It’s time to think about
an electric cooperative ADVERTISING It’s time to think about
an electric cooperative This is a call to think about a community-owned electricity provider — a cooperative. Starting 80 years ago in rural areas across America, there are
It’s time to think about
an electric cooperative
This is a call to think about a community-owned electricity provider — a cooperative.
Starting 80 years ago in rural areas across America, there are now 900 utility cooperatives, including one on Kauai. Could Hawaii Island become one?
There are many benefits to having an electric utility that is community owned. Clearly a local entity, controlled by us ratepayers, will be much more responsive to our needs than an entity controlled by a board of directors 5,000 miles away, whose primary duty is to their shareholders.
I am working with a nonprofit group, Hawaii Island Energy Cooperative (HIEC). It seeks to inform residents of the potential benefits and possible pitfalls, so that our community can be prepared should an opportunity present itself.
The Kauai Island Utility Cooperative has been operating successfully for 13 years, after taking over a company that had been in serious financial trouble. In that time, $30 million has been returned to the Kauai member community.
The Hawaii Public Utilities Commission will soon decide whether the Hawaiian Electric Industries’ utilities should be absorbed by NextEra, a corporate giant out of Florida.
I support HIEC’s education efforts and look forward to hearing what our community has to say about it. Please join the many people statewide calling for the PUC to put other options on the table. I hope you will attend the PUC’s listening sessions at 6 p.m. Sept. 29 at Hilo High School or at 6 p.m. Sept. 30 at Kealakehe High School.
Russell Ruderman
Owner, Island Naturals
Keaau
Waikoloa Road needs paved shoulders, not more gravel
Waikoloa residents and West Hawaii residents, it’s that time again where the county decides to waste more resources messing with Waikoloa Road traffic situation. Yes, it’s bandage time once again.
The nasty shoulder gravel and shoulder grading is taking place starting toward the mauka end of Waikoloa Road. I’ve been traveling up and down this road for the better part of 31 years and I still haven’t seen any benefit to the gravel shouldering. In all of these years, the amount of money wasted on this type of bandage could have gone toward paving the shoulders a couple of times over. Now it’s gotten to the point where the cost of paving has reached an expense that could be out of reach.
We need real, up to code, wide shoulders on Waikoloa Road. We also need slow-moving vehicle lanes. There is a 2.3-mile stretch of road just mauka of the village that has paved shoulders, and these are a fine example of what needs to be done with the rest of Waikoloa Road.
How many more people have to either crash or more tragically die before the county fixes the problem that is Waikoloa Road, without the use of “Band-Aids”? For more than 31 years this road has been the link to the truck traffic that is used to build and repair all of the other roads in and around the area, and yet it is to receive another expensive and wasteful bandage.
David Rooney
Waikoloa
