Letters for Monday, September 20, 2021

Comparing apples and oranges?

Interesting letter from Terrence M. O’Conner in Sunday’s (Forum, Sept. 12) paper, but he doesn’t say if his numbers for Fresno and Merced counties includes city employees also.

The city of Fresno makes up almost half the population of the county, and has over 4,000 employees providing services (fire, police, maintenance, parks and recreation and, yes, bureaucrats) for its citizens, relieving the county of those obligations.

Are those 4,000 included in his figure of 7,000? There are 14 other incorporated cities in the county doing much the same (on a smaller scale). The county of Kaua‘i provides all of those services. Without some additional information, I’m not sure his numbers are all that meaningful.

David Montgomery, Princeville

Letter had unfair comparisons

Terence M. O’Connor’s letter to the editor on Sept. 12 didn’t quite sit right with me.

I think he forgot that those California counties have a lot of incorporated towns and cities with their own mayors, fire, police, parks and recreation departments in addition to the county as a whole with all of their personnel.

The County of Kaua‘i is its sole entity. None of the towns here have their own police, fire, roads and, a very important distinction, lifeguards and ocean safety.

The California counties he mentioned, Merced and Fresno, do not have ocean beaches with millions of tourists that have to be taken care of. A lake is not the same thing as the Pacific Ocean.

The city of Clovis, which is right next to the city of Fresno, in Fresno County, has 1,400 employees just itself. Thus they have cooperative use of their own employees, Fresno’s employees, County of Fresno employees and state of California employees.

Mr. O’Connor needs to compare apples with apples, and oranges with oranges. There are excessive government regulations everywhere. Maybe he could compare those?

Helena Cooney, Kapa‘a

Smart Health Card registration has problems

Are you aware that:

• You cannot register on the site and complete the applicant information form if you only have a telephone landline not capable of getting SMS text messages?

• You cannot upload and submit your application for a Smart Health Card on a laptop or desktop computer – you must use a smart phone or tablet with touch screen.

Both of the above arbitrarily block portions of the resident population from getting the Smart Health Card.

Thomas Knapp, Koloa

Shed no tears for bus drivers who quit

Here we go again! Now it’s the school bus drivers.

“No! I won’t vaccinate! No, you can’t test me. Yes, it’s my right to breathe COVID-19 and the delta variant on children!”

So they quit. Oh, boohoo! Get out the crocodile tears. Good riddance. So now, an additional 150 parents have to get their children to school.

But wait, “not getting vaccinated doesn’t hurt or bother anyone else.” No — just another 100+ cars on the road and parents trying to juggle kids and getting to work on time (unless you are one of the “freedom-fighting” bus drivers who quit. I bet they’ve already filed for unemployment. )

Suggestion to the bus company: run an ad in this newspaper for school bus drivers with a “must care about children” clause in the ad.

Lawrence Hornbeck, Kilauea

Get back to old ways of vehicle registration, license renewal

The TGI article has titled “DMV to close early on September 16.” What are they (the staff) training for? I would guess to move slower! It’s already silly that an appointment is required, and if you’re five minutes late you are considered “a walk-in.”

Do away with the appointment and have everyone take a number, wear a mask, stay 6 feet apart while waiting in line for their number to be called. And, furthermore, open a line for kupuna any time of the day until closing!

COVID-19 may have changed some of the ways we do things. However, it shouldn’t have to change the procedure to register our vehicles and renew our licenses.

Howard Tolbe, ‘Ele‘ele