• Resolutions for New Year’s • Don’t forget the other trees • Don’t turn Kaua‘i into “Asphalt Island” • Move Spouting Horn vendors to Russian Fort park • How about human power? Resolutions for New Year’s As another year draws
• Resolutions for New Year’s
• Don’t forget the other trees
• Don’t turn Kaua‘i into “Asphalt Island”
• Move Spouting Horn vendors to Russian Fort park
• How about human power?
Resolutions for New Year’s
As another year draws to a close and we all ring in the new year, I’ve thought of some New Year’s resolutions Kaua‘i should strive for.
10. We will not allow any invasive species to overrun our island, whether it be of the plant, insect, reptile, animal, or human kind.
9. Our elected government officials will take the concerns of those who elected them seriously and represent all of the people, not just some of the people. The County Council and Planning Commission meetings will no longer be circus sideshows.
8. People will stop drinking and driving once and for all!
7. People will also get a clue and figure out that using drugs is a pretty worthless way to go through life.
6. There will be enough affordable housing, so that no one will ever have to worry about living on the beaches, in the parks, or on the County Building steps.
5. Those who have enough time on their hands to poke their nose into everyone else’s business will find a more gratifying use for that time.
4. The people who find Kaua‘i paradise and decide to make this their new home will learn to adapt to the local way of life and not try to force their ways of life on the locals.
3. Kaua‘i’s roads will all get repaved, traffic solutions will be implemented and not just talked about.
2. The cost of living on Kaua‘i will become affordable for all, so people won’t have to work two or three jobs to raise a family.
1. All of our military men and women will come home safe and sound and George W will finally admit that he was wrong; in turn our gas prices will be affordable once again.
Okay, so someone pinch me now, so I can wake up. Like any of this will ever happen.
Francine M. Grace, Kalaheo
Don’t forget the other trees
It has been heartening to see many people trying to protect the monkeypod trees in Koloa. They are lovely trees and should be saved, not “replaced” by 12-inch trees as is being suggested.
But I wonder if people will come out to the Planning Commission meetings to protect other trees that are threatened. If the Waipouli Coconut Plantation Resort project in Kapa‘a goes through, most of the coconut grove on the makai side of the road will be cut down or “moved,” despite being “protected” by the Exceptional Tree Ordinance. Will people be there to stand in favor of these historic trees?
Right now the Moloa‘a Bay Ranch project is asking the Planning Commission for approval to eliminate mature ironwood trees that will interfere with views from anticipated house sites above. The trees are in the Conservation District and the homes will be another Ag subdivision (www.cstoneholdings.com) for the wealthy.
Any time trees are “replaced,” I suggest that the replacement be planted and given 5 to 10 years to grow to a decent size BEFORE removing the older trees. This would reduce erosion and ugly bare hillsides.
Alongside our roads, there are trees planted on one side but usually not many on the other side where electric wires run. All over the mainland and in Honolulu, wires and trees coexist with few problems. But, on the “Garden Island,” we cannot figure out a way to have both.
I hope people begin to realize how important trees are for beauty and oxygen and will really begin to stand up for, and plant, more trees.
Marge Freeman, Wailua
Don’t turn Kaua‘i into “Asphalt Island”
We are writing this letter because of the outrage that is slated to occur in Koloa on Jan. 2. Allowing a developer to cut down the majestic 100-year-old trees in Koloa so a greedy out-of-town developer can save a few bucks is a travesty that cannot be allowed to happen.
This developer should be required to build his shopping center around the trees, making it blend into the landscape, like the developer of the Po‘ipu Shopping Center did.
We, as longtime visitors to your beautiful island, continue to return because Kaua‘i is the “Garden Island” but now are afraid that this paradise is being turned into the “Asphalt Island.”
Please take a stand and let saving the trees in Koloa be the first step in preserving the beauty of the “Garden Island.” Please don’t let Kaua‘i follow the path described in the Eagles song “The Last Resort,” which ends by saying “They call it paradise. I don’t know why, you call someplace paradise, kiss it goodbye.”
Lew and Joyce Jones, Spanish Fork, Utah
Move Spouting Horn vendors to Russian Fort park
Perhaps the vendors presently at Spouting Horn could be relocated to a non-archeologically sensitive area in the Russian Fort Elizabeth State Historical Park near Waimea. This park currently is only moderately interesting to most tourists and very boring to many.
Moving the vendors to the Russian Fort would bring additional traffic to the Westside retailers and add an extra visitor attraction to those making the trip to the Waimea Canyon and Koke‘e Park.
Donald Bodine, Anahola
How about human power?
The Garden Island paper recently reported Costco Lihu‘e is going totally solar. This is very impressive and hopefully more retail and commercial entities will follow suit.
If one cannot afford solar power another great alternative never really brought up is human power.
I was recently speaking with a former Kaua‘i county employee and he has an idea he does not mind me sharing…
Human power like solar or wind would be another great alternative. This is how it works. The county, state or any private enterprise could set up a beautiful state-of-the-art gym, with stationary life cycle bicycles, stair steppers, running machines, rowing machines, etc… collecting the energy from everyone’s workout. Cards would be issued after your workout to show the amount of energy you contributed. The people stay in shape. After all, without our health life is much more difficult.
With the energies being collected from the person’s workout one could get a free health club membership, The business, state or county gets energy to be converted to electric.
The islands have one of the highest per capita diabetes and obesity among the young. This concept would be a win-win for everybody.
James “Kimo” Rosen, Kapa‘a
