Kudos for village security article
Excellent article! Well written and well researched! Especially re: the cameras that don’t work anymore — auwe!
Mahalo nui loa.
Claudia Steffen
Captain Cook
Fair, in-depth, balanced
Kudos WHT and reporter Laura Ruminski for the in-depth and balanced coverage of the problems with private security coverage and police response in Kailua Village. Journalism of this caliber gives air to a big concern without taking sides or offering personal opinions. From Waimea I can almost hear the phones ringing all over town Monday morning as everyone quoted scrambles to find the fix.
Now the question is who has the credibility, contacts, authority and responsibility to mediate among the parties of interest quoted in the story?
Niel Thomas
Waimea
Maunakea won’t fix economy
Headline from a recent WHT article — Economists: Hawaii’s economy will slow to near standstill.
This reminded me of recent conversations that I had with some friends and family on the mainland and in Europe. They all wanted to know if they came to visit could they get to the top of Maunakea. I told them that at this time, no, due to the illegal TMT protesters blocking the Maunakea Access Road and the state and county governments doing nothing about it. We already had friends visit recently and the highlight of their trip was to go to the top of Maunakea and that could not happen.
I was asked if I was doing anything personally about this and I replied that there was little I could do other than implore the government to enforce the existing laws concerning illegal road blocking. What my wife and I are doing is stopping our charitable contributions to charities that support Hawaiians until the TMT protesters are removed and the TMT building is underway.
We are instead putting the contributions into a savings account each month and will send that money to the charities when we know that the TMT protesters will protest no more. If TMT is not built, then the money will go to the Hawaii Humane Society to care for animals. When asked whether I was hurting “innocent” people by doing this, I said that is what the TMT protesters are doing as businesses that generated income from taking people to the top of Maunakea can no longer do so and have laid off “innocent” employees. What is good for the goose is good for the gander.
I am also telling all friends and family to not visit Hawaii and to pass that on to everyone they know because now that the TMT protesters have been emboldened by the lack of law enforcement they will undoubtedly start protesting wherever and whenever they believe that an injustice has occurred or a past wrong needs to be righted.
So back we go to that headline from a recent WHT. Hawaii only has tourism for its financial health and that will become seriously endangered if tourists believe that their vacation here could be seriously interrupted by Hawaiian grievance protesters. Yes, Hawaiians have grievances for past wrongs, but cutting off your nose to spite your face is a stupid way of dealing with them.
TMT protesters have a perfect opportunity now to start the righting of the wrongs but they need to be sensible about it. Maunakea is a really big mountain and it can be shared and must be shared. Since the TMT protesters have already threatened “war” to the governor and other elected officials, I think that if Mayor Kim can produce a plan that is acceptable to all he should be nominated for a Nobel Peace Prize.
Colin Luck
Waikoloa Village
