• Closed to public doesn’t mean secret • Town of Zika virus person should be known • More roads only real solution Closed to public doesn’t mean secret I am very disappointed in the headline and the focus of the article by Jessica
• Closed to public doesn’t mean secret • Town of Zika virus person should be known • More roads only real solution
Closed to public doesn’t mean secret
I am very disappointed in the headline and the focus of the article by Jessica Else in The Garden Island (March 14).
Feral cats are a critical issue on Kauai, and worthy of significant treatment. It is an opportunity for The Garden Island to serve the needs of the island by educating readers as to the consequences of free-roaming cats on native birds, marine mammals and people. It is also an opportunity for education on the horrific consequences of a feral lifestyle for the abandoned cats themselves.
Our County Council is willing to devote energy and resources to a thoughtful process with the hopeful outcome of developing a policy that will reduce the number of homeless cats in an inclusive and respectful manner. We all owe them much much gratitude.
Instead the TGI headline implied a deliberate effort by the council to work in “secret” rather than describe the complex discovery process this committee has been working on for over a year. The meetings have not been secret. They also have not been open to the general public. Such a committee needs the freedom to think out loud without their words becoming a headline. When the committee has a proposal, there will be many opportunities for public input.
I am disappointed there is no in-depth reporting on this and related issues. Where is a critical discussion of the efficacy of trap neuter and return? There is no evidence anywhere that these tactics work to reduce free-roaming cat populations except in small confined and controlled places such as gated communities.
I think it would be helpful for people to understand the complex issues around a “no kill” shelter. While good for the animals that make it inside, once full, where do people take the animals they can no longer care for? Those animals get abandoned.
I am extremely grateful to the Kauai County Council for being courageous enough to tackle this critical issue.
Marcia Harter, Anahola
Town of Zika virus person should be known
The privacy of that person with the Zika virus here on Kauai is understandable. However, the location (town) where she reside should have been made public. It would give women (pregnant or not) a change to defend themselves from the virus by using clothing and repellents from mosquitoes that may have bitten the woman with the Zika virus.
There is a health risk involve for a mother with an unborn child here on Kauai.
What is the CDC thinking of not making it public notice to the location this lady with the Zika?
Howard Tolbe, Eleele
More roads only real solution
In a recent poll, The Garden Island asked, “What’s the best way to ease Kauai’s traffic troubles?” A total of 644 people responded.
• 52.6 percent wanted more roads.
• 14.1 percent wanted more buses and shuttles.
• 5 percent wanted more bike/pedestrian paths.
It is crystal clear that by about a 4-to-1 margin the driving public wants more roads to alleviate traffic and not more buses or shuttles.
By over a 10-to-1 margin the people want more roads and not bike and pedestrian paths.
And yet this administration hires planners, consultants and engineers to tell us that the solution to this problem is more buses, shuttles and bikes — unbelievable! They are putting bike lanes down our roads to narrow them for vehicle travel, bike lanes that few if any ever use instead of using cane haul roads for more alternate means of travel.
The Kapaa bypass road is a great example of a solution that helped lessen vehicle travel on Kuhio Highway. And it only took one year to build without an EIS since it was already a cane haul road. Why have we gone 10 years or more before letting traffic get to a crawl by not paving more of these cane roads? We are now bugging the state and our representatives to help us but where was the long range planning to get it started long ago?
It took a Kauai police officer to tell us how two keep traffic flowing at the Kuhio/Hanamaulu intersection without stopping at the signal — a huge improvement. A gentleman from Iowa offered some suggestions in TGI (March 23) on how to increase traffic flow. Why not give them a try as we did with our police officer — won’t cost us hundreds of thousands of dollars!
Or, just get us a county manager who writer after writer is screaming for and get our problems (all of them) addressed.
Glenn Mickens, Kapaa
