• Don’t knock the council’s action • County manager needed • Five kids take on climate change • Be kind to homeless Don’t knock the council’s action This is in regard to people who have and will write against the
• Don’t knock the council’s action • County manager needed • Five kids take on climate change • Be kind to homeless
Don’t knock the council’s action
This is in regard to people who have and will write against the county council for including the seventh council member in the final override vote on Bill 2491. Let’s go back to when all the council members were on board to vote on 2491.
Our mayor decided to pluck one of the members for a better position in his administration. Let’s not close our eyes to the fact that the mayor knew what he was doing and that her absence would make it harder to override his veto.
Parenthetically, let me state that nothing I have said implies anything negative about Nadine, who is eminently qualified for either position.
If the mayor would have signed the bill instead of bowing to the big companies, the subject of our new council member would not even be up for discussion.
The mayor constantly talks about his love of the land and the people but as we saw from his position on 2491, his love didn’t extend far enough.
It showed that the majority of the council is more in favor of the health of the people and the land than the mayor.
Because of their actions I would vote for any one of these people for any office they would run for in the future.
Gail Rosen
Lihue
County manager needed
The recent decision of vetoing Bill 2491 by Mayor Bernard Carvalho is a perfect example of why a county manager would be a better model for the executive branch of our county government. A county manager model would provide at least three advantages: 1. Greater transparency in all transactions, 2. More isolation from outside influences in decision making and, 3. A check on contracts negotiated by previous mayors which may be binding into the future on current issues.
For instance, health and environmental concerns of the community. There has been strong suspicion that previous administrations had contractual agreements with the seed companies which have made the playing field very favorable for their operations and extremely unfavorable for the public’s.
A sustainable future for Kauai could depend on a shift to county manager.
Mary Stone
Kauai
Five kids take on climate change
We are the Connect Five Kids, a group of five Kauai kids (ages 9-12) who got together to try to help the Earth. We heard a speech at the 2013 Warsaw Climate Change Summit from Filipino delegate, Naderev Saño who swore to go on a hunger strike until the council did something real about climate change.
The storms have been getting worse, and it will not stop. Thousands of people are dead from Typhoon Haiyan, the worst hurricane in recorded history, and the rest have no homes and are starving to death. We are the only creatures that can fix this problem and unless we do something very soon there will be no stopping it.
Think about your children, or if you don’t have any, think just about the children in general. Adults are placing the climate change problem upon their children’s shoulders. People need to be informed if this is to get any better.
So we ask you, please put climate change in the newspaper. We are kids and we would rather hear about climate change than Miley Cyrus. We want people to watch the video about Naderev Saño and to see that we need to solve this problem quickly.
We are writing to every newspaper in the United States to show everyone that we support Naderev Saño and his amazing actions.
Jackson Gamby, Brianna Ryan, Malia Splittstoesser, Zeke Gamby, and
Pierce Bivens
Kapaa
Be kind to homeless
As an advocate for those with mental illness in Kauai, I want to thank Bill Bulley for his thoughtful and compassionate article “wage war on poverty, not the homeless (TGI, Nov. 20).” And thanks also for teaching your son the morally acceptable way to treat people with disabilities.
I was recently in Honolulu, and notice the increased number of homeless with their “communities” every where in Honolulu. One in four adults have a mental illness, and one in 10 children suffer from a brain disorder.
If we do not address this situation with kindness, empathy and compassion, we as a society have failed. No one likes to see the homeless; their appearance often unkempt and their behavior unruly. Is that because we are fearful of them, or are we just plain intolerant and lack empathy?
Since most of the institutions booted them to our sidewalks, they must survive anyway they can. I call for a loving Hawaii Ohana to do everything possible to give them food and shelter, a basic need of every individual on this planet. Do not fear them. Educate yourself on their plight. Most are not homeless because of choice.
Yes, people make mistakes and use alcohol and drugs, which often exacerbate their mental illness. But we are all human beings. Can we try treating the homeless and those with mental illness as such?
I have spent this past year training and bringing help to Kauai through the educational programs of NAMI. I have worked closely with the court, social workers and forensic psychiatrists. I am starting support groups soon for families of those with mental illnesses.
For more information on how you can help yourself and the situation by educating yourself, go to NAMI.org. We are all volunteers working to find the solution to this seemingly hopeless issue.
Kathy Sheffield
Program coordinator
NAMI Kauai
