Letters | 5-6-14

Area needs detox center

Area needs detox center

Kona has the second highest meth use in the nation. Alcoholism is running rampant. Our town is infested with drug- and alcohol-related crimes. From bad checks to manslaughter, most of these are repreat offenders.

What to do? Our hospital, police station and jails are full or not equipped to handle or do the job. They are treated, arraigned and set loose. Most are drunk or high 30 minutes after they are released or discharged.

If we had a detoxification and treatment center, we, the police or clergy could take these peole to detox to clean them up, be assessed by qualified people and put into treatment. Now this could be inpatient, outpatient or sober living. We have on this island the largest sober living facility in the state run by mostly volunteers. We need to educate, yes, but we have to clear their heads for them to listen and for God to do his work. We need to try. The problem is not getting smaller or going away.

Let’s make a difference. People helping people, that’s the way it works. Call, email, write letters to those in office that we pay a lot of money to and let’s get this started. Let’s get these people back into society in a positivite, giving way. It works. It’s not the absolute answer to the problem. It doesn’t have to be a Betty Ford Institute, but we have facilities, we have educated people and there is money available provided it’s put in the right places and not in someone’s pocket.

We can do a lot with a little. All it takes is people who care about people.

Charles Williams

Kailua-Kona

Why build court complex on leasehold lands?

I don’t know whether to laugh or cry after reading the April 26 West Hawaii Today front page article about the proposed West Hawaii court house. There is no doubt that West Hawaii is in a dire need for a complex to bring together all facets of the court that make up a judiciary system.

However, does one wonder why the voting public is always saying that government has no knowledge of practical business or that those in government lack or have very little experience or conception of what makes the business world work?

A fine example of governments’ complete lack of expertise, as to business, is their decision to build the West Hawaii “court house complex” on leasehold lands. All because of a tree. A tree, as has been stated in the past, that can be removed and possibly relocated or, if anything, a replacement from the wild could be found on our government lands and planted in the area of said proposed complex.

More perplexing is the fact that our government proposes to lease land to build this complex when our government has “uka pile” land (thousands of acres) in that area. Where in Economics 101 does it advise one to rent and build on one’s neighbor’s property verses on land that we the public own? Is that the sensible thing to do? That is as laughable as if some entity, such as Bishop Estate goes and buys land rather than using their own inherited lands.

What this conjures up are visions of “shibi.” Maybe even a bag full of “shibi.” One true outcome of this maneuver will be the raising of property values for the adjacent property owners, by the government, who will be paying for all zoning requirements, thus making it desirous for development by using said “complex” as an anchor of attraction for adjacent lands owned by the lessor. This at a cost of a mere $90 million. Add on the usual overruns and we are looking at $100 million of taxpayer money spent on someone else’s land that at the termination of said lease will belong to the lessor.

This “complex” situation, to me, earns the government, (politicians et al) the “Ba Booze” award of this 21st century — so far.

Hugo von Platen Luder

Holualoa