Bottled water seller abuses isle resource
Kudos to Andrew Gomes for his article on Waiakea Hawaiian Volcanic Water (“From the tap,” Star-Advertiser, July 31).
Like the cremated remains in “memorial reef” concrete balls that could possibly occupy space in our precious Maunalua Bay (“Memorial reef idea gets cool reception,” Star-Advertiser, July 28), this is yet another example of exploiting our natural resources for commercial gain.
Furthermore, what is “environmentally responsible” about taking water from the Pahoa community, shipping it to California for filtration and bottling, and donating a small portion of it to Africa?
Carbon footprint, anyone?
Our elected officials and policymakers need to take a closer look.
Hoku Johnson
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Kalama Valley
Give public a say in sanctuary expansion
When a Republican president created the Papahanaumokua- kea Marine National Monument in the Northwestern Hawaiian islands, an additional 139,000 square miles of our state’s ocean was made kapu to our state residents without asking the voting public for consent.
Now a Democratic U.S. senator has proposed expanding that kapu to more than four times its size, again without a voting process that would allow all state residents to participate.
As a local fisherman, I think we need to be aware of how these things are done and what is at stake.
This issue is more than about fresh fish. Most disconcerting is the absence of a democratic process that would allow self-determination for our state’s residents.
Ben Wong
Kaneohe
State should finish building rail system
The state of Hawaii has vastly greater resources than the city; it should have built rail.
Because of inaction, the city was forced to take on the massive project by obtaining federal grants and begging the state to create a general excise tax surcharge.
The state, eyeing a cash cow, keeps millions of dollars from the surcharge to pay its own bills. The Legislature also wants overhead advertising rights, reducing the amount that was to be used to operate rail, and are balking at funding rail to completion.
The simply solution is for the state to take over the project.
Absent that, it should fund the project to completion.
Roy Kamisato
Niu Valley
Campaign signs way out of control
As I go to and from work each day, I see along our highways campaign signs and banners that have gotten completely out of control.
The banners are big, with pictures of the candidates. Is it necessary to have banners spread across our countryside?
Honokai Hale, Nanakuli, Maili and Waianae are beautiful without those banners and signs.
Limit the amount of banners. It’s just overkill, to put it mildly.
People should be sensible, respectful and thoughtful of our aina. If candidates don’t get elected, they should take down their signs the next day. Ditto for the winners.
I’m pretty sure other drivers have noticed and share my sentiment.
Proper campaign ethics can be a strong point and a boost for those seeking public office. Candidates should think about it, show some aloha for our kupuna and take pride in our community.
John Keala
Maili
Lyft good for drivers who need flexibility
As a military spouse who has driven for Lyft, I am concerned about new rules being considered by the Honolulu City Council that would treat ride-share the same as taxis.
The flexibility of Lyft has been invaluable to me. When my husband deploys, or is away for long periods of training, the entire burden of domestic life is on me. With Lyft, I can drive when I am available and simply stop when duty calls him away and I have to pick up the slack here at home.
This flexible schedule is what differentiates taxi and ride-share drivers. A mom who drives sometimes only four hours a month cannot afford to pay the same fees as a full-time taxi driver.
I encourage the City Council to consider the circumstances of ride-share drivers like myself before deciding to make it more difficult and expensive to drive with Lyft.
Stephanie Lewis
Wahiawa
Our schoolchildren need cool rooms, too
I had to smile just a bit at the article in Thursday’s paper: “No cool air till at least Tuesday at Fasi building” (Star-Advertiser, July 28).
I wonder what they’d do if the article read, “No cool air for the rest of the year”?
The situation was bad enough that the city managing director initially gave agency chiefs the authority to grant paid administrative leave to their employees for Monday and part of Tuesday.
I imagine it would be a bit difficult to concentrate and perform optimally in an un-air-conditioned environment with all this heat and humidity.
Yet that is what we are asking of our schoolchildren: to concentrate and perform optimally.
Really?
Sally L. Jones
Kailua
Hawaiians should ‘optimize’ situation
Hurrah for David Dela Cruz’s pragmatic and logical view (“Hawaii was ripe for being ‘stolen’,” Star-Advertiser, Letters, July 28).
Native Hawaiians should concentrate on keeping the culture alive and ensure that it is passed on for eternity by partnering with the federal government to ensure that it happens.
Why bite the hand that feeds us? Optimize the situation.
What is the downside of receiving federal financial assistance to support the culture and education of Native Hawaiians?
Jack Robinson
Kailua
26 responses to “Bottled water seller abuses isle resource”
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The rail should be stopped now as no taxpayer should be liable for another dime in support of it’s construction. The city has manipulated the public to get it started and now, they proving themselves incompetent in it’s construction. They were warned about electrical lines and water lines in the way and they ignored it until the press released the costs. They have no accountability to contractors or subcontractors in costs and expenses. The politicians have lined the campaign war chests with the donations from the contractors and unions ignoring their responsibility to you, the citizen and taxpayer to be committed to the good of the public. Halt it now or your property taxes may rise out of control just like the costs of the rail itself.
It’s all about theft. Plain and simple. Local politicians hold the public in total distain, and they know the public won’t do anything about it. They never do.
IRT Roy Kamisato,
What makes you believe it would be any better for the state to build rail?
And Roy, what makes the think the Noisy, Nosey Nellies of the Outdoor Circle won’t start some kind of anti advertising campaign for rail and rail stations in the name of “environmental and sight pollution” to really keep the project in the hole??
The Outdoor Circle are good folks but they are not responsible for running a city. They are a special interest group focused on a single issue. When asked about affordable housing and transportation infrastructure their response is it’s not their problem. Flowers and trees are nice but you can’t house people in trees and you can’t ride a flower to work.
“The Legislature also wants overhead advertising rights, reducing the amount that was to be used to operate rail, and are balking at funding rail to completion.” ~R. Kamisato
But the OC are great at Sky-is-Falling Chicken Little craziness if TheBus or and other potentially in-the-hole entity figures a good way to pump up revenues to help the hemorrhaging. Yeah they don’t give a flying F * U – C ~ K about affordable housing (fair enough) BUT they should also S T F U about some harmless advertising on the sides of buses and (maybe??) the future choo choo boondoggle!
Outdoor Circle? Bring back the Oscar Meyer Wienermoblile which all kids and most adults enjoyed. For folks who may not remember, it was this bunch of losers of the OC that forced the Wienermobile to leave Hawaii. Afraid of advertising on their car, nonsense. You see a lot worse on busses and private cars. These old OC futzes that can’t cut the mustard anymore will deny enjoyment for the rest of us.
Republicans while driving on our government built freeways and roads, flush their toilets into government built sewers, call 911 for government police, fly safely in government regulated airspace, deposit their money in government regulated banks, collect their monthly checks from a government run retirement system, have their medical bills paid for by a government run health department complain that everything government does is bad. Typical Republicans.
And the democrats like to play the easter bunny with our tax dollars. Doling it out to anyone with a pulse who may vote for them.
Good GAWD, Rite80!!! That’s …. SOCIALISM!!!!
Trouble is that Republican voters don’t think that social security retirement system is a government system.
That being the case Republican politicians want to destroy Social Security by privatizing it.
Republicans are real mixed up here.
Baloney. You are lying again.Trouble is that Democratican voters don’t want their free stuff to end. Put the lazy oafs to work and make them pay taxes. Others that worked for the benefits, pay them Too simlpy
Fire wiliki! He lies about rail and preschool.
Examples of his lies:
“Rail is already paid for”
“Preschool pays for itself”
Send weewili’s “needy” kids to Bangladesh to pay for their preschool.
Sally Jones, efforts are being made to cool the classrooms down. The governor has made it one of his priorities.
As for the problems at the Fasi Municipal Building, you show your ignorance. The people who built the FMB many years ago didn’t take into account the possibility of the air conditioner conking out so they didn’t bother to build windows that open to allow fresh air in. Each floor has 4 windows in each corner of the building that is about 2 feet wide when open. These windows aren’t normally open so some floors had to practically break the windows or remove it to get it open. All windows and doors were closed for the weekend, the temperature on Monday was about 94 for most of the day until they fixed the a/c (98 when they first went into work). In the mean time the employees had to breathe in their own carbon dioxide because there was no place for it to go.
The classrooms at least had doors that would allow some oxygen to get in and they had fans that could blow carbon dioxide out the door. They couldn’t do that at the FMB. How would you like to work in a sweatbox where you had limited oxygen and had to breathe in your own carbon dioxide.
While there are no real OHSA or HIOSH standards on acceptable room temperatures there are probably standards on levels of oxygen in work areas.
Let’s see how you feel if you had to listen to your spouse talk about her working conditions.
We could revert to giving the kids June July and August off. That way the hottest months, there is no school.
The problem is that over the last 30 years, the average ambient temperature for the period June, July, and August is about 88F. The average ambient temperature for the period September, October, November is about 87F.
Sorry, forgot to add August and September are tied at 89F as the two hottest months of the year on average.
Obviously, school should start in November.
Wrote November, meant October.
Labor day works. Let the kids enjoy the summer and South Shore swells. Baseball teams still on the mainland.
IRT: “Give public a say in sanctuary expansion” Everything does not end up on a ballot. Our elected politicians do have a say in this issue. Plus I see lots of ink on this subject … for and against. Public meetings are scheduled.
IRT Jack Robinson: Jack, the downside is that once on the dole, you can never fill that hand with enough. Just look at what’s happened to tribes. There are only two that refuse to take any federal money. Their graduation rates, home ownership rates, and business ownership rates are way above the norm. All the rest, who stick their hands out, suffer with the lowest graduation rates, lowest home ownership rates, and the highest drug and alcohol dependency stats going. This ones a no brainer. Preserving Hawaiian tradition comes from the heart, not the pocketbook.
Mr. Wong, why should the Federal government check with greedy fishermen about preservation? Its their job to step in when people abuse the ocean. The only people practicing kapu is on Molokai and Niihau. It got so bad off Niihau when the locals reported their stock is pillaged. It happened on Molokai when locals had to chase you guys away. They complained and the state did nothing. Its bad enough that OHA is enforcing. So you got nothing to worry about. What are the chances you will be caught. Even then, OHA officials can be bought.
Free preschool education for needy kids.
Our kids need cool classrooms…….You know ever time this story pops up ,i keep thinking about us,when we were in school. What were we back then “Chopped Liver”? The DOE back in the day knew and recognized the different seasons ,such as the Summer(Hot) Months. Thus closing the schools during these Hot Summer months.It was called……get ready……. “Summer Vacation”.
We did’nt complain about the heat during those days ,because we were too busy Hanging out and Jumping off “The Rock” at Waimea Bay…..wait ,wait let’s wait for the Global Warming guys. Haaaa!
Is our keiki’s today that soft of being exposed to the elements? Maybe they spend too much time glued to those techi devices and social media……”Thus” creating fragile “Couch Potatoes”. Better yet why don’t the bright minds of our DOE leaders recognize the Summer Months and Summer Vacation of days past…… the Kupuna’s of our days were well aware of this time of year. How come our leaders today DON”T?