Coffee measure Coffee measure ADVERTISING Veto HB280 The Kona Coffee Farmers Association has more than 300 members of whom 234 are growers operating 195 of Kona’s small family farms. They need your help petitioning Gov. Neil Abercrombie to veto HB280
Coffee measure
Veto HB280
The Kona Coffee Farmers Association has more than 300 members of whom 234 are growers operating 195 of Kona’s small family farms. They need your help petitioning Gov. Neil Abercrombie to veto HB280 to protect the integrity of Kona and other Hawaii-grown coffees.
The current mandatory system has been successfully administered by the Hawaii Department of Agriculture for more than a decade and provides a measure of assurance as to the origin and quality of Hawaii-grown coffee to buyers throughout the world. Allowing HB280 to become law will end that.
The May 8 letter to the editor from the Ka‘u Farm Bureau notwithstanding, this bill actually weakens protections by repealing mandatory inspections for grade and origin of Hawaii-grown coffee. The rationale for allowing “producers to opt out” has been that 2009 budget cuts at the Department of Agriculture have created inspection delays. The delays are not acceptable. But repealing mandatory certification of grade and origin isn’t the solution, either; it increases the risk of another Kona Kai coffee counterfeiting scandal. We become reactive instead of preventative. It shifts the burden to law enforcement, who themselves are also dealing with budget cuts. Can counterfeit coffee really be one of their priorities? The best solution is straightforward: Let’s all of us get behind a concerted and persistent effort to make the state budget for, and hire, more inspectors.
Let’s not remove key protections and make it more costly to the reputation (and therefore the economic viability) of Hawaii’s geographic origin coffee in the long run.
The Kona Coffee Farmers Association needs your help in getting the message to the governor to veto this bill. You can find and sign a petition online by going to konacoffeefarmers.org and clicking on the link.
Paul Uster
Kona Coffee Farmers Association
Kailua-Kona
Graffiti
Order coral removal
The piles of white coral rubble defacing and desecrating the landscape along Queen Kaahumanu Highway represent graffiti (graffito is singular).
In the age-old practice of graffiti, the culprit marks or “tags” a surface for display with material that he never removes. It is most commonly seen in run-down ghettos and it does not belong on an island considered to be a tropical paradise.
Many jurisdictions consider graffiti to be either a form of littering or vandalism, both punishable offenses. The court-ordered removal of long stretches of the coral litter from the roadside in West Hawaii would seem an appropriate form of community service for anyone charged with this disgusting practice of defacing public lands.
M. Giraudier
Kailua-Kona
Mongoose
Stop feeding animals
In the morning at Old Kona Airport’s walking and jogging park huge piles of food are left on rocks for the mongoose. While initially intended for cats, the mongoose dramatically outnumber the cats and it is getting prohibitively worse as the mongoose have free reign.
In theory, the cats are spade, but there are always kittens with markings of the older cats. It’s ridiculous that even dogs on leashes are not allowed in county parks, yet they are allowed to be breeding grounds for cats and mongoose.
It is against Hawaii state law for any person to introduce, keep or breed any mongoose within the state because of its danger to native fauna. Knowingly leaving food that is primarily consumed by mongoose is keeping and breeding them. It is against the law and needs to be stopped, especially in our public parks.
R. Swain
Kona
