Letters for Thursday, July 25, 2013

• Let’s talk about the influence of guns •All we want is honesty

Let’s talk about the influence of guns

Reading letters and articles you’ve published regarding gun laws and children with toy guns, I am reminded of a conversation I had with a gun rights advocate, wherein he argued the right of citizens to bear any arms born by their government, this being his interpretation (not  totally illogical, I think) of what the Founding Fathers intended by the Second Amendment. I asked if he meant that any maniac could have an atomic bomb, and he answered by asking me just who I thought controlled them now.

He then made his point by asking three more questions. Who first created these weapons, the use of which would make his point by asking three more questions. Who first created these weapons the use of which would make the horrors of Hitler and Stalin look like kindergarten lessons?

Has anyone ever actually used them on men, women and children? And, who still has thousands of them literally held over the head of humanity, threatening all of us with “first strike” justifications? Maniacs indeed.

And of those butchered by the child soldiers of Africa, what do they think of children “playing” with replicas all but indistinguishable from real, or ask our own cookies-and-milk peace advocates what they think of how our own “peace officers” are armed with instruments of deadly force.

It is not those with guns who defend our rights, but those instead who have the courage to speak truth to power (like Jesus, Gandhi and King?), even when they might “get the snot beaten out of them,” a phrase I borrow from a letter to this forum written by one of our chief advocates of police firepower.

Martin Mills

Kapaa

All we want is honesty

The undercurrent for relieving our County Auditor Ernie Pasion from a position that he was hired to do in 2009 and has done a superb job of auditing six different operations, continues.

But before more negative rumors and innuendoes are circulated concerning this dedicated, honest person, let’s look at nothing but the facts.

In 2012-13 the Office of the County Auditor (OCA) had a budget of about $1,543,000. As with all departments, the OCA was asked to cut their 2013-14 budget and they did. They submitted a budget to the mayor of about $1,233,000, a $310,000 cut, a substantial 20.1 percent reduction.

Anyone cutting their household budget by 20 percent would find living conditions extremely tough.

Then the mayor decided to cut his budget as if using a meat cleaver cutting to the bone even further by eliminating $137,000 for the OCA Staff Internal Auditor position – a critical position in the operation of this office. In fact, so critical that without this position the OCA cannot operate cutting the staffing of OCA. Perhaps his action was very self-serving to limit or even prevent OCA to audit his administration. For what purpose he did what he did, it is very obvious because the county has the funds but to send a message that he wants his administration to be left alone without audits.

This radical cut to OCA budget was given to our County Council. They had the power to restore any cuts made, pass it as, or make deeper cuts. In their “wisdom” they not only didn’t restore the critically needed position cut, but supported the mayor’s action. They also axed another $40,000 from this budget intended to bring in outside technical experts to provide assistance in forensic audits.

Thus, the OCA was asked to successfully operate as they had been doing for two years on a budget cut of $487,000, or a whopping 32 percent less!

It certainly doesn’t take a math genius to interpret these factual numbers. Nor does it take anything but common sense to see what is happening here – that the mayor and the county council are methodically eliminating Mr. Pasion from his position and weaken the OCA.

For every citizen who wants honesty and integrity to prevail in our government, please write, call or email our elected officials and tell them that their voted positions are on the line if they try to remove our auditor and not fund the operations of the OCA adequately as required.

Cecilia Isobe

Lihue