Letters for Sunday, Dec. 1, 2013

Pot should be legal

Cannabis (marijuana) prohibition is one of America’s worst policy failures in history (Prisons thriving on marijuana arrests, Nov. 25, 2013), dependent on lies, half-truths and propaganda to exist. However, it has worked as properly as a tool for racist discrimination.

It’s time to stop caging responsible adults for using the relatively safe God-given plant (see the first page of the Bible) cannabis. Colorado re-legalized cannabis a year ago and the sky hasn’t even pretended to fall in.

A sane argument to continue cannabis prohibition doesn’t exist. Only vile and ignorant people cage citizens for using a plant.

Stan White

Dillon, Colo.

Bill is discriminatory

This is response to Masa Shirai’s letter dated Nov. 28 in the TGI. Mr. Shirai, you are absolutely right! When Mr. Hooser and Mr. Bynum wrote Bill 2491 targeting the seed companies and Kauai Coffee, they thought they had it in the bag. Now look what happened on Oahu. It wasn’t a seed company spraying, it was a resident in the neighborhood. They want disclosures, this should apply to backyard farmers, taro farmers, organic farmers, landscape companies, fumigation companies and the county and the state as well. Don’t target some companies, this is discriminatory.

All companies or persons who buy chemicals should have a license to purchase and a applicator’s license to apply these chemicals. Fair is fair. I don’t care how little or how much you use, it still is poison. Mr. Hooser and Mr. Bynum, I hope you are proud of yourselves because you’ve opened a can of worms and there is no stopping it now. I believe in karma. What goes around comes around, not now, but it will, and it will be worse than you expected!

Carmelita Haumea

Kekaha

Wait and see what happens

I want to thank Robert Brower for his succinct and well thought out letter. I don’t believe the seed companies had planned on moving regardless of the vote, veto and override.

It will be interesting to see in the coming months whether the corporations are the honest, law-abiding  job creators they claim to be, or bottom line, dishonest profit chasers they appear to be.

I’m rooting for the good guys myself.

Allan White

Hanapepe

Discount for ‘Smart Meters’

KIUC wants to impose a fee on those 3,000 members that chose to opt out of the smart meter program. The board claims that it costs the membership $340,000 per year to now read the meters of those 3,000 members. They are calling it an “extra cost.”

That is a very deceitful term being used by the board, and by the writers for The Garden Island newspaper.

The cost to read the meters has always been included in the price we pay for our electricity. Therefore, the cost to read fewer meters is not an extra cost. Now that they have found a way to allegedly save some of that cost, it is arrogant and deceptive to try to make 3,000 co-op members pay for reading their meters again. We already pay for it in our outrageous electrical rates. I don’t believe anyone has seen a decrease in their rates after the installation of the 27,000 smart meters. In fact, I would suggest, rather than make the 3,000 members pay “extra” for reading their old style meters, why not give a “discount” to those that allowed KIUC to install the “smart” meters on their homes and businesses.

Now that would be fair.

$63,000 to have an election to let 30,000 members vote on whether or not the $340,000 annual cost is to be shared equally amongst all 30,000 members or to be paid for entirely by just the 3,000 members. Now, doesn’t that seem a little unfair? Is that not a “vote by the majority to impose a burden on the minority?” Unconstitutional?

By the way, why didn’t we have an election to decide on whether we should spend $11 million on a “smart meter” program to begin with?

Perhaps a good business plan would have been to first explain and demonstrate the advantages of the smart meter and then offering the membership the option of accepting the installation of a smart meter, in return for a discount on their electric rates, rather than offering the option to decline.

In closing, I must once again ask, what happened to the $3.4 million per year that it was costing KIUC to read the old meters ?

Larry Arruda

Lihue

Be respectful with beach fires

I would like to address an issue I have with Wailua Beach. The last time I wrote I addressed the parking situation there at Wailua Middles. Since then, there have been changes to allow more parking and I want to say thank you!

This issue is addressed to the locals that use the beach. My family and I use Wailua Beach two to three times per week and the last time I was there I was very upset to see bonfire rubbish on the beach. We are lucky that we can still do bonfires at all! Please keep the bonfires clean. Don’t burn glass, and pallets because when the fires are done the glass and nails still remain. My children and many other children play on that beach and we cannot have broken glass or nails sticking out of the sand. Be respectful, people! There is more than enough driftwood on the eastside. If your fire doesn’t end in ash, you’re doing it wrong. Respect our beach and keep it clean! I don’t want to be there checking everyone’s fires, so please be respectful and keep it clean!

Coming from a concerned momma of three.

Raychel Brandenburg

Kapaa