Letters for Sept. 27, 2015

Letters for Sept. 27, 2015

Many people, all Kauaians

Mahalo to all who supported and participated in the first “Hot Kauai Nights!” We all had a great time while worrying about the rain that threatened to come on both nights and didn’t. The moon was watching over us and the spirit of community present in everyone.

One of the motivating factors behind this event is the ever-shrinking pool of volunteers in our community and the retiring of those that have carried on the cultural traditions of the first immigrants to Hawaii.

By creating an event such as this, we hoped to increase volunteerism amongst our community’s youth and help our new community members to meld into the culture that is Kauai.

Volunteers are important to any organization. Without them, services dwindle and we cease to exist. Through this event we also wanted to perpetuate and recognize the different traditions of the early immigrants to Kauai. We did this through costumes, music, dance and martial arts. The beneficiary of this event is the community. This two-day cultural event is meant to remind all of us that we are “one island, many peoples, all Kauaians.”

County of Kauai, we thank you for your participation and hope you will join us again next year.

Rhan Honjo, Pearl Shimizu

Kauai Japanese Cultural Society

Manager system the way to go

Mr. Allan Parachini contends in his guest editorial (TGI, Sept. 6, “Kauai County manager system is certainly no panacea”) that his column would be controversial. Unfortunately, it is also inaccurate and misleading.

The headline of the column is illustrative. Proponents of the council-manager system do not claim the system is a panacea.

No governmental system is. Their assertions are simply that the manager system is better than the mayoral system. It is more efficient, it is more transparent, it has better continuity and it is more accountable. Mr. Parachini’s column does not dispute any of these points.

Instead his column starts with the false statement that the manager system eliminates the office of mayor. While the manager system removes certain powers the mayor now has, the office remains. The office of the mayor continues in all forms of the manager system currently being proposed here.

He asserts falsely that manager system proponents claim the manager “would be immune from political pressure and the temptation to engage in unethical or illegal activity.”

All that is claimed is that the manager, being appointed rather than elected, has insulation from the political process. Temptations for a manager are comparable to those in other positions.

He then urges a search of the Internet “for dozens of stories about county manager indictments.” The bulk of the stories are about positions other than county managers.

A more telling deficiency is that there is no request to search the Internet for the much larger number of indictments of mayors. The lengthy list of indicted mayors might have included the Kauai mayor who escaped by pleading the 5th amendment as to his “gas gate” conduct.

It might have been useful to have an article which side-by-side compared the pros and cons of the present Kauai mayoral system with the proposed management system. But Mr. Parachini’s column utterly failed in that mission. There has been no rebuttal to the realities that the manager system is superior in its accountability, its transparency, its continuity and its efficiency.

Glenn Mickens

Kapaa

It’s only going to get hotter

It is too hot. In the TGI article about Waimea High, from Sept. 24, students are explaining how kids in their class are passing out from the sweltering heat.

Kauai schools have extreme temperatures. Waimea schools have exceeded 100 degrees. With climate change, the temperatures are only going to rise. We broke 2014’s record of highest temperatures. Kauai High, where I go, is also very hot. It’s terrible that we have to start school in the beginning of one of the hottest months in the year. It’s miserable to be in a stifling classroom. No one can focus or learn.

Hawaii is always complaining about low test scores in Hawaii. Maybe it’s because it’s too hot to learn and focus. If Hawaii doesn’t think of ways to cool down our classrooms, then students will not be learning.

Because next summer, I guarantee it will be hotter than this one, and when we come back to school in August, if there is no AC, no one will want to go to school.

Luna Trevino

Koloa