• Mayor leading Kauai • ‘Right to know’ • Subdivision questions Mayor leading Kauai “Mayor, please be the leader Kauai needs,” so reads the guest viewpoint authored by Fern Rosenstiel (TGI, Nov. 14). Fern, I am sorry that you “feel
• Mayor leading Kauai • ‘Right to know’ • Subdivision questions
Mayor leading Kauai
“Mayor, please be the leader Kauai needs,” so reads the guest viewpoint authored by Fern Rosenstiel (TGI, Nov. 14).
Fern, I am sorry that you “feel betrayed” by Mayor Bernard Carvalho for his veto of Bill 2491, but I say “thank you” for sharing your opinion with us, the voters of Kauai. Your views provide us with a deeper insight into knowing and understanding how and what moves our mayor makes when making decisions of vital interest to us all.
Your commentary should be framed in gold and made or used as the primary theme in Mayor Bernard Carvalho’s bid for re-election.
Every reason you vehemently voiced after the mayor vetoed the bill, combined in their entirety was, in my opinion, politically naive. Your condemnation, based upon what and how you believe is true attempts to persuade your reader that no one else’s interpretation of facts, opinion or consideration of mitigating circumstances is believable.
Your condemnation tells us that Mayor Bernard Calrvalho, contrary to your personal desire, listens to, and I’m sure, hears (1) a marine biologist and environmental scientist; (2) legal advice regardless of who or how many lawyers may or may not serve pro-bono; (3) experts with differing views and opinions; (4) council members who may or may not have changed their minds; (5) staff employees from the lowest clerk to appointed directors; (6) parents, teachers and other Kauaians who had a fact, opinion or experience to share; (7) the employees and employers; (8) believers in compromise who want a law to help change red and white to Kauai’s favorite color, purple.
Mayor Bernard Carvalho did not listen or hear only one person. He is aware of all the material evidence presented and in his wisdom made the only decision he could make for the good of all Kauai.
The “leader Kauai needs” is in office on Kauai.
Alfred Laureta
Kapaa
‘Right to know’
I would like to speak to a theme that’s come forward as “the right to know.”
It came forward in the 2491 pesticide law here, but it’s deeper than that. It is inarguable that citizens should have the right to know if something they consume, or is in their surrounding environment, is toxic. Yet all substantial industries have a vested interest in keeping the public from knowing certain truths about their industry. The GMO seed companies don’t want disclosure of pesticides. It will open them up to class-action lawsuits. Big tobacco didn’t want cigarettes labeled. Kauai tourism doesn’t want to scare tourists away if it’s publicized what dangerous oceans we have here, as opposed to Maui or other destinations. I’ve seen that firsthand.
Keep the tourists, keep the residents, keep the workers all in the dark and keep the money flowing in.
But things are changing, bit by bit, as heroes step forward to cut the crap, to whistle-blow, to do the right thing.
The “right to know” will always be fought by industry that runs on the corporate foundation: making greater profit for shareholders every quarter.
Nowhere in corporate design is it to make an ethical profit or an honest profit each quarter, but simply generate more and more profit. That is not sustainable to this planet, and it then is the citizenry who fight back against the corporate beast they allowed life, starting with a simple life-affirming principle: right to know. God bless us all.
John Tyler Cragg
Kapaa
Subdivision questions
The Shadow is a good person to have, but in the instance of follow-up with regard to our “hood,” he and the county need to take another look-see. Our subdivision has the normal county easement that fronts all the private properties. These plots are used for school/bus overflow parking, venting off rain water from driveways to the grates that only exist in strategically placed areas on the street. Over the past 40 years, many residents would dig small trenches to facilitate drainage, but no longer. Grass has grown into them, thus driveway water evaporates or seeps into side grasses instead. In this case, that “good” neighbor resident uses boulders to block county pad fronting his yard and does the same at a TVR kitty-corner.
Another resident at the subdivision entrance uses chain link plastic with pole fencing. These are county pads even the mailman has a hard time circumventing. I personally have sought out this neighbor and spoken with the county to restore these pads to how everyone else respects the practice. If the county is looking for a means of extra income, then all people who do this need to be warned, ticketed and pay a fee until they remove fences, obstructions and boulders per county rules that are in place and must be adhered to, just as we ask GMO to adhere to our recent requests. People on the private level see how corporations have broken all the rules, they follow suit and are continuing to get away with it.
Debra Kekaualua
Wailua
