Airport park
Airport park
A senior’s rundown on the jogging pathway
One of things we enjoy is going to the Kona Old Airport Park and walking around the walking/jogging trail.
If you have not been there, it’s a paved, oval track less than a mile long with a dividing line, so people can go clockwise or counterclockwise, with both walkers and joggers intermixing without problems.
For the past two weeks there has been a pack of about 20 runners, running at full-speed three- and sometimes four-abreast, taking up both sides of the trail.
They seem to enjoy playing chicken and will only move out of our side at the last second and then they seem to see how close they can come to you.
I think it’s just a matter of time before one of us “seasoned” citizens gets sent flying. Some of us have osteoporosis and if body- slammed, we may not be able to get up again.
Just saying I am sorry will not help.
By using the old airport’s tarmac, they could run as many across as they like.
If there are too many rocks on it, I will volunteer to help them clear it.
Paul Prosise
Kailua-Kona
Hawaii County Police
Congratulations due for recent accreditation
Congratulations to Chief Harry Kubojiri and the Hawaii Police Department for recently being awarded accreditation from the Commission on Accreditation for Law Enforcement Agencies, CALEA.
I don’t know if you realize what a major accomplishment this was for our Police Department, how much work went into it and what it means in terms of recognizing the quality department that we have or the commitment to excellence it demonstrates on the part of our police chief, his leadership team and our department.
Oahu and Maui have been accredited departments for some time now and it is a credit to our chief and his predecessor that they initiated this very challenging process to bring our department up to that standard. It was a process that took years of hard work from many people in the department to accomplish.
Chief Larry Mahuna initiated the process in 2004 and, in 2008, he decided to move forward and dedicated staff positions and finances toward accomplishing this goal.
Since taking office, Chief Kubojiri has been equally committed to seeing this assignment to completion
As a police chaplain, I have sat in on numerous commanders’ meetings where our chief challenged the commanders to work together as a team to ensure our department was adhering to national standards in their policies, procedures and protocols.
Lots of work was done over years to ensure that we met the 400 different standards to comply with nationally recognized standards.
It is a credit to our department that all this hard work by many, many individuals in the department resulted in our department receiving this much desired accreditation.
It demonstrates the commitment of our department to provide quality service to our community, to ensure its safety.
It demonstrates a commitment to safe procedures and openness in departmental dealings with the public.
It demonstrates a commitment to excellence.
It also increases our chances to qualify for more federal funding and can limit the department’s exposure to liability risk because the accreditation demonstrates that a team of independent outside CALEA-trained assessors has verified that the department meets internationally recognized standards. It deserves our attention and recognition.
I am proud of our chief, his leadership team and the many employees — both sworn and civilian — that worked hard to make this happen.
Chaplain Renee D. Godoy
Police Chaplain HPD
Hilo