Bring in porta-potties
Ironman Kona is here again and the town seems twice — or more — as crowded, to say the least. How does the race director Diana Bertsch expect small Kona town to accommodate the mass spectators on race day?
Like all previous years, the race director should have coordinated the 100 additional porta-potties along the race course for spectators. This is not fair and not showing any aloha spirit by assuming the small businesses are supposed to let race spectators use these facilities. Paying patrons is one thing, non-paying is a problem.
Laurie Blair
Kailua-Kona
Remove officials, don’t
give them raises
If I were king for a day, there would be absolutely no raises for any Hawaii County governmental officials. According to the county charter, “The commission shall review and compensate … so that their total salaries and benefits have a reasonable relationship to compensation in the public and private sectors.”
Let’s take a quick review of our county officials. We can start with the mayor, Harry Kim. Since his obvious lack of concern for the leeward-side water well problem, and the fact that he waited for eight months before declaring an emergency speaks volumes to his character and lack of competence and vision.
His do-nothing leadership style is terrible, and negatively affects the residents on the west side of the county. Also, his lack of leadership and management skills regarding the Hele-On bus transportation system on this island are also major negatives in Kim’s political history as our mayor. Because of his lack of sufficient leadership on these and other major issues (too big to list here), our resident taxpayers suffer.
Considering the terribly poor job the mayor is doing, he should not receive any salary increase from the salary commission. As a mater of fact, if the commission were to truly consider the private sector in their calculations, the mayor should be fired and replaced, not given a raise.
As far as raises for department heads, the similar problem of incompetence is seen within various county departments. Does the chief engineer, whose lack of vision and social concern have actually been responsible for causing the water well problem in Kona, deserve a raise? This, and other issues, would give cause in the private sector for termination.
I could go down the list of incompetent, lazy, non-visionary, and unqualified officials in our county government, and none of them deserve a pay raise — quite the opposite actually. They all should be removed, and real people, with real IQs, real vision, and real management skill sets should be hired into many of these positions.
Whether you are a Democrat or Republican, the swamp on this rock truly needs to be drained, or the incompetence will continue and property taxes will continue the upward spiral while the roads and other critical infrastructure projects go uncompleted.
The only thing that the salary commission should be considering is a complete and total salary freeze for the next five years, not worrying if their friends and neighbors get pay raises.
Wilson Pepper
Keauhou