On Aug. 13 Kaua‘i will hold its primary election to measure the performance of both local and statewide candidates with those who have fresh ideas.
With the memory of the 2020 election less than two years ago, Kauaians are now waking up to the reality of what can go wrong when we allow emotions and tribal voting and follow what others say without researching facts vs. fiction!
As a lifelong independent, I vote based on commonsense. I have voted D and R, and would recommend this to young voters trying to understand that politics have consequences.
It was predictable that electing the current president was a doomsday event for the average American. The poor have gotten scr——, the middle class can no longer afford a vacation, rent, food, gas, clothing, as have all increased 20 % to 30% on just about everything in just the last 16 months. Crime, racism, the boarder is out of control, with fentanyl (smuggled in from Mexico) finding its way to Kaua‘i that will kill more people on Kaua‘i than COVID did in the next few years.
You might be asking how this affects me on Kaua‘i? The pain is being felt island wide by retirees, young workers and families just trying to pay the rent or MTG.
Last month interest rates went up the most at once in 30 years, and will continue its upward spiral that will block young adults and families from being able to afford their first home. This is not the result of bad tourists. The blame needs to fall on everyone who voted D as a tribal follower vs. a commonsense voter (aka an independent)!
Get involved, and at the very least take the time to get to know the candidates and VOTE on Aug. 13 and again on Nov. 8. Every two years the local candidates spew the same old rhetoric, the need for low-cost housing, traffic,
after-school programs, drugs, tourism, all feel-good topics, yet nothing ever is accomplished. The blame game is always the same: bad tourists destroyed the island and so many have moved away and it’s all their fault. The D tribe likes to blame, be a victim, and spew the same old tag line that anyone who opposes is a racist.
In recent weeks I have reached out to several of the candidates, some former councilmembers, and have found all to be very nice folks. Some recognize that they must pivot and maybe even agree that providing solutions to 30-year problems will take a new approach, new ideas and big thinking. Most interesting to me was the move to the middle ground, distancing themselves from the D tribe.
Kaua‘i and its leaders cannot continue to blame others for its past mistakes, cannot be a refuge for the mainland homeless, no longer can enable drug addicts to wreak havoc on the community, and recognize nothing takes the place of hard work, saving money, staying off drugs and making a financial sacrifice to buy your first home.
Leaders on the island need to inspire the youth, help find private funding for first-time home-buyers, change the zoning for structures to maximize land usage, work with billionaires on the island to create long-term solutions.
Unfortunately, the rhetoric of Mr. Hooser is the same old vision he gave in the late ‘90s and 2000s: blame-game politics.
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D. Sedgwick is a resident of Koloa.
