• Consider other ways to fund bus service • Jovial smiles and an expensive mistake • Don’t let attacks cover up more important issues Consider other ways to fund bus service If JoAnn Yukimura seeks funding for the bus service, it’s right there,
• Consider other ways to fund bus service • Jovial smiles and an expensive mistake • Don’t let attacks cover up more important issues
Consider other ways to fund bus service
If JoAnn Yukimura seeks funding for the bus service, it’s right there, labeled “bus.”
Yes, the school bus system is long overdue for a major efficiency overhaul. Excess capacity school buses chug around with too many empty seats. To hide this embarrassing waste, the windows are tinted.
Time to efficiently route school buses with down-sized appropriate vehicles. Revamp school bus contracts and pass along the savings to support community busing.
There may be two ways to fund before surcharge tax knee-jerking.
Edward (Ted) Murray
Kalaheo
Jovial smiles and an expensive mistake
Sometimes even our county representatives treat us with surprises. The Oct. 24 edition of TGI greeted us with the jovially smiling pictures of our county Councilwoman JoAnn Yukimura and Councilman Mel Rapozo on its front page. The title “Expensive mistake,” however, does not indicate that the theft described in the article would be a laughing matter. Two thefts of county property that occurred in July cost the taxpayers $86,000 with practically no hope to recover it. When reading the details we can learn that there was a gross negligence in handling county property. While the details of the theft of the pick-up truck are not known, the delivery of the generators without the signature of the receiving party is a total negligence. It requires only common sense to lend anything of value against the signature of the borrower who takes the responsibility for said property, but common sense seems to have escaped this county administration.
It is sad that such thefts occur, but it is even sadder that the handling of the community events will be revised, as we can read in the paper, instead of establishing and reviewing the responsibility of employees and their managers for county property. Another sad part is that the thefts occurred in July and the procedure of safeguarding and protecting county property that should have been on the county books since the inception of county councils is being discussed only now and three months later after the theft. This does not say much about the county management whose officials want to be re-elected. Looking at their smiling pictures over the sad news, one has a very strange impression, and you have to remember that there is only one first impression. I am disappointed and so is most of the Hawaiian community. Maybe this is the sign that the incumbents have to be replaced at the current election.
János Keoni Samu
Kalaheo
Don’t let attacks cover up more important issues
It seems that some folks were confused or didn’t quite understand what I said in my Oct. 14 TGI letter (“Take a stand before it’s too late”). I agree that it could have been written more clearly, but it’s pretty hard to miss the points I was making.
My letter was actually written as a commentary on an excellent article I read, called “The Ghost in the GMO Machine” by Paul Koberstein, an award-winning journalist who has written several articles about the poisoning of our precious Kauai. Please go and read it, and make up your own mind: http://truth-out.org/news/item/26759-the-ghost-in-the-gmo-machine
To boil down my comments about Mr. Koberstein’s piece, they were directed at some of our business and government leaders, the military and the non-participatory citizens among us, all of whom I believe are the most responsible for allowing the continued poisoning of our keiki, our people, our drinking water, the ocean, the air and the aina.
Some people in the TGI comments section resorted to attacking me personally and insulting me to make their points, instead of addressing the controversial issues I raised. Most people in that section of TGI are respectful, but it seems there are always a few just waiting to lash out. The Forum and the comments section are vital to any democracy we still have, and should be treated with the utmost respect, and not as a way to poison the dialogue.
Please vote wisely to rid our islands of the plantation system, the patronage system and the corruption, which currently rule the day.
Fred Dente
Kapaa
