Letters to the editor: 11-02-19

Subscribe Now Choose a package that suits your preferences.
Start Free Account Get access to 7 premium stories every month for FREE!
Already a Subscriber? Current print subscriber? Activate your complimentary Digital account.

Preaching to the choir

Right on, Pastor Bruce! I thought you retired? Good move, go for a bigger audience. You certainly got our attention.

Good job, but I prefer to be called “Jesus freak” — it suits me better. You, however, are a theologian of the finest truth, the Bible.

Onward, Christian soldiers. Amen!

Linda Tohara

Kailua-Kona

Try moving protesters repeatedly

My wife and I were shocked a few days ago when we drove past the Maunakea Access Road.

The “protesters” have erected dozens of shoddy, make-shift tents and structures, including a wood platform, along about a mile stretch of Saddle Road. The whole area is an absolute atrocity and probably illegal! There’s even a temporary stop light at the access road intersection, I imagine to slow down traffic for protester safety when crossing Saddle Road and enhance the ability for police to issue tickets for innocuous vehicular offenses to passersby.

The state should have long ago anticipated this mess but never developed a plan to deal with it — typical of the way government reacts instead of prepares. Mayor Kim’s worthy plan was doomed from the start with no positive input/endorsement by the anti-TMT crowd. No one seems to want to physically act to stop this ridiculous situation which we should know by now will never be resolved given the unwavering protester obstinacy. Just arrest a few leaders and hope for the best.

No one wants a violent solution, but violence will only occur by protester resistance to legal attempts to remove them from the area, where they most certainly will return or be replaced by others. One approach might be to simply and continually remove any illegal overnight structures, or pass legislation if necessary to do so. And bus people away from any attempts to block legal Maunakea access. The expense to do this would, I believe, be justified and supported by most of us — the silent law-abiding majority.

But, the way things are going, be prepared to never see the TMT get built!

Neal Herbert

Hilo

Where did kahuna authority come from anyway?

So the State of Hawaii (voters) own the top of Maunakea and there is a religious mob wanting it for a holy place. I have lived in Kona for 50 years and have never heard of these religious folks, who have no foundations as a religion, now trying use state land for religious use.

The old kapu kahunas of Hawaii were considered false by the first kahunas, alii and Hawaiian People in November of 1819 and buried in the caves at Kuamoo Bay at Keauhou by the then Hawaiian Kingdom.

Ken Smith

Captain Cook