Too little, too late
I just read in the paper where County Council members are trying to figure out what Civil Defense is up to. I am feeling like you in the County Council are kinda late on this and it would have been nice for you all to have supported Puna residents efforts to figure this out prior to now. A bunch of us Punatics, organized by myself already did this twice – we did this with Harry Kim’s help in 2014 and then Jon Olson and myself sat in front of the Council last year and tried to tell them what the heck happens to Puna Residents in emergencies.
In 2014 our two councilmen Paleka and Ilagan refused to schedule our complaint in front of the Council and wanted us to meet with Civil Defense directly, which we did, then the Civil Defense dude retired before any meaningful anything could be attained.
Last year we got up in front of you Council and started to talk and we got shut down, remember, the County Council did not want to hear our gripes about Civil Defense they said we needed to complain to them directly. I guess now the Council is ready to hear about it. You better keep on it, because our island is covered with live volcanoes and it is only a matter of time before you in Hilo or Kona will know what us in Puna have gone through.
All it comes down to respecting the residents and how the government treats us. Harry Kim used to know that, he was the much-loved much-respected head of Civil Defense for many years. Somehow that love for the people has vanished, and love for big government money has replaced it, and it makes for a really super-dysfunctional government….. as we see in the budget pie charts a couple days ago… and as we saw in Civil Defenses response to the 2014 and 2018 emergencies.
Sara Steiner
Pahoa
HELCO opponents all talk
As recently reported in the paper, no one from the public gave testimony regarding HELCO’s increased rate request to the Public Utility Commission Friday in Hilo, and only three people (of the public) were at Kona the day prior giving their thoughts on the subject.
Where were all those who are vocal opponents to anything that HELCO proposes? Perhaps they all had something more important on both of those days.
So, I suspect that they are just against anything HELCO wants, yet they are too busy to attend any public hearings. Funny that they always speak up about how terrible our electric utility is, yet they never say a word about the constantly increasing cost of motor vehicle fuel. Or about the cost of inter-island airfare.
Or maybe, just maybe they prefer to rely on the Consumer Advocacy to handle things for them.
I have an idea, if you are so against the electric company perhaps you should look at the feasibility of solar and disconnect from HELCO.
As for me, I’ll continue to be a customer of the electric utility. I have no problem with them offering a reliable service day and night, bad weather or good, that is delivered to my home at a reasonable price. What other commodity offers that service?
Michael Last
Naalehu