Which group are you part of?
Abraham Lincoln said: “You can fool all the people some of the time and some of the people all the time, but you cannot fool all the people all the time.”
In our day, two groups of people come to mind. Those who fervently adhere to “Stop the Steal,” and those who stand by “Stop the Lie.” Maybe it’s time for the sake of our country for “we the people” to listen more carefully to actual facts, and put our emotions behind us. A house divided against itself will fall, so it is time we realized that we are brothers and sisters not enemies. Where are the peacemakers of our time?
Marion Moe
Kona
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A reprise of ‘DWS Greatest Hits’
So with this week’s reported failure of the Hualalai Deepwell, the Department of Water Supply now has four of its 14 wells down for repairs. In WHT coverage, DWS Manager-Chief Engineer Keith Okamoto is reported to say the wells failed in just two or three years, faster than expected. There’s something familiar about that song … kind of a “DWS Greatest Hits” reprise. Wasn’t that exactly what was said five years ago and weren’t the same explanations given back then for why spare parts could not be stored to have at the ready to fix failed pumps? So that experience taught us nothing other than customers, who have been dutifully paying our bills and done nothing wrong, need to bail out the agency again with a 25% reduction in usage for an undetermined length of time. I guess it’s now the “normal” situation.
A lifetime ago, when I was an Army electronics technician, we regularly performed scheduled preventive maintenance: taking functioning equipment out of service for overhaul before it fails and alternating it with a new or tested backup. That was the normal procedure to ensure critical systems kept operating. Certainly, water supply is a critical system, but the DWS apparent policy of doing nothing till it fails brings to mind another old Army expression that refers to “Situation Normal …”
Alan Silverman
Kailua-Kona
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Waikoloa Village needs more
“Extreme fire hazard.” So says the warning signs as you approach Waikoloa Village. The Hawaii County Council reports a surplus of money. County Councilman Holeka Inaba wants to help residents and small businesses.
What does the community of Waikoloa Village, which is under a major expansion of residential housing need? We need another permanent open road in and out of the village, and all Tim Richards has to say is the county does not have the money. When the projects now underway are occupied we will have close to 10,000 people with only Waikoloa Road in and out.
So, what does the mayor propose? A half-day familiarization of an emergency evacuation route that always has a locked gate. With the amount of money in surplus plus the money for the proposed round-about and the money the mayor wants to spend on Waipio Valley Road we could have another permanent paved road in and out of the village.
I say our mayor and our County Council representatives are failing us in the face of increasingly dangerous fires.
Rusty Iijima
Waikoloa Village
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