Letter in line with colonialism thinking
On Dec. 2 West Hawaii Today printed a letter to the editor titled: “Too much welfare bad for the state.”
The ensuing letter has a huge disconnect between title and story. The cited chronicles do not support the claim of inefficient government administration and inept locals. Many locals are multigenerational settlers. They are collaborative products of social assimilation and acculturation. Some neo-settlers make mistakes of misapplying social values of mainland-type regionalism. The essay sounds like colonialism. That is to teach the indigenous citizens of Hawaii State what makes sense.
Many of Hawaii’s elected and appointed officials are capable locals. Many government employees are locals and many non-locals are joining the ranks. All are qualified. The essay seems to insinuate that welfare in Hawaii is dysfunctional. The virtues of the ohana spirit have been mischaracterized and maligned.
Harold Murata
Kealakekua
Time for real transfer station story
With the Kealakehe green waste location being closed for three days during the past five days, maybe it’s time for a WHT investigative reporter to dig into this train wreck of a county service for the taxpayers.
Paul Robinson
Kailua-Kona
Too early to open aquarium fish taking
Aquarium fish are definitely not ready to be re-taken. The levels are at 60% of previous numbers. This means that the levels are still not sustainable.
Greed is what I see. If those 14 commercial fishermen have lived without taking our reef fish for two years, they can obviously keep doing so. Why take a chance of destroying our heritage for the few greedy?
Diminished fish populations also impact our tourism industry. They should be fighting hard to stop this. It took us years and years of meetings, letter writing, and phone calls to get this reprieve for what, two years?
DLNR, I implore you do what is right and stop this petition to open the west coast of our island to aquarium fishing. Wait at least until the population has reached its previous healthy level.
Cindy Ku’upua Whitehawk
South Kona