• More information needed on candidates, issues • Please check out dairy farm proposal in detail More information needed on candidates, issues The election of members of the County Council is vitally important to every person living on Kauai. What they do can
• More information needed on candidates, issues • Please check out dairy farm proposal in detail
More information needed on candidates, issues
The election of members of the County Council is vitally important to every person living on Kauai. What they do can have a dramatic financial effect on each resident. I believe The Garden Island could greatly improve in providing timely and adequate information over what I’ve seen in the past 15 years.
To help us prepare for the upcoming election, I request that, in one issue, TGI should list all bills passed by the County Council during the past two years, list who sponsored the bill, tell us how each councilmember voted, and describe the results of passing that legislation. The newspaper should also ask each of the other candidates how they would have voted on the same issues and why.
In addition, the newspaper should record and make available online all public candidate forums around the island. Relative to the number of eligible voters, few attend these forums but all voters should be allowed to hear the meetings and do so at a time best suited to their personal schedule. The newspaper does have a website, online storage is cheap and it takes very little time or talent to post video or audio (as evidenced by YouTube).
Finally, in one issue, the newspaper should provide the normal biographic detail on each candidate that includes relevant educational, work and legal experience. With that should be the opportunity for the candidate to make a statement about why they deserve our vote.
In a recent guest opinion, Walter Lewis described how the public overwhelming passed property tax control several years ago. Strangely, a court overturned the results because we, the public, apparently do not have the authority to protect ourselves against excessive taxation as that infringes on the authority of the County Council to implement taxes. But we still have the right, for now, to vote for councilmembers.
So, we need to be fully informed about the candidates, their views and relevant past actions. If local media doesn’t provide that, who will?
Mike Taylor
Princeville
Please check out dairy farm proposal in detail
The Department of Health has not yet approved the Hawaii Dairy Farm proposal. Many of its premises have not been validated. An example of one of many misstatements is that HDF confirmed by direct communication with the Koloa Public water district and in text the following: (Quote page 8 ) “The Koloa F well is located over 1/2 mile away from the dairy facility site.” In truth, it is 700-750 feet away from the property where manure and sludge will be dumped.
At this time, one of the most qualified dairy experts in the country has in preliminary fashion reviewed the proposal. If anyone truly wants to know how inaccurate and reaching the proposal is, read just the first 15 pages of this preliminary report (see website Friends of Mahaulepu).
In early January, I told someone that it took me a week to get past page one of HDF’s first proposal. Read a few paragraphs describing the wetland classifications of the HDF property (pages 7-8) together with Administrative Rules Title 11 Department of Health Chapter 54. I don’t think anyone would need to go beyond page 9 before knowing the foolhardy risk being attempted by HDF.
No wonder they glossed over the data in those pages. After including what they were required to do, they made no comment regarding its obvious implications. That data, if properly read and evaluated, should have stopped their endeavor — even for their own sake. It involves the interrelationship of the soil classifications with Class 2 inland waters and the Mahaulepu coastline considered critical habitat — Class 1. There are rules, clear, concise rules covering protection for these sensitive areas — areas which even now have been violated.
One cannot believe that their presentation could be properly called “in good faith.”
Ronald John
Sacramento, California
