Cartoon lost me
You should be ashamed of the cartoon of Trump swearing in. It was disrespectful to our nation’s traditions. I will not be renewing my subscription.
Donald Stiger
Kona
Have compassion for homeless
For the last year I’ve walked several times a week in the Old Kona Airport State Recreation Area, a beautiful place I’ve long been familiar with.
While I’ve been aware some homeless people are there, I have never seen any negative behavior, and they are pretty much indistinguishable from other visitors to the park. So it was with disbelief I read the opinion piece by Ms. Garrod about “Old A Park,” certainly she must be writing about a different park than the one I frequent.
She claims conditions are deteriorating, whereas from my observations it’s the same as always. There’s always some litter, but most of it is coming from people who drive down there. What evidence is there that homeless are leaving “drug paraphernalia?” Lots of residents drive down, park and party in the park; these presumably housed people sometimes leave debris behind from my observation.
A while back I discovered the homeless village and walked through it. It’s placed in a very obscure part of the park, nearly unnoticeable. I was impressed with its cleanliness, organization and the resourcefulness of the people there. While the park is obviously not the ideal place for people to live, the fact is they don’t have housing. Garrod’s proposition that the homeless should be put in jail is a very bad joke. Housing is prohibitively expensive on this island, and the state has the higher homelessness in the U.S. Let’s stop the hateful rhetoric and have some compassion for our fellow citizens who are having a hard time.
Michael Routery
Kailua-Kona