Letters for Sunday, April 24, 2022

Limit number of visitors

A few months back a hole was punched in the exterior of the rest room wall at Lucy Wright Park in Waimea, breaking the water line and making the showers and bathrooms inoperable.

We want to thank the great people of the county Parks Department and the Department of Water for installing portable bathrooms and hooking up the water so that the showers and faucets work.

We also want to commend the Department of Parks for the non-ending effort that they give to keep our parks in top shape in light of the over use by visitors to our island.

The County of Kaua‘i has, is and always will be, one of the most wonderful places in the world, but this blight of over use of the public lands and population explosion due to new people moving here is slowly snuffing out our quality of life. A long-term plan must be adopted to make sure that our children can come home and continue the heritage and lifestyle that we have all diligently worked to established.

The federal, state and county governments must be made to understand that it is the families that live and work here whom make Kaua‘i one of the most-sought-after tourist destinations in the universe. This onslaught of new residents has driven a whole generation of kama‘aina from their homes and the government has done nothing to limit the number of people dumped on to our island to do whatever.

The short-term answer could be to limit the number of visitors that can be on the island at any time. Limit the number of cars that can be rented. Make the visits enjoyable by having shows in the waiting rooms of the visitor home airports and then make the flight like a cruise-ship experience with shows and indoctrination as to what they will see here. Then put them in buses to their hotels and make the drive a sightseeing tour with trained tour guides to points of interest and the beaches, etc. Have guides to answer question and point out sights. We must get the tourists out of cars so that we are not wasting the residents’ time and money stuck in traffic.

We all must wake up and get active to change the way things are done. Our parents wanted a modern, vibrant place to live for us kids. Well, we got it, but now we have to turn the ship of progress and control OUR ‘aina so that our future generations can have what we enjoyed.

Vote, talk to your public workers, voice your concerns, and follow up on the things that you do not think are right. We can make a difference and control our own destiny, and that of our future generations.

Jay Clarke, Lihu‘e

Pass living wage, EITC bills

It is imperative that the Hawai‘i state Legislature pass the amended SB2510 or the $18 an hour bill by 2026, and also pass HB510, which is the refundable Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) this 2022 session. No more obstruction and disinformation is needed from the restaurant association or the Chamber of Commerce to hold this back. This being an election year, Hawai‘i’s legislators like House Speaker Scott Saiki have promised Hawai‘i’s poorest workers, many of them women with children, economic relief.

A conference with representatives from both the Senate and the House must meet soon to help resolve this major problem. Whatever differences they have between each other should not stand in the way of Hawai‘i’s struggling families. We can no longer go another year without a meaningful increase. No one can survive in Hawai‘i with a paltry $10.10 an hour, or even the chamber proposed $15 by 2027. Even the historically low wage employer Walmart now has an entry wage of $16 an hour to keep and attract workers. The amended SB2510 even pushes to end the cruel and confusing “tip credit,” or more correctly labeled “tip penalty” for tipped workers, most of whom are women.

On March 13 at a union-sponsored rally at the State Capitol, Hawai‘i’s construction worker unions like the iron workers that get paid living wages, came out strongly to support Hawai‘i’s lowest-paid workers. As hard-working laborers they understand that “an injury to one is an injury to all.” No more excuses. It is time for our elected officials to take positive action now. Please call House Speaker Scott Saiki at 808-586-6101 and Senate President Ron Kouchi at 808-586-6030, to support and move on these bills.

Raymond Catania, Puhi