Same song with Hele-On
The article in the Friday edition could have been written 10 years ago! Nothing has changed in that time. Same bureaucratic, nepotistic mess with the buses as it has always been.
A competent lady with all the qualifications was hired a while back. But she was from California, a transplant, and worst of all, female. As I suspected from the start, she never had a chance, and was gone back to saner places in six months! Her replacement has done nothing for the betterment in a year.
Our county government in general, and our Transportation Department in particular, are a joke. Until the citizens, who must be tired of their tax dollars being wasted everyday in every way, demand better, nothing will change. (Did I hear $4 million being spent on police and fire departments overtime since July?)
Wake up, Hawaii! We are being robbed by the people we have elected. Stop the good-old-boy government that is cheating us!
Jim Lomonaco
Kailua-Kona
But for the grace of God go we all
How would you like to be given one minute to leave your home before it was going to be bulldozed away? How would you feel to see your shelter and your possessions in a heap? Homes are our comfort, our health, our sanity, the very essence of normalcy.
The downtown Hilo shelter destroyed a few days ago was an act of disrespect toward people with feelings. Just because “the unhoused” were different, just because they may have minimal financial buoyancy, and just because it may have been a health and safety issue, the city demolished their home.
Downtown Hilo has nearly no public spaces to sit, relax, have a snack and/or simply talk story because the Downtown Improvement Association and the county government are fearful of the homeless occupying that space. We fear people who do not look nice, perhaps don’t smell nice, we judge them negatively rather than look them in the eye and try to understand them.
Homeless people, like body odor, flies and mosquitoes and xenophobic people, will always be with us. We had better learn to live comfortably with them. Cultivating patience, tolerance and learning about ourselves from those unwelcoming issues is what I am talking about.
Gary Harrold
Hilo