Grats to the Kohala Cowboys for victory
Congratulations to repeat Division II state basketball champions, Kohala Cowboys.
You made all of us Big Island residents proud of your achievement throughout the tournament.
Mahalo to the coaches, ohana and players cheering each other on. A very inspiring, feel-good story.
It’s an honor to say I’m an alumni of Kohala High School.
How ’bout them Cowboys!
Crawford Gonsalves
Kurtistown
Not enough ‘public’ in the General Plan
The Hawaii County General Plan is a behemoth. The platform the county is using to gather public input on this land use plan is unintelligible.
Every time I try to use the maps, I get nowhere because of platform glitches. When I do get in, I see startling and disturbing changes, like coastal areas being up-zoned to recreation — a zone that never existed and wasn’t explained to the public at any of the county meetings.
Asking questions by phone or email further gives the public the sense of being in an administrative vacuum.
Even though an April 1 time extension has been granted for public comment, it’s not enough. There needs to be a round of in-person workshops held at large, welcoming venues where the public can ask questions and provide comments to planning officials with guidance on using the platform.
The current time extension is during the throws of tax season, while the public is scrambling with huge land use projects like the Kona Open Space Network Plan and short-term vacation rentals bill.
Significant and damaging projects and permits are being simultaneously pushed through the Planning Commission, like the recently approved 100-room hotel approved for overburdened Kailua Village.
It’s an avalanche of information and democratic responsibilities that can’t possibly be met in the time-frames provided by county officials for Kimo and Pua Q Public.
The General Plan process needs to be extended and public meetings added so the public can be better informed and make meaningful changes to the current draft before County Council and “rubber stamp” Leeward Planning Commission hearings begin.
Though there’s a lack of public confidence that the process is being community-driven, the administration can decide to do better so Hawaii County’s “map of the future” can guide us more safely, sanely and fairly into decades to come.
Janice Palma-Glennie
Kailua-Kona