone is watching over their money. It’s simply not good enough to state, “We can’t afford to waste…”
Then you make an extremely perceptive statement, “….perhaps it’s time to change the way our county government is managed and CONSIDER A CITY MANAGER (emphasis added)”.
Please keep that idea uppermost in your mind, Mr Diamant and pass it along to everyone you know. There are a lot of citizens who are just as dissatisfied with the “old boy” system as you are and at election time let’s get this issue on the ballot and let the people decide what they want. We tried to get it to a vote of the people in the past but the “powers” rallied all their forces against it and we came up dry.
Every person who reads your fine article should recognize the potential benefits of the county manager system and write to the Charter Review Commission and urge that a County Manager proposal be placed on the ballot.
We cannot continue to use a system that produces disastrous results and expect positive changes.
Glenn Mickens
Kapa‘a
NRA and their gun laws
The NRA has long promoted the lie, “If guns are outlawed, only outlaws will have guns.” The lie has been repeated so many times that stupid people believe it even though there has never been an effort to outlaw guns.
The Boston Massacre shows us, “If guns aren’t registered any criminal can get a gun. Anytime. Anywhere.”
Many will howl that if their guns are registered, that the government will take them away. Anyone exhibiting that much fear and paranoia about simply revealing gun ownership must be planning (or at least contemplating) a crime and shouldn’t have a drivers license let alone a gun.
John Zwiebel
Kalaheo
Slow down, share road
This past Thursday afternoon just before school let out, I was riding my bicycle past Wilcox Elementary School in Lihu‘e. A driver in the oncoming traffic felt the need to inform me that I was a moron. He felt I was holding up traffic. I would like to remind him that as a school zone, the speed limit is only 15 mph. So at best I was reducing this lane of traffic to the legal posted limited.
A school zone limit is posted to protect children. I suggest if a driver find this speed limit unacceptable that they take another route.
Also, I would like to remind all drivers that by law they are required to share the road with bicyclists!
Thank you and drive safe.
Steven Hoy
Lihu‘e
