• Enough with the Hilary bashing • Should emotional support animals be allowed in county parks? Enough with the Hilary bashing I am a big fan of Tulsi Gabbard and I was going to let this go, but Diane Bells’
• Enough with the Hilary bashing • Should emotional support animals be allowed in county parks?
Enough with the Hilary bashing
I am a big fan of Tulsi Gabbard and I was going to let this go, but Diane Bells’ letter from May 1 which I agreed with for the most part had a glaring piece of revisionist history that has been bothering me ever since.
When the Bush administration invaded Iraq in 2003, Sen. Hilary Clinton was a freshman senator representing the state of New York.
She was not a part of the Bush administration and certainly did not provide any of the evidence used to justify the invasion. I know this seems to be nit-picky, but this is how the Hilary bashing over the years has started. The opposition has been trying to pin stuff on her for over 25 years, and no one has ever been able to build a case. I am not saying she was a great candidate, actually Bernie was the right choice and if her motives were pure she would have been campaigning for Bernie Sanders and not running against him.
In any event, come election day, there was, in my opinion, only one clear choice and to my surprise many people did not see things as clearly as I did. To those of you who told me there was not a dime’s worth of difference between Hilary Clinton and the current president, really?
Again, I do agree with Diane Bell that Tulsi Gabbard is a fine representative of the Aloha State, but I could not let the Hilary bashing go unchallenged.
Allan White, Hanapepe
Should emotional support animals be allowed in county parks?
One morning earlier this week a couple friends were approached at Lydgate Beach Park by two park rangers wanting to seetheir dogs’ service animal licenses.
The officers advised the dog owners that emotional support animals (ESAs) are not covered under the current ADA (federalAmericans with Disabilities Act) regulations for service animals in Kauai County parks. The officers photographed the licenses,issued verbal warnings, said they will cite the owners if they’re not compliant in the future, and the owners could take thecitations to court.
As far as I could tell, the officers were polite and firm, and advised the dog owners (and interested others) to contact thecounty regarding ADA regulations. Online sleuthing found that the ADA regulations of 1990 were revised in 2010 and tookeffect on March 15, 2011. Briefly: emotional support, therapy, comfort or companion animals are not considered serviceanimals by the ADA.
The ADA makes a distinction between psychiatric service animals and emotional support animals. Service animals must betrained to take a specific action when needed to assist the person with a disability. This informative, three-page easy readaddresses ADA regulations: https://www.ada.gov/service_animals_2010.pdf. The U.S. Department of Justice’s DisabilityRights Section of the Civil Rights Division advised that state and local governments may pass laws that allow people to takeemotional support animals into public places, such as our county parks.
I could not find “service animals” addressed in the County Code at http://qcode.us/codes/kauaicounty/. Would the Kauaicommunity support ESAs in county parks?
Susan Oakley, Kapaa
