Something needs to be done
Working at a place of business on Pawai Place for the last nine years it has given me the opportunity to see many horrific things within our homeless population.
Over the years, I have watched an insurmountable number of hostile, sketchy, emotionally unstable vagrants cruise up and down Pawai Place.
Watching the daily drug deals, prostitution and defecation continues to make me shake my head in disbelief. Every day that I go to work there are moments of fear.
The lack of security in dealing with the homeless encampment in front of Hope Services is breeding an incident waiting to happen.
The vagrants have been given the right to congregate in large groups, are not socially distancing, do drugs and get wasted all day. When did they become above the law?
The homeless encampment on Pawai Place has no showers and no hand washing stations.
We need to relocate the transients living in their make shift tents on the sidewalk to a place where they have access to facilities and are provided with holistic care.
At this point an outbreak is inevitable. We need to do something about this!
It does not make “cents” or “sense” to have a homeless shelter in the epicenter of an up and coming business district.
It is time to combine the shelter in town with Kukuiola (emergency shelter previously known as Village 9). I believe that together they can do wonderful things for our community.
Stefanie Gubser
Kailua-Kona
A question for VP Mike Pence
So if I test negative for COVID-19, I don’t have to wear a mask in prescribed areas? Or is this privilege granted only to Trump toadies?
Burt Masters
Kailua-Kona
Transfer station fiasco
These are tough times and we especially empathize with medical personnel, first responders, store workers, and the diligent public employees doing their jobs. That said, why is the green waste disposal site at Kealakehe closed? In a WHT story April 8, “Kucharski added that the reduction of services also is to accommodate workers whose schedules have been disrupted by the closures of their children’s schools.”
I asked the council and got this reply from the director (cut for brevity without losing meaning): “Governor’s Proclamation… requires essential services. Green waste collection at transfer stations is NOT an essential service. SWD employees are working full time. No one is at home unless they have been granted administrative leave by the county in order to take care of minor children because of the school closures, or they are administrative personnel ordered to home per Proclamation. Greenwaste can be taken to Pu’uanahulu. If that is too far for a resident to transport that waste, I do not know what to say. The overwhelming number of SWD Division workers are not at home collecting their pay, they are exposing themselves to potentially infected people every day.”
Our problem with this is, first he tries to insinuate that it is not essential due to the governor’s proclamation, yet other islands still provide this service at many locations. Then, he says everybody is working, but lets it be known “some” can stay home with kids while getting full pay. Can you? Finally, he insinuates that the transfer stations are on the front lines facing danger with the public, like the aforementioned personnel. This whole transfer station thing has been a fiasco since new “leaders” are running county services. It appears things are not being managed with us taxpayers in mind.
Nancy Regan
Kailua-Kona
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